Well the USDGC is less than two months away now, and disc golfers are getting antsy. Unfortunately, it’s pretty much only disc golfers that even know about it. Brian Schweberger posted the following on the PDGA message boards:

Billy Crump and Brian Graham have contacted Mike and Mike on ESPN thru the PDGA. They are trying to get them down to The USDGC this year and do a live feed during the event.

We need your help: to whomever reads this post, if you could just send an email to them and give them some good reasons why they should come down to The USDGC.

I am going to be emailing them several times a week giving them different reasons why they should give DISC GOLF a chance.

Billy wants thousands of emails to flood their computers. This could happen with enough effort from our community of Disc Golf.

The email is Mike and Mike

Thanks for all of your efforts

Schwebby

Having to petition a sports radio show to have them cover one of the largest events in your sport is something of a humbling experience, but it could be just this kind of push that could help put us on the radar and lend some much needed credibility. Spread the word and send your emails in today!

Not all that long ago, I was shooting some golf with a guy that was fairly new to the area, from Louisville, KY. He was a nice guy, and being a native of the South myself, we got along pretty well. As we were playing through my course, I told him about the struggle we were facing with the restructuring of our course and all the tiptoeing we had to do due to environmental concerns. He chuckled and said “Oh yeah, I have to remember, I’m in a blue state now.” I tried to say that it wasn’t really the state, just the city and one or two vociferous citizens. He said that where he came from, the mentality was that parks were meant to be used. Fair point.

Just last week, in preparation for the upcoming tournament that I’m running, several of us were armed with weed eaters, taking care of some long grass on a couple of the fairways. A guy who had just moved from Texas approached us; he was trying to familiarize himself with the course before the tourney, but he dropped his bag and pitched in to help us. I told him how thankful I was to have his help, lamenting the difficulty of getting people to actually show up for work parties. He seemed happy to help, but pointed out that in Texas, the cities took care of all the maintenance of the courses, that the course upkeep isn’t something that tournament directors have to worry about there.

Again, I’d like to think that maybe its just the city our course is in that is so non-supportive of disc golf, but I’m afraid it’s bigger than that. More on Why all the hate, blue state?

For some time now, mainly because of a really hectic work schedule (normally 12+hr days) I’ve been playing the same disc golf course, Bryan Park. It’s a great course set in a historic park in Richmond Va. There are some monster holes and usually a good crowd there playing. But while I enjoy playing there, it was time for a change in scenery. This past weekend, while visiting my brother Kenneth (who recently became a father) out in Nashville, I had the opportunity to play a new course. While this course didn’t receive the highest reviews, Triple Creek Park in Gallatin, TN was most definitely a challenge. More on A Change of Scenery

Photo by Elliot Leuthold

Teresa O’Connell knows how to plan an event that I’d be interested in playing. Too bad she’s all the way in South Dakota. The Night and Day tournament sounds like a ton of fun though. The tournament consists of two rounds–one in the daytime under normal rules, and a second round at nighttime, using only 3 discs with glow sticks attached. Usually, if I’m going to be playing a round of glow golf, score is the last thing I’m thinking about, which would make a glow tournament somewhat daunting. But, for a mere $20 entry fee, with a meal included, I’d gladly take the risk. All things considered, I’d rather do that than spend $40 on a two-day traditional tournament, but that might just be me.

This sounds like it’d be an incredibly fun event, and I only wish there were one happening in my area. If you are fortunate enough to be around the Rapid City area and would like to sign up for this event, you can register on the Black Hills Disc Golf Confederacy website. Too bad I won’t be able to make it, but I may just have to steal their idea and organize one of my own here sometime….

I was notified of this article in the Peninsula Daily News, and it was a heck of a way to get my morning started. A brief synopsis of the article: in the rural areas of the Olympic Peninsula, where the closest disc golf course is about 2 hours away, some folks are trying to get a course installed in Robin Hill Park, a 195 acre county park. The park is a multi-use park, and used by horse riders, among others. At a meeting with the city council, the equestrian group rallied in a bunch of their members to argue profusely against the installation of the course.

Now, if the disc golfers were trying to take over the park for all themselves (a 195 acre disc golf complex–oh the notion makes my mouth water), I could understand such vehement opposition. But, the fact of the matter is that the disc golfers are only trying to use 20 acres, which would be plenty of space for a high quality course in the woodsy Northwest. On top of that, the disc golfers had already taken into account the equestrian use of the park and designed their layout so that the two could coexist.

I could also understand their concern if there were “real” development going on as in with a traditional golf course, but come on, disc golf is one of the least invasive outdoor activities I can think of (arguably less so than equestrian trails). Disc golf has the advantage of being able to be in parts of land that are considered useless for other activities. And most people who are uninformed about disc golf who see a basket will wonder what in the world its supposed to be, not seeing any visible signs of its use. That just illustrates how well disc golf can blend into an existing habitat.

While I’m sure there are many fine people in the Sequim area equestrian community, the people in this article sound like petulant school children who never learned how to share. Viewing things from a different angle, I was somewhat in their shoes when the dog park was being proposed at my home course. I voiced my opinion at the city council meeting then which was I was OK with the dog park so long as it didn’t interfere with the course, or as long as suitable replacement holes were granted to us. Of course, the dog park was approved, being in part of our course, and replacement holes weren’t really taken into consideration until after the fact, and now that’s our issue we’re dealing with. Here in the case of Robin Hill Park, the disc golfers are being diplomatic enough to want to not infringe on other users, and they’re still getting resistance thrown in their face. I would like to see a time when disc golf doesn’t have to constantly take a back seat to other interests in community politics.

If you would like to voice your support for the installation of the course, please send an email to the following addresses: bgiddens@co.clallam.wa.us, jwinborn@co.clallam.wa.us, cjacobs@co.clallam.wa.us, stharinger@co.clallam.wa.us, mdoherty@co.clallam.wa.us, mchapman@co.clallam.wa.us, michael@teammcaleer.com

If you are anywhere near Aspen Colorado this weekend, you should definitely go check out the PDGA Tier B Snowmassive event in the town of Snowmass village. These slopes are home to some of the best skiing in the winter, and are the home of one of the highest disc golf courses in the country during the warm months

Scenic views and super challenging holes along with some pretty decent weather should make for a great weekend. You can find more information about the event from the local disc golf club here: http://www.milehighdiscgolf.org/index.php.

This course boasts up to 54 holes but due to snow only around 27 of the holes will be available…man, how we suffer.

Other information including a downloadable course map(albeit not the greatest map) is available here:

http://www.snowmassvillage.com/snowmassive-open-disc-golf-tournament

Be sure to check out this event and get up with us about how it goes.

Ok, one more link… it was written up in the Aspen paper, go check it out:

http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20080617/NEWS/78131996

I always love to get positive stories about the growth of disc golf in my Google News Reader (which is free and really cool, I highly recommend you set one up). Sometimes it takes me a while to get through all of it, but i just found one good example I’d like to share. Congratulations to the Tuscon Chain Lighting disc golf club on the creation of the newest disc golf course, Marana Rock. For the whole story, click here: http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/85743/241124.php

As an organization whose focus is to grow the sport, we are always interested in hearing stories about the struggles and victories all organizations go through to get new courses created. Feel free to email me or Tim with your local stories. Soon we will have a forum and other ways for us to meet and discuss the growth of the sport, no matter where in the country or world you are.