Executing The Dream

[DavidSauls]

Sorting through, organizing and discarding some very old paperwork, I came across a folder full of planning maps from our early days, 2005-2006. Which were very fascinating; holes that were quickly discarded, holes that were never built, holes that we forgot, then re-visited and built almost a decade later, and a few ideas that I have no memory of. At the time we hoped to one day build a pond; it would come years later, and it's interesting to see how close our expectations of it were, or were not.

Which I offer as a reminder to those of you in the early days of this Dream, yourself: Keep photos, and other documents, that you can look back on in a decade or two. You'll thank me, then.

 

[InnocentCrook]

I enjoyed looking over the map you posted on FB. I love survey plats (and maps in general) and it was interesting to see the name Minick on a few parcels around you and realizing that's where the road name must've come from. My road is simply the names of the two "cities" it connects as if fairly common in my county. (Elliston-Napoleon, Napoleon-Zion Station, Crittenden-Mt. Zion, Dry Ridge-Mt. Zion, Sherman-Mt. Zion, etc.)

I've taken tons of photos, probably 8gb worth or more. Most of the "sketches" I've done are just overlays on either google earth or KY's GIS mapping site. Mostly just as a tool to work out routing challenges as most of the design stuff hasn't ever really left my head and been put to paper. Maybe that's a result of the amount of times I've been out walking around, just soaking in the land, visualizing things, maybe I just like to "wing it" a little bit.

I'll thank you now. While a lot of folks have come and gone in this thread over the years, having you around to bounce ideas, get comments, share experiences, complain to, etc. has been an enormous help in my adventure (and I'm sure other's). I hope we get a chance to throw a round together sometime.

 

[joecoin]

I've been drawing up holes on paper since day one (around 5 years), I don't think I've tossed any sheets out yet. Current design holds about 4 or 5 of the original holes.

Kinda on hold right now due to winter making an appearance.


I'm halfway done with building a terraced tee pad on the side of a hill. A bunch of landscaped posts stacked up with an anchor holding them to the side of the hill. Need to backfill it, but the ground is frozen now.

 

[DavidSauls]

I enjoyed looking over the map you posted on FB. I love survey plats (and maps in general) and it was interesting to see the name Minick on a few parcels around you and realizing that's where the road name must've come from. My road is simply the names of the two "cities" it connects as if fairly common in my county. (Elliston-Napoleon, Napoleon-Zion Station, Crittenden-Mt. Zion, Dry Ridge-Mt. Zion, Sherman-Mt. Zion, etc.)

It gets worse. Minick Lane loops into the next road over, which is Minick Road. Which causes great confusion for people trying to find us. Yes, our land is part of the Minick family land, and half our neighbors on these two gravel roads are Minicks. My brother, sister, and I bought this land together and built houses, so my family is now the other half of the neighborhood.

A historical side note: until about 40 years ago, most smaller rural roads in South Carolina had no names, just county road numbers, and mail was delivered a rural route & box number. When the post office decided to give everything normal street addresses, locals named their own streets, many for themselves, and most of them with full names; so around us are "Clarence Boozer Road" and "Fred Kunkle Road" and so on. Luckily for us, the Minicks were a bit more modest, though they made up for it by naming two different roads.

I moved here after 40+ years in a neighborhood where I had extensive family roots, and knew a great deal of history. I've spent a lot of time since trying to bring myself up to speed on this area, including talking to the Minicks, and researching land titles in the courthouse. Trying to get my roots deeper into the ground, so to speak.

Some people on this thread owned land before they came to disc golf. We searched 3 years for the right land, with disc golf potential one of the considerations, and went through a number of failed deals before landing here. But with the resulting advantage, like you, that when the time came, we were building a course on very suitable land.

 

[DavidSauls]

I've been drawing up holes on paper since day one (around 5 years), I don't think I've tossed any sheets out yet. Current design holds about 4 or 5 of the original holes.

Kinda on hold right now due to winter making an appearance.


I'm halfway done with building a terraced tee pad on the side of a hill. A bunch of landscaped posts stacked up with an anchor holding them to the side of the hill. Need to backfill it, but the ground is frozen now.

Good. Never toss those sheets. One day they'll be treasures; you'll look at them and wonder "What was I thinking?", or marvel at the ideas that turned out to be spot-on from Day 1.

It's funny about regional differences. Here in South Carolina, winter is the time to get improvements and new holes done. The rest of the year is for maintenance.

 

[Varzay]

I agree with the idea of looking at each hole in reverse. I hope perhaps I may be able to design two 9 hole loops using the same 9 baskets but in opposite directions. Of course it would have to work out just right and I wouldn't want to force it but I could see a scenario where it could work with perhaps just a few extra baskets.

Does anyone have any experience with renting a brush hog for clearing saplings?

On a different note my knee has finally begun feeling like it is improving durring the last two days after an initial three days of painful stagnation. This gives me a lot of optimism the course will begin gettin carved out within a few weeks.

My partner helped me set up and drag a bunch of baskets in the yard so I at least have a putter course to limp around and play and I get to look at all my baskets!

