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?

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