The Lester Lorch courses are cool from what I've heard, but no way are they in the top 10 considering those same people I've heard "Lester Lorch is cool" from say they're not even the best courses in Metro DFW.
As for the $886,000 courses we keep hearing about planned in Austin, unless some gracious private donor comes forward with a grant, forget about it. No stimulus money was ever appropriated for it, nor will any be. It was merely on Austin's wish list. And even if somehow it were to come to fruition, I have to remind people once again that the overwhelming majority of that money would be spent on roads, sidewalks, landscaping, lighting and whatnot where the disc golf courses would be located, not on the actual disc golf infrastructure itself.
Think about your reasoning here. If you avoid a pay for play course because you can go to a free course someplace else, it will simply reinforce the notion that our sport is played by people who are cheap, pretty much telling our P&R people that there's no need to dedicate more land for disc golf. OTOH, if a pay for play course succeeds because you have enough folks in Austin who are tired of all the following things plaguing our free courses like say...
1. Waiting in line at teepads
2. Vandalism
3. Litter
4. Grass that never seems to get mowed
5. Erosion from overuse
6. Dealing with non-DG'ers walking into the line of fire in a "mixed use" park
7. Neglected Equipment that seems to wilt and rust
8. Groundskeeping issues that don't get attended to
...then a pay for play course or complex like what they're proposing could be a godsend. Not only will it relieve crowding at the free courses, but it will give the P&R department a revenue stream to possibly maintain and improve amenities at all of the courses, and without using tax dollars no less. Numerous other recreational activities pay to use their amenities, I don't know why ours should be any different.