I have experience renting a brush hog for clearing saplings but i only get a hard neck pain and on my shoulder, think I should not have done that. and worse i still felt it until now, been reading a lot of articles lately though to ease the pain, saw one https://justneckpain.com/shoulder-pain-causes-symptoms-and-treatment/ but its somehow lacks info. anybody here that can help out?

 

[InnocentCrook]

Been a rough year so far for a lot of reasons I'd rather not get into.

Haven't spent much time getting any course work done but I have spent a lot of time wandering around the property. I have some new ideas in the back of my head for additional tees or basket locations that may get utilized after 18 holes are complete.

I had my first visitor who found the place through DGCR. Gave him a quick tour on the Ranger and explained the routing, even toured some of the future expansion land. Chatted for a while after his round and he seemed to really enjoy the course. It was nice having some fresh eyes on things.

 

[DavidSauls]

To dredge up an old issue from this thread, and as a caution to all those building private courses:

Course directories.

Our course is only open if one of the owners are home, and only by advance reservation.

We've listed it on DGCR, PDGA, and it's on UDisc. Each of those includes a warning that it requires reservation, and people mostly comply---other than a few with apparent reading difficulties, or remarkable laziness. As a backup, we put a large, tactfully-worded sign at the start of our driveway, tactfully saying 'No trespassing unless you have a reservation", to stop those who get that far without calling first.

But.

There are other course directories, some of which seem to just scrape info from the PDGA or elsewhere, which don't include the private course disclaimer. Astonishingly, there are people relying on these instead of the more comprehensive, better established ones.

Some I can correct. Google Maps put our course in as a business; I was able to update it. Someone originally entered our course into UDisc, and the UDisc folks were friendly and at our request, added the warning. Others, however, are impossible to contact.

So a couple showed up at our driveway this past weekend, using a phone app I'd never heard of. Luckily for me, they were conscientious, retreated down the road, found our number, and called. Luckily for them, I was home and could accommodate them on short notice. (I also put them on the right track, telling them to check out DGCR instead).

But I can't find any way to contact that app maker, short of buying the app.

So here's the caution for private course owners: Once you list a course anywhere, the listing will spread to places where it won't be accurate, and can never be stamped out. I'm not saying you shouldn't do it. I'm certainly glad we did. But just know what you're getting into, when you do.

 

[Martin Dewgarita]

So. I'm going to check in here today, with a relatively vague post. Because if crazy hair brained ideas move forward, I may be spending much more time in this thread in the future, and some day down the line I might look back and say to myself "Ah, so that was the day that we made a decision to make a push for a dream" or whatever.

 

[InnocentCrook]

How many dreams will be executed in this thread?

Wait, that doesn't sound right...

How many dreams will come to fruition in this thread? (Yeah, that sounds better.)

 

[InnocentCrook]

After almost 5 years it looks like terrain based internet is finally here! We saw the spools of fiber start showing up on the main road last year, then the spools started getting closer and closer until they were just a few houses down. Already had the provider out to look at things, but based on our distance from the road, an engineer will have to come out and take a look. Even if I have to pay a bit to run some line it'll be worth it. Not only is the service better, but I'll have unlimited data and a bill that's half the price.

I can't tell you how happy I will be to rid myself of HughesNet Satellite internet. It is truly a terrible product with almost as terrible customer service.

 

[InnocentCrook]

Marked out the final hole (#9) of the original 18 hole layout yesterday morning. Started the clearing process with what tools I had on me, just a 10" pruning saw and a 24" ax. As this is #9, I'm obviously linking holes 8 and 10 that are already cut out or mostly cut out. Luckily, I think it's gonna work out just fine.

I've said it a bunch, but if you love a good challenging hike, you'll probably like this layout. LOTS of hills. Of the 18 holes, I can only think of 3 or so that are generally flat. There's a few others where the basket and pin might be at the same elevation, but there's a good chance there's a 15-20' deep valley in between.

Work day scheduled for this Saturday and so far the weather is looking fantastic (60 and sunny!). Hoping for a decent turnout so we can get a lot closer to 18 playable holes.

 

[DavidSauls]

After almost 5 years it looks like terrain based internet is finally here! We saw the spools of fiber start showing up on the main road last year, then the spools started getting closer and closer until they were just a few houses down. Already had the provider out to look at things, but based on our distance from the road, an engineer will have to come out and take a look. Even if I have to pay a bit to run some line it'll be worth it. Not only is the service better, but I'll have unlimited data and a bill that's half the price.

I can't tell you how happy I will be to rid myself of HughesNet Satellite internet. It is truly a terrible product with almost as terrible customer service.

We continued to live mirrored lives. The fiber optic cable reached the last shared power pole before my house 2 weeks ago. Something I never thought I'd see---real internet. Now, just waiting for them to finish testing and make service available.

 

[DavidSauls]

To dredge up an old issue from this thread, and as a caution to all those building private courses:

Course directories.

Our course is only open if one of the owners are home, and only by advance reservation.

