Petition to save Steady Ed Designed Course

[PWaggoner]

Signed

 

[Brokensaint]

Signed. How active/involved is the club there? Are there problems with the course in the community?

 

[thirtydirtybirds]

Signed. As a disc chucker and historian (intellectually at least) this course must be preserved. Everyone get on this!

 

[Dthunderchicken]

Done. Thank you for the alert.

 

[Fraser]

Signed. How active/involved is the club there? Are there problems with the course in the community?

The club's involvement with this course has always lagged behind their primary course, Dolese Youth Park. However, one outspoken individual (Willbilly) has taken on the challenge of the upkeep for WR. In the last couple of years, the trash and drunkards have been drastically reduced. Meanwhile, more and more families are using the course. This individual has been instrumental in getting a basket replaced (as well as collecting monies for a couple more new baskets) and tee pads shored up from excessive erosion. These actions have gotten the attention of the OKCDGA and now they are fully backing the Willbilly. The OKCDGA is now hosting a weekly mini at the course as well as backing Willbilly's weekly glow mini. The involvement of the OKCDGA is growing and honestly, it's been pretty awesome to be a part of.

As for problems from the community, in short, no. This park has exploded in popularity in the last couple of years. Most of the riff-raff has been weeded out and the park is cleaner than it has been in the past 20 years. The small problems with the other amenities can be remedied with slight variations to the existing course which we already have several plans and proposals ready for when they are called for.

The primary things we are fighting is the expansion of the pool (they want to take 17 and 18 away for a splash park) and the removal of the front nine for, get this, replanting of trees, which they were supposed to do anyway four years ago when they had to remove all of the diseased trees. This last part was unknown to me when I originally wrote the petition about a month ago. The tennis facility wants to expand to put in squash courts on land that we could use to expand the course in case we were to lose the front nine. A hardcopy of the petition has been circulating locally for about a month and we have around 1,000 signatures from that.

Thanks to all of you for your continued support and hopefully, we can improve this course instead of lose it. If this were to happen, it would not have been possible without the out-of-state support that we've received.

 

[Fraser]

Thought I would share some more information. The petition has caught the ear of the City. It has also garnered media attention. Tonight the local Fox affiliate ran a story about us trying to save the course. Outside of some factual errors, it was a good piece. Tomorrow's newspaper should also have an article about it as well. Thursday, the president of the okcdga is having an interview/meeting with the OKC Mayor on a local morning radio show. The link to tonight's story can be found here: http://www.okcfox.com/story/29485634/disc-golfers-fighting-to-save-oklahoma-city-course

Again, thank you to all of you who have and continue to support us!

 

[scarpfish]

Tomorrow's newspaper should also have an article about it as well.

Indeed it did.

http://newsok.com/group-seeks-to-save-threatened-oklahoma-city-disc-golf-course/article/5432099

 

[Fraser]

Yeah, I was surprised it made the bottom fold of the front page... I thought it was just going to be a blurb in the sports or community section. Must have been a slow news day

The local CBS affiliate ran the story as well last night during their news broadcast. This one was ok but we have noticed some back-pedaling on what the P&R Department has told us (removal of the whole front-nine and 17 and 18) and what they are now telling the public (it will only affect four holes.) One of the aggravating statements that the P&R spokesman made was that they wanted to maximize the usage of the park by not focusing on one group. So, instead, they are going to focus on one very specific group (bicyclists) and a very seasonal group (splash park) at the expense of a heavily used DGC. While I understand what they are saying, and to some degree agree with, I don't think they realize how much traffic this course has attracted (especially families and beginners) in the last couple of years. http://www.news9.com/clip/11660985/maps-3-project-to-affect-disc-golf-course-at-will-rogers-park

A little back-story--about five months ago, we were told what they are were going to remove 2's tee & basket, 3's tee, 5's basket, 6's tee, 8's basket and 9's tee. We were also told that they would relocate and replace what they would have to remove. Three months ago, they gave us a map showing the area that was now allocated for the DGC. That area only includes holes 10 through 16. We would have to shoe-horn 9 holes into that area. This is what caused us to start this petition. We had already come up with a few proposals for the front nine due to the bicycle/walking lane encroaching on the course that was pretty well accepted by the DG community. But the removal of 11 holes was just too insulting to us.

 

[brentjacobs]

Signed and good luck!

 

[roadtrip]

What ever happened with the Will Rogers course? I saw that the petition still lacks about 1,000 signatures. I bet that many people are on dgcr right now.

Will Rogers is a fun course. Only place I've ever pegged a hobo with a disc. I hope you guys can save it.

 

[John M. Fretz]

Signed. Good luck

 

[goosefraba1]

What ever happened with the Will Rogers course? I saw that the petition still lacks about 1,000 signatures. I bet that many people are on dgcr right now.

Will Rogers is a fun course. Only place I've ever pegged a hobo with a disc. I hope you guys can save it.

Theyre all on facebook.

 

[Fraser]

What ever happened with the Will Rogers course? I saw that the petition still lacks about 1,000 signatures. I bet that many people are on dgcr right now.

