Survey - Grading Our Disc Golf Courses

[harr0140]

Hello everyone,

I am going to be publishing a survey asking for some general information about you as well as your overall impressions of the disc golf courses surrounding you. I want to know what grade you would give most of the courses in your local area. I want to be able to take this information and use it to better course design moving forward and also help to tailor ideas and proposals to parks departments to help improve the older courses that are out there.

The bottom line is any of the courses that were installed in the 70's and 80's are now reaching a critical point in their history . . . with the influx of new technology, the expanding player base, and the maintenance issues (including the infrastructure) that seem to be glossed over on many courses . . . I fear we will begin to lose many of our courses and for the sake of history I think we need to preserve the courses that we have and bring them up to par by setting standards for safety, design, construction, and maintenance. If we do not do this . . . we will lose more courses in the next decade than we have in he past 20-30 years in my opinion.

I have an event page on facebook https://www.facebook.com/events/1529580733969535/ so please go there to follow any pre-discussion that might happen. I will also be posting the direct link to the survey here and on that event page when it gets published on Saturday February 7th.

I am asking for people to share the link and/or the facebook event page because the more people from all skill levels and all lengths of careers from all over the place . . . the better information that will be produced.

If you have any interest in sponsoring this by offering up some prizes for participants, please let me know. I will be giving some things away to random people who submit the survey with their email address. If you would like more information, have any questions, or would like to help me in any other way please feel free to get in touch with me.

Thanks in advance,

Mike Harrington
The Disc Golf Experience
http://www.thediscgolfexperience.com
[email protected]
262 894 3404

 

[scarpfish]

Part of the problem with many of our older courses is that they aren't standalone features in the parks they're in. They were put alongside other amenities when they were installed and we were throwing blunt edged discs. In other cases, amenities were added in later under the guise that it was safe to do so because "those guys are just throwing frisbees".

The sad thing is, I don't think there's a whole lot you can do in regards to safety on a lot of these tracts that wouldn't involve..

- pulling the course entirely
- neutering what makes the layout fun
- reducing the number of holes.

On many of them, there's simply no room to change things otherwise.

 

[Mando]

I suggest getting timg to send you a list of all the RIP courses. Then go through and try and determine why they closed.

 

[harr0140]

It actually depresses me to think about all of the courses we have lost and why we have lost them. I would also be curious to see all of the courses that once existed that got removed before DGCR was even around. That number would be much more important to me because obviously far less courses have been listed since this site started that also got removed.

 

[Dave242]

I would be glad to help in grading courses, but I am not understanding the point of this. Is the rationale just to save courses that are dangerous due to sharper-edged discs for the sake of historic nostalgia?

If courses need to go, they need to go. There will be a ton of safe/fun/challenging/interesting old school courses left after those that have been made obsolete by longer flying discs are gone.

While there is some sadness seeing an old and well loved course go due to overuse/safety concerns, it is best for the sport.

What am I missing? What specific courses do you have in mind that are candidates for removal due to the concerns you note?

 

[Dave242]

I suggest getting timg to send you a list of all the RIP courses. Then go through and try and determine why they closed.

Of 368 played, I have 28 RIP courses in my list. 17 are "new layout" (not gone), 6 are private and have either been closed or closed to the public, and the others were sucky courses no one in their right mind would miss (including one designed by me). Only one on the list do I regret not being able to play ever again.....and that includes old layouts that are now re-designed.

How big of an issue is this?

 

[DavidSauls]

I've played in South Carolina for 20 years, and can only think of 2 closed courses. One was a great private course, closed for internal family reasons. The other was on a golf course, a tenuous existence from the start.

With that said, there are some courses from the 1990s with issues---increasing interaction with other park users, erosion from heavy use, etc. It's certainly something to keep an eye on.

One interesting aspect, at least here, of old courses and the changes in disc technology: the longer throwers tend to migrate to the newer, longer courses, or play the old course with midranges instead of drivers as they once did, so I'm not sure it's had much effect on how the course is actually played.

 

[KGroff25]

Here's a positive story of one of Oregon's original courses that is being redesigned to regain relevance.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/FriendsOfChampoegDiscGolf/

http://www.dgcoursereview.com/course.php?id=7131&mode=ci

It was a halfway decent course before, but was designed in 1980, the era of lids, and didn't really offer enough challenge or fun factor to warrant the drive out to the course.

As it is now, it has both the fun factor and challenge to warrant a trip out to the park. Also I believe they're still going to be putting in additional anchors to make the course even more challenging for tournaments.

 

[sumo21]

It's not just the older courses that are falling apart. I know of at least two within public transportation that are being degraded, whether by vandalism or by the vagrants that frequent the park. Each course is 9 holes and one has had their baskets stolen and the other just needs upgrade and repairs. I fear that this may be happening to the 9 holes because they are small enough not to be noticed.

 

[sumo21]

I feel the Park and Recs Department along with the private sector in conjunction with one another can prevent the neglected courses from reaching RIP status. All Hands On Deck.

