Disc Golf as alternative to Bolf

[knettles]

Personally I think a disc golf course on a ball golf course is just plain impractical at best.

That said, there are a couple instances where it could work well. First at public parks where a golf course exists and there is still suitable terrain for a completely separate disc golf course. A good example of this is Beaver Island SP in Western NY. Both types of courses coexist in the same park but are completely separate from each other. And recently NYS has stepped up their game committing time and resources to maintain as well as improve the disc golf course.

The second instance would occur at semi private, private, and resort type golf courses. But in my mind is essentially the same as the public course mentioned above. Completely separate courses utilizing the same land. There is I believe one PGA event in WV if my memory serves me that has a disc golf course on the property. But this disc golf course shares none of the golf course.

I believe you're referring to the Greenbrier. And yes, the disc golf course is on a completely separate part of the park. Ha, there's no way they'd let disc golfers on that golf course. I don't golf, but I'm pretty sure it's considered a world class course.

 

[DavidSauls]

I have to disagree with this point from puckstopper. Golf courses make great places for new Disc Golf courses. The DG course doesn't have to follow every fairway of the golf course, they can be run up the rough, across the fairway or on their own path on the property. If the golf course is still open, and mixing in DGers, the basket can be put near the green, with the green as OB, there's your obstacle. The basket can be tucked into the trees on in the golf rough, there's your obstacles. The DG hole can be placed along a lake, or across a lake, there's your obstacle. It would make things a lot more interesting when your sweating losing a $20-$30 disc, versus losing a $3-$5 golf ball!

There are a lot of options, all with drawbacks. Including this.

If the golf course is still open, you want the disc golf to be in the same flow as the ball golf, and the disc golfers to be visible to the regular golfers. This limits the rough you can use.

Using lakes is fine, as long as the basket doesn't become an obstacle for the golfers, in a place where they wouldn't want it. Of course, water wouldn't be a unique feature; there are plenty of disc golf courses with it.

Nor do you want to use greens as O.B. You want to stay off greens entirely.

Would such a course be good enough that disc golfers would pay serious money to play? Not $5-$10, but $30-$50? Often?

Perhaps "Golf courses make great places for new disc golf courses", but so far it's been tried 50 or 100 times, without catching on in any significant way.

 

[pmay5]

There are a lot of options, all with drawbacks. Including this.

If the golf course is still open, you want the disc golf to be in the same flow as the ball golf, and the disc golfers to be visible to the regular golfers. This limits the rough you can use.

Using lakes is fine, as long as the basket doesn't become an obstacle for the golfers, in a place where they wouldn't want it. Of course, water wouldn't be a unique feature; there are plenty of disc golf courses with it.

Nor do you want to use greens as O.B. You want to stay off greens entirely.

Would such a course be good enough that disc golfers would pay serious money to play? Not $5-$10, but $30-$50? Often?

Perhaps "Golf courses make great places for new disc golf courses", but so far it's been tried 50 or 100 times, without catching on in any significant way.

David, thanks for your comments, especially during The Challenge weekend!

I think we have seen golf courses used for DG within the last couple of months, it looked like the Australian was played on a golf course and one of the Memorial courses (Fiesta Lakes, granted not the best layout) was on a golf course. Of course, those golf courses weren't open during the DG tournament, but the terrain seemed to work.

I have yet to play an integrated course, but see how it could work. However, the main obstacle is probably culture clash between traditional golfers and DGers. Probably take a while to work through that.

But, I still think the terrain of a golf course would be great for a DG course. There's a closed course in Barry Schultz' home town that was recently bought by the County for a park. It looks like half the land would be great for a DG course. But, yes, it would take a public entity to buy it and run it, to be affordable.

Not everyone can live on and run their own disc golf heaven!! :clap: :thmbup:

 

[Star Shark]

One propblem is that DG is much faster than golf, so you're always asking to play through. Must get annoying for the golfers. I was behind a foursome one time where they were taking forever, 3-5 putting every hole etc and taking each shot like it was the Masters. It was painful, especially when I know I can blow through that course in an hour and they weren't even going to manage the front 9 in that.

 

[Skins]

One of the huge gifts of NOT playing disc on a golf course is what you can't see.

Neurotoxins, yes the **** is very bad for you. In order for a golf course to look all uniformly green with no weeds they spray a lot of bad stuff for your health.

Roundup, and many of the sprays they use are neurotoxins. They are accumulative, and damage your genes you pass on as well as your health bigtime!!!

We touch our discs, wipe them, put them our bags with our hands with no gloves and seldomly wash them during a round. Go look in a maintenance building of your local course if they would even let you in, take a pic of some of the sprays they use.......and look them up. Most will have a skull with an X over it because it's dangerous ****!

.....and if you're dumb enough to believe Monsanto, Eli Lilly and the other manufactures of these products about being safe and inert after sprayed,,,,,,I got some land in the Everglades to sell ya.

Seriously, it's a blessing were not playing in these pretty golf parks all uniform and perfect looking, I'll take my woods behind my house, pasture, the local course in the woods any day over these neurotoxic playgrounds.

