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Warning to Clubs. Avoid Fly18

dendrite

dendrite

Bogey Member
Joined
May 22, 2011
Messages
54
Location
Westchester NY
Good morning everyone!

Just wanted to reach out an give a warning for the gentleman Mr. Reese Swinea who runs Fly18 over at Fly18.com. He had essentially stolen nearly 3000$ of our clubs money. Accepted payment in 10/2018 for a new set of pads foro ur local course and has given us excuses and has not delivered the items. (He says he's in hospice). We sent an email from a bogus account the other day to place an "order" and he immediately responded stating he was able to fill the shipment. We have had to retain a lawyer to recoup our costs as he no longer responds to our calls. Be careful and don't go through this. Dozens of club members help raises these funds for this gentleman to try and steal them without consequence.
 
_MTL_ said:
20 years later and this is still happening?
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I think that for the most part the main hustle there is aimed at ball golf courses. The only place I was close enough to that I got any of the rumors about was Edgebrook, but what was going on or not going on was pretty much between the guys at the pro shop and Reese. Other than the fact that the course eventually closed, the disc golf community didn't suffer from what did or didn't happen there.

The case of the OP is different, of course.
 
We have retained an attorney. Even if our costs are a net loss it's worth it to fight back against scumbag behavior like this. He originally sold us the teepads for our course in 1990s. No issues at that time, but it seems he has become quite the shady character. Just didn't want anyone else to fall victim to this nonsense. Sucks to believe people can act like this in our small loving sport.
 
I didn't know he was still in business. Hadn't heard a peep about Fly 18 for a long time.
 
Three Putt said:
I think that for the most part the main hustle there is aimed at ball golf courses.
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That's exactly what happened at River Chase. It seems they got hustled pretty good, even paid Reese's airfare twice - to come 'install' those garbage baskets and to be there for the opening.

Couldn't even have a sanctioned tournament there since the baskets were ridiculously awful, and never mentioned that to the owners who paid full price for them expecting a 'championship' course.
 
TheOtherBill said:
That's exactly what happened at River Chase. It seems they got hustled pretty good, even paid Reese's airfare twice - to come 'install' those garbage baskets and to be there for the opening.

Couldn't even have a sanctioned tournament there since the baskets were ridiculously awful, and never mentioned that to the owners who paid full price for them expecting a 'championship' course.
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He told quite a tale at the official opening, about bringing a tournament there that would be bigger than the USDGC.

Those Dr. Fred baskets were eyesores for a golf course, and the design was a waste of property. I'm not sure if it would have succeeded at any rate, but that didn't help.
 
After looking at the basket pictures on River chase, and a little extra research, I realized ive played a Fly 18 course. Horrible baskets. Horrible rubber tees that according to early reviews were in disrepair after 3 years. Not surprisingly, the course was recently closed. Its interesting to note that Ken Climo is the credited designer. not sure if that's true.
Lutz Executive DGC https://www.dgcoursereview.com/course.php?id=1506

Dendrite, I hope you are able to recover some of the clubs losses.
 
Our Club has had similar issues dealing with Reece, but we eventually did receive the rubber we ordered. Is there another vendor for this type of rubber mats? We have a couple other projects in the works and would much rather not deal with him again.
 
brianb said:
Our Club has had similar issues dealing with Reece, but we eventually did receive the rubber we ordered. Is there another vendor for this type of rubber mats? We have a couple other projects in the works and would much rather not deal with him again.
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You could try paving stone. Good solid surface than can be removed if necessary.
 
We actually just took out the last paver teepad on one of our courses. It held up well for nearly 20 years, but was starting to have issues and the powers that be didn't like it anymore...

Not sure that the turf tees are a legit option in our case. I've heard good things about them, but until I see them in a mountain environment like ours I'm still skeptical due to the amount of maintenance they require. Also - and this is an honest question - how well do they hold up compared to rubber in a mountain environment with several hundred users per day during the busy season? As much as rubber isn't ideal during the wet season, the Fly 18 pads that we have that are installed properly still look nearly new after 9 years.

We have tried to bypass Reece/Fly 18 and go directly to the rubber manufacturer, but as we only wanted 180' at a time the manufacturer doesn't want to deal with us. We are very interested in another option. We got 18 Launch Pads several years ago, but in our experience they haven't lasted as long as the Fly 18 pads have.
 
I agree with biscoe. I'd rather throw from loose gravel than rubber mats. We tried them for a bit at our home course and were able to get them from Tractor supply. I believe they had them on a 4' wide roll so you could cut to length.

One of my favorite cheap pads are a small wooden deck with outdoor carpet attached to it. It seems to grip great for everything except packed snow. The wooden deck is a nice level base and it keeps it 5-6" off of the ground so it doesn't absorb water from the ground.
 
riltim said:
One of my favorite cheap pads are a small wooden deck with outdoor carpet attached to it. It seems to grip great for everything except packed snow. The wooden deck is a nice level base and it keeps it 5-6" off of the ground so it doesn't absorb water from the ground.
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We started with carpet remnants at Central Park....... some of the white tees still have them and they work fine even though they are staked to the ground. We peel them up every year and level the ground underneath.
 
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