Club conundrum

[ed IV]

Id say the one where you know some guys. Its fun to compete with people you know and you will have someone to give you crap when you dont show up... If you have friends you play with locally or there are folks you always see on the course try to make a regular day/time, Our league turn out has dwindled the last couple of months but at least a few are always out. (last sunday was 15deg but all six of us had fun!)

 

[burdphil]

So I live in rural Indiana, in a county with one Disc Golf Course. I like the course, and it is about 15 minutes away, so I can play it pretty easily. However, the club that once was affiliated with the course dissolved about 2 years ago.

So here is my conundrum, I want to be apart of a club, I want to have some interaction with people on the disc golf course, as opposed to playing by myself 9 times out of 10. I would love to get into league play, doubles matches, tag matches, etc. So I am looking in the surrounding counties to see what clubs there are. I have found some, but I need some help picking, because none are perfect.

Club 1 - a club that is an hour away. They are affiliated with 4 courses, and are quite active but the drive means that I probably won't be able to be as involved.

Club 2 - this club is the closest by far, being only 20-25 minutes away. They are affiliated with only 1 course (a course I really enjoy by the way), but they don't seem as active.

Club 3 - Seems to be an active club with multiple league nights, the distance is in between the above two at about 40 minutes unless traffic is horrendous, and it has the potential to get really close if new courses are built in the western part of the county. Plus, I already know a couple guys who play regularly here. They have 3 courses in their county, but it seems like they center out of just one.

Club 4 & 5 - Theoretical options, but are more likely to be places I go for major events as the closest course to me is 45 minutes away, with the farthest being an hour and a half.

So, I guess the question that I am asking is, in terms of picking a club, would you choose the closest club with less members and courses, the more active club, with more courses but the longest drive, or do you go for the happy medium?

I miss the tournaments at Longley. I play there during my lunch hour about once every couple weeks (weather permitting)... great course.

IMHO there are lots of great clubs in this area... you can't really go wrong with any of them. I personally help out with or attend events by the IDGC, the Acers, the HCDGC, and the HDGU. All great guys.

 

[skottyb]

Where about in Indiana?

 

[KDinIN]

Where about in Indiana?

Burdphil got it right...

I miss the tournaments at Longley. I play there during my lunch hour about once every couple weeks (weather permitting)... great course.

IMHO there are lots of great clubs in this area... you can't really go wrong with any of them. I personally help out with or attend events by the IDGC, the Acers, the HCDGC, and the HDGU. All great guys.

I am in Boone County, Indiana, right near Lebanon. Which puts me just far enough that the HDGU, the IDGC, and the Acers are all just too far away for regular club play. I have connected to the club in Lafayette, but it is pretty far for regular club play. Currently, its between the Hendricks County Disc Golf and the Montgomery County clubs. I hadn't thought about joining two clubs though, so I might just look at doing that and then enjoy the events of the surrounding clubs.

 

[DeadEye]

If there's enough people (20+) that live near your local course and play it a lot, start up a new club. I played for a couple years without a club, but then I started playing with someone who had been a member of the club before it disbanded. Me and him got the word out, and before we knew it we had 20-30 people showing up each week, which brought in people who used to play a lot. Now we have 75 tags sold, 20-30 people showing up regularly, and since we formed an active club that's legit and has elected board members, we were able to go to the local parks/city council and petition for a new park, which me and the buddy I started the club with designed.

We were lucky in that my buddy knew the members from the old club that were still around, while I was friends with all of the new players. All it took was getting all of the people who play in their own little cliques to come together and play at a set time and date, now we have a solid club, great relationship with our Parks Dept., and a new park. If you don't want to travel, take some initiative, see if you can get people to show up.

 

[bcole]

The flyer idea for doubles nights sounds like a start. Is there a shop nearby that sells discs? Maybe you can talk to the shop owner about your ideas, and they can be of some help with spreading the word.

 

[giles]

Join them all?

I've got my local club and am a member of the next closest that is a 2 hour drive. The only down side is I've had their #1 tag for far too long as I rarely see club members.

 

[JeremyKShort]

Have you thought about creating your own club?

I have thought about trying to resurrect the old club or some form of the old club, but I don't know if I am ready for such a task. I think eventually this is the ideal answer, but as it stands now, I don't think I am equipped to do it. Mainly because I have never had the chance to experience a club environment, nor do I know what makes a good club work. I would like to spend some time in that environment myself before I invest myself in trying to replicate it. It seems like that would be best for everyone involved at least.

Another thing to think about is an informal disc golf group. Some of us in the area have made a facebook page, and we let most anybody that plays in the area join. We post whenever we're doing rounds, and anybody else can show up. We also plan trips to other courses, we have quite a few courses within an hour, so we like to travel a bit. And we get to do some club-like things without having to do a lot of planning.

There's been talk of doing a proper club, but nobody's wanted to ake charge. We've done a bag tag for the local course, but that's the closest we've gotten.

 

[ed IV]

Join them all?

I've got my local club and am a member of the next closest that is a 2 hour drive. The only down side is I've had their #1 tag for far too long as I rarely see club members.

I see, the old win the #1 and quit. JK but this is what tends to happen around here. Active players are after #3 at this point

 

[giles]

I see, the old win the #1 and quit. JK but this is what tends to happen around here. Active players are after #3 at this point

lol, I havn't quit, I just live 2 hours away from the course most of the club guys play. I've posted incentive on the club facebook page that if anyone comes to my town to play our new course I'll bring out the tag. I've got a 3 year old and a newborn so taking 6 hours to go play a tag round isn't going to happen. Now we have too much snow on the ground for anyone to travel to play here, so it looks like I'll hang on to it for a while.