 

[DavidSauls]

David, thanks for your comments, especially during The Challenge weekend!

I think we have seen golf courses used for DG within the last couple of months, it looked like the Australian was played on a golf course and one of the Memorial courses (Fiesta Lakes, granted not the best layout) was on a golf course. Of course, those golf courses weren't open during the DG tournament, but the terrain seemed to work.

I have yet to play an integrated course, but see how it could work. However, the main obstacle is probably culture clash between traditional golfers and DGers. Probably take a while to work through that.

But, I still think the terrain of a golf course would be great for a DG course. There's a closed course in Barry Schultz' home town that was recently bought by the County for a park. It looks like half the land would be great for a DG course. But, yes, it would take a public entity to buy it and run it, to be affordable.

Not everyone can live on and run their own disc golf heaven!! :clap: :thmbup:

Among the biggest obstacles are the fairways themselves. To much open space. Some bomber or roller holes can be useful, but using a lot of the fairways gets old pretty quickly.

But it depends a lot on the parameters. Where the golf courses are closed during a disc golf tournament, and the course is temporary, you have more freedom of design. You don't have to stay in the flow of, or in sight of, the golfers. A defunct golf course would be even better---and it's been done, Forepalms in Jacksonville, FL is one example.

If you can use the fringeland off the fairways, some golf courses have tremendous potential for a fine disc golf course. Then again, this might mean no carts, thus no cart rentals.

But the hurdle remains---to be able to build, not just a good course, but a great course, at least great enough to lure disc golfers, in sufficient numbers, away from free courses, and entice them to pay significant greens fees.

*

South Carolina has, or at least has had in recent years, at least 4 shared-use courses. Plus an annual tournament run on a temporary course on a 5th. The tournament does fairly well, but the others have not.

One was truly excellent land to build a disc golf course. Unfortunately, what was built there was not excellent, and between that and its remoteness, it didn't work out either.

 

[Questatement]

I'm currently in talks with a local 9 hole course that has excellent elevation changes, trees to avoid, and plenty of length to make it a great destination disc golf course while playing with the flow and being as respectful as possible to the golfers who hang on.

There's the rub. Any pitch-n-putt ball golf course with elevation is going to make for great dg (Verdugo Hills for example) but most people are looking at the full length ball courses which are mostly flat. I have seen one with decent elevation where two dg holes can be placed for every single ball golf hole on about 7 of the 18 holes (basically a 27 hole dg to 18 hole ball course) but the owner was not open to the idea.

Perhaps when she gets less water than needed I'll hit her up again.

 

[UCF_Knight]

There's the rub. Any pitch-n-putt ball golf course with elevation is going to make for great dg (Verdugo Hills for example) but most people are looking at the full length ball courses which are mostly flat. I have seen one with decent elevation where two dg holes can be placed for every single ball golf hole on about 7 of the 18 holes (basically a 27 hole dg to 18 hole ball course) but the owner was not open to the idea.

Perhaps when she gets less water than needed I'll hit her up again.

This another point that goes back to location. In South Florida just about the only places with any elevation are golf courses. They dig out the lakes to make mounds. No this is obviously not what most people are talking about when they say elevation but you put a basket on a 20' tall hill down here and players think its instantly a signature hole. I think there are waaay to many variables to judge the concept of dg on a ball golf course as a whole.

 

[Lewis]

Foot golf also doesn't have a base of thousands of existing courses---all free or very cheap and many far better than what could or would be installed on a ball golf course. If you're a soccer player interested in trying out foot golf, about the only place you can go is the golf course that offers it.

This is a good point. With disc golf, the bg course often has to compete with the many free dg courses in the area Since one of the major appeals of disc golf is the low cost of play, the pay-to-play course would almost have to be the best course in the area, hands down, no argument, or they won't get any traffic. As difficult as we all agree it is to make a quality dg course on ball golf property, the odds are against it working out.

One propblem is that DG is much faster than golf, so you're always asking to play through. Must get annoying for the golfers. I was behind a foursome one time where they were taking forever, 3-5 putting every hole etc and taking each shot like it was the Masters. It was painful, especially when I know I can blow through that course in an hour and they weren't even going to manage the front 9 in that.

The difference in pace of play is as big a deal as the cost of play, in my opinion. I suspect a lot of the disc golfers of the world are golfers who converted to disc golf to avoid the expense and time consumption of ball golf. These two major advantages of disc golf would be negated by a pay-to-play disc golf course integrated into the flow of a ball golf layout.

There's the rub. Any pitch-n-putt ball golf course with elevation is going to make for great dg (Verdugo Hills for example) but most people are looking at the full length ball courses which are mostly flat.

My guess is that the best places to add disc golf to ball golf courses will be the small, municipal, "par 3" ball golf courses. These are the layouts that play faster for ball golfers, are usually less expensive to maintain and to play, and are likely a better environment, hole by hole, to fit a disc golf layout into them.