We've listed it on DGCR, PDGA, and it's on UDisc. Each of those includes a warning that it requires reservation, and people mostly comply---other than a few with apparent reading difficulties, or remarkable laziness. As a backup, we put a large, tactfully-worded sign at the start of our driveway, tactfully saying 'No trespassing unless you have a reservation", to stop those who get that far without calling first.

But.

There are other course directories, some of which seem to just scrape info from the PDGA or elsewhere, which don't include the private course disclaimer. Astonishingly, there are people relying on these instead of the more comprehensive, better established ones.

Some I can correct. Google Maps put our course in as a business; I was able to update it. Someone originally entered our course into UDisc, and the UDisc folks were friendly and at our request, added the warning. Others, however, are impossible to contact.

So a couple showed up at our driveway this past weekend, using a phone app I'd never heard of. Luckily for me, they were conscientious, retreated down the road, found our number, and called. Luckily for them, I was home and could accommodate them on short notice. (I also put them on the right track, telling them to check out DGCR instead).

But I can't find any way to contact that app maker, short of buying the app.

So here's the caution for private course owners: Once you list a course anywhere, the listing will spread to places where it won't be accurate, and can never be stamped out. I'm not saying you shouldn't do it. I'm certainly glad we did. But just know what you're getting into, when you do.

Can't stay ahead of this. A guy driving down the road asked his GPS to find a disc golf course nearby, and it brought him here. I'm not sure how the GPS knew, but it certainly wasn't going to research enough to check for visitation rules.

Fortunately, he was a conscientious traveling disc golfer. When he saw our "....by reservation only" sign at the start of our driveway, he turned around and retreated to where he could get a cell signal (we live so deep in the boondocks that it's 1958 here), found a directory, and called to see if it would be OK to come.

 

[davetherocketguy]

Can't stay ahead of this. A guy driving down the road asked his GPS to find a disc golf course nearby, and it brought him here. I'm not sure how the GPS knew, but it certainly wasn't going to research enough to check for visitation rules.

Fortunately, he was a conscientious traveling disc golfer. When he saw our "....by reservation only" sign at the start of our driveway, he turned around and retreated to where he could get a cell signal (we live so deep in the boondocks that it's 1958 here), found a directory, and called to see if it would be OK to come.

Interesting...What are these other services listing courses? I'm only aware of DGCR, UDisc and Disc Golf Scene...Not sure I'd count PDGA since I believe they get their info from here or UDisc but I am not entirely sure about that.

There's a private course near where I live and the owner absolutely refuses to list his course anywhere. Can't say that I blame him since the layout requires driving right next to his house and then parking next to his garage to get to the course.

 

[joecoin]

...

I can't tell you how happy I will be to rid myself of HughesNet Satellite internet. It is truly a terrible product with almost as terrible customer service.

My God man! What an awful time you have lived through. Be sure to tell your children/grandchildren how you used to struggle with that abomination.

 

[DavidSauls]

Interesting...What are these other services listing courses? I'm only aware of DGCR, UDisc and Disc Golf Scene...Not sure I'd count PDGA since I believe they get their info from here or UDisc but I am not entirely sure about that.

There's a private course near where I live and the owner absolutely refuses to list his course anywhere. Can't say that I blame him since the layout requires driving right next to his house and then parking next to his garage to get to the course.

Googled "find disc golf courses", and saw deerpassdiscgolf.com, discgolfunited.com, discgolfcourses.com, golfcourseslookup.com. There are some state-specific links: discoversouthcarolina.com, sciway.com, that list courses. And people keep showing up here, with websites and phone apps I've never heard of.

How they miss the major ones---DGCR, DGS, UDisc, PDGA---is a mystery to me.

 

[InnocentCrook]

My God man! What an awful time you have lived through. Be sure to tell your children/grandchildren how you used to struggle with that abomination.

It's not so much the bad service, it's that I have no other option. So every month I pay $160 for a data limited service that doesn't work when the weather is raining or cloudy, or we burn through our data because our devices had to download updates.

I'm pretty psyched to get to start paying $80 for unlimited internet AND they're throwing in 150 channels of TV for the first year. (I've never had cable TV since I've been out on my own.). Honestly though, the only thing I think I'll like watching is the occasional Reds game, which I've never been able to do.

 

[davetherocketguy]

Googled "find disc golf courses", and saw deerpassdiscgolf.com, discgolfunited.com, discgolfcourses.com, golfcourseslookup.com.

Lawdy those sites suck.

 

[DavidSauls]

Lawdy those sites suck.

I once found our course on a site that claimed to list every course in the world, but clearly didn't. And it had a lot of wrong information. I think it had just scraped in the info from the PDGA directory. But there was no way to correct it---the contact button didn't work, and even the contact info on a WHOIS search was out of date.

Someone showed up here a few months ago with a phone app I'd never seen or heard of. I researched it, and found it, but the only way to contact them was to buy the app.

Once that info's out there, those sites that suck, particularly the ones that don't care if they suck, will grab it. And someone will find those sites or apps, and use them.