Will Rogers is a fun course. Only place I've ever pegged a hobo with a disc. I hope you guys can save it.

Not much is new as far as information goes other than what I'll describe below.

Regarding the petition, the "lacks about 1,000 signatures" thing is something Change.org puts on the page. You reach a certain number and they automatically push the goal higher. We don't have a specific number we are trying to reach but the more we have, the better. I do know that OKC P&R is actively watching the petition.

As for Will Rogers, we are 85% sure we have saved the course. We don't have a final verdict (that last 15%) from Parks & Rec but our voices have definitely been heard. The head of P&R has also earned himself quite a few enemies during the last few months. I do know he hasn't returned any phone calls from the president of OKCDGA. There are some other things but I'm not going to divulge that at this time.

The MAPS III project (bike trails) is actively working with us and is only going to need 25' of space for their trail. The lead engineer for this section of the project is also a DGer that plays this course weekly. Needless to say, he doesn't want the course to go away either. The trail will require moving #2's teepad (undetermined at this time), #3's tee is moving forward and left 1/2 of the size of the current teepad. #6's and #9's tee will move forward and right 1/2 size of the current teepad. #8 will have to change because the target has to be moved about 50' down the hill from it's current location. We will be moving the tee over to the SW corner of that section of the park, which is approximately 80' right of #8's current tee. The effective length of the hole won't change much and actually might help with some of the safety issues that are currently present. Also, MAPS III has been put on hold until the end of the year/beginning of next year due to some property disputes further down the line.

All in all, these are very minor changes in the grand scheme of things.

We still haven't heard anything regarding the pool/splashpad but we are pretty confident that those plans have been shelved for the moment. The tennis courts will not affect the course.

Other news, we will be pouring a new teepad for 14 to get it out of the mud pit that it currently sits in as well as help with safety concerns. #17 will be getting a red tee about 125' closer to the target. This should help with issues with shorter arms throwing into the pool. We are also working with the pool to extend a net to help deflect most of the errant drives that end up in the pool. We are installing new benches on every hole which hopefully will be done by the end of the year. We are holding a WR benefit tourney at the end of October that should raise enough revenue to get a couple of the old Mach Is replaced as well as shoring up and replacing some of the most damaged teepads. If we receive word that we won't lose the course, we will be installing new tee signs and putting in alternate pin positions. We are still working on getting trees donated and hopefully we will be able to restore some of the tunnel holes that were part of this course originally. We also have a plan to cut #1s teepad in half (it's cracked anyway) and re-pour it with an Ed Headrick Memorial (granite) embedded in it. Should be pretty cool.

As for the hobos, we are still trying to run off some stubborn drunks (they are finally starting to get the hint) to clean up the image of the park. However, there is one "hobo" (he's just homeless and doesn't drink) that will always be welcome here. Bob helps us take care of the park. Picks up trash and helps out with our Saturday glow mini.

Will Rogers has seen an explosion of golfers in the past few months. Mostly families and new players. We've been trying to keep track of how much this course gets played. Early estimations are around 1,500 rounds per week. The course just has a constant flow of traffic.

Thanks again to all of you.
Dave

 

[thrembo]

Done.

 

[roadtrip]

Bumping this to the top of the list for the Friday afternoon slackers.

If you don't stop to sign this, you might have to get back to work.

 

[Fraser]

Will Rogers is Alive!!!!

Thank you all for your help!!! We have saved Will Rogers DGC!!!

The quote below is the update I just posted on Change.org

We have met with the Parks and Recreation Department and have been told that there will be no disruptive changes to the Will Rogers Disc Golf Course. The MAPS III (bike trails) project is the only project that will impact the course. This means that there will be very minor changes to a few of the holes on the front 9. We knew this was the only thing that we couldn't change and are glad that we will be working with MAPS III to fix some of the major erosion issues and the saving of trees. In short, Will Rogers DGC will remain an 18 hole course that current and future golfers will be able to enjoy.

Not only have we helped to ensure the future of Will Rogers DGC, this petition has affected the other metro courses as well. The P&R Dept. now has two employees that will be working with the OKCDGA to fix and continue to improve Will Rogers and the other courses in the area. We also have been granted a bit more leeway in course maintenance. A lot of the barriers that were between the OKCDGA and P&R are being torn down.

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts! Without all of you, we wouldn't have been able to save one of the original Steady Ed courses. Now our goals are set towards improvements that are needed at this historic course and with the planting of new trees, repairs to the teepads and new baskets, our hopes are to restore this course to as close to original as we can.

There is quite a bit more to the story and I'll share as soon as I can. This little petition fundamentally changed how the P&R Dept. sees the OKCDGA as well as the disc golf community. One notable quote from the P&R head to the OKCDGA's president was "I can't believe how many politicians you were able to get to call me." We now have quite a bit more clout in maintaining and improving all of our courses. It also opens the doors for more courses to be looked at being installed in the future. What transpired today was way beyond our expectations.

Once again, none of this would have been possible without the support from the worldwide disc golf community. It was truly a global effort to save this course and it resulted in something bigger than we imagined. So, THANK YOU!!!!

Dave