 

[Discette]

I would be glad to help in grading courses, but I am not understanding the point of this. Is the rationale just to save courses that are dangerous due to sharper-edged discs for the sake of historic nostalgia?

If courses need to go, they need to go. There will be a ton of safe/fun/challenging/interesting old school courses left after those that have been made obsolete by longer flying discs are gone.

While there is some sadness seeing an old and well loved course go due to overuse/safety concerns, it is best for the sport.

What am I missing? What specific courses do you have in mind that are candidates for removal due to the concerns you note?

And, doesn't this site already "Grade" courses?



Over 18 years, I have 265 played and only 15 are RIP (or never listed).
2 are now "unlisted private" and 6 are Old Layouts.

Of the 7 that closed,
Two were Fly 18 on on ball golf courses. One went bankrupt and one was shut down by Homeowners Association.
Two of the courses were pulled because of complaints from neighbors or other users (Theo Wirth Parkway and Margo Frankle Woods SP).
Two were 9 holers with craptacular homemade baskets on tiny plots of land that no one will ever miss.
I don't know why Waterworks in Des Moines closed.

 

[ohtobediscing]

I'll just echo dave, discette, and others:

I've played 166 with 8 RIPs.
4 are new layouts, and these have all seen an increase in quality/grade.
Simpson in Albany OR, a bootleg 9 with decent tone poles, faded away after Bryant Park got put in.
TNT Acres, a very short 18 on private land among short pines with the owner's dwelling on site, had too much competition from many other better courses in Spokane; the owners also didn't like people playing when they weren't home.
Riverside 18 in Ferndale WA had dud land, terrible homemade tones and no upkeep from the city.
Reeds in Columbia Village near Portland went in with 9 beautiful baskets in a pretty park. It was pulled 3 weeks later due to whining from other park users; in their defense, it was crowding usage.

Most of the courses I play aren't going anywhere---many of them are responsible for exponential increases in park visitors, which increases park budgets, and parks depts. like that ****.

 

[harr0140]

All I can say to those wondering why I am doing this . . . please take the 10 minutes to do the survey and I think you will see the difference between what I am asking and what DGCR does. DGCR grades courses compared to other courses but also focusses a lot on Quality of play, Challenge presented, and Overall good DG Design . . . I am asking for input on Safety, Sustainability of the courses, and the level of Maintenance that is put into them including information about who is doing the work at the courses. This information is very important in my opinion to move forward.

Thank you for the discussion, if you choose not to participate int he survey because you think DGCR accomplishes all of this, that is your purogative, but I think the survey will provide valuable information to be used by course designers and the PDGA in setting design and maintenance standards to help move our courses forward.

If we aren't moving forward . . . we are moving backwards because as courses get older they are deteriorating. I am also fearful that with the young age of this sport, that we are reaching that point where the older and original courses will need to be re-designed, removed for safety reasons, removed because the "fairways" no longer exist from trees dying or being removed, etc.

Thanks again for the discussion . . . I hope you still participate in the survey when it gets published next Saturday. It will be up for a month to allow people plenty of time to participate.

Mike Harrington
The Disc Golf Experience

 

[DavidSauls]

I figured that was the direction you were going. I'll be glad to contribute, what I can.

 

[harr0140]

Have at it . . . a few minutes early. Please share this event and/or this link to help me get as much information as possible out of this survey.

https://www.thediscgolfexperience.com

 

[harr0140]

Sorry about that . . . I was trying to fix security settings . . . www.thediscgolfexperience.com will work but not the https:// if security is a concern I will try to work on this but I need some help from my website helper.

 

[Dave242]

FYI, I started filling out a survey for you, but abandoned my efforts when I realized I could not provide honest and up to date feedback due to my lack of consistent play of area courses....and the courses I do play are usually while I travel and I do not pay attention to most of the detail you are asking for. The course feedback you are requesting which I could give would be dated by 5-10 years. sorry....i really wanted to help.

 

[DavidSauls]

I started but my answers were confused because the local courses I play include our private course, as well as public courses (one 25 years old and two at least 15, which makes them rather appropriate).

I will start over soon, answering as if we didn't have the private course, which I think will be more helpful.

 

[simpletwist]

Done.

 

[harr0140]

No worries guys. Its not a perfect survey because I am not a professional survey writer.. I will get a lot of good information and Ive already had over 600 responses. My goal was 1000 and this survey will be up for another 4 weeks so I should hit that goal. I will make sure to remove the bias I have in some of the questions and make a few of the questions less confusing. I know that this survey is asking for a generalization of the "local courses" which is different for everyone. Some play private courses, some play a little bit of everything, and others only play 1 course, but I am looking for areas of the country that have high and low grades, as well as how that correlates to club involvement. I am also looking to expose these issues that o occur on the DG courses to people that might not normally think about it I don't want course development to stall but I do want to help professionalize DG deign and also elevate the level of maintenance our courses receive.

I will learn from my mistakes this year and make t better next year as I feel this is SUPER important information as our sport moves forward.