Disc Golf Tournament advice

[Barnyardie1]

I am an officer of Buckhorn Ski Club (http://www.orgsites.com/ca/buckhorn/), a small non-profit ski area located in the San Gabriel Mountains about 38 miles up Angeles Crest Highway from La Canada, CA, just north of downtown Los Angeles. Last year I designed and built a disc golf course on the property. On Saturday, August 20 at noon we will be holding the first annual Buckhorn Disc Golf Tournament.

I am looking for specific advice on how to best promote this event.

So far, only a few friends and I have played the course, which has both regular and pro tees. My friends have complemented the unique layout of the mountain course and consider it quite challenging compared to other courses in Southern California. In designing and building the course, my goal was to reward good shots and penalize bad shots.

The tournament is free and the barbeque, etc. will be going all day and night. The winner's name will be engraved on a perpetual trophy, a mahogany disc, that will remain onsite.

Again, we would greatly appreciate any advice could you give to help make this a successful and well attended event. Thank you.

 

[DookieHyzer]

First of all, i would love to come up and play the course. I live in Orange County and play in LA, Orange, and San Diego counties. Most of the courses that I play have a stand alone website, or a Facebook site to promote themselves. A nice invite to those clubs to come up and play might be a good first step. If the directors of these clubs are open to it, you might be able to send flyers to them that they can pass out at their weekly and monthly tournaments. Even Better would be that they would allow you to come to there course and pass the flyers out in person. (Bring Photos of the course to show off)

On your website you refer to the course as being for Frisbee golf. It might be better to refer to it as a disc golf course, attracts a more serious player. If you have any photos of the course, and a map laying out the holes, that would be could to put up on the site as well.

The photos, map, and hole distances can also be loaded up on this site: http://www.dgcoursereview.com/
Many people search for courses to play on this and PDGA.Com website. Your tournament info can also be loaded on these sites.

I am a theatrical producer and do a lot of promotion, but must admit, the event is coming quick, and getting newspaper coverage down in LA and OC might take an angle.

Send me a message link and I'll try and work out an angle inthe meantime.

 

[Apothecary]

is your course open to the public? if so, is it pay-to-play?

 

[Barnyardie1]

The truth is I've never been in a disc golf tourney, much less run one. I built the course for myself and friends, because we like to play - plus it's such a cool place to hang out. Most members don't have a clue what disc golf is. But I also thought that increasing the recreational opportunities of the club beyond skiing could help membership of our club - that is one goal with the tourney...to introduce SoCal disc golfers to a really cool place that also happens to have a course onsite. I also think good players will be impressed with the unique course - it is unlike any I've played elsewhere. It will be difficult to run a large tourney there because it has a somewhat criss-cross layout, so multiple groups on the course at once will need radios to shoot safely. The skiing there is quite challenging due to the terrain, which limited how I could layout the holes -- but this, I believe, is also what makes the course cool and challenging compared to others in SoCal. Perhaps I'm saying this because I made the course, but I'd also love to get feedback from others more objective than I. Anyway, I think even a relatively small turnout of dedicated players would be a success if that feedback turns out like I think it will, because then the word will spread.
We run off a permit from the Forest Service - we've had it over 60 years, so we can't be completely "open to the public", but membership is inexpensive and easy. Once a member, you can get signed off for a key and the facilities and lodge are available year-round.
The tourney is free and open to all. The gate is 0.9 miles past Mt Waterman Ski area on the right. Parking is in the turnout on the left. BYOB, steak for the BBQ, etc. If you don't want to drive down the mountain that day, staying the night is fine.

 

[Barnyardie1]

Flyer for event: