This Labor Day weekend, I’m haveing a BBQ at my grandparents, who own eight acres of land. Always trying to get my friends to try new sports, I thought about setting up a disc golf course to take it around the eight acres. Since the expensive baskets are out of my unemployed price range, a friend of mine told me that at SSU they just put up targets on the trees for their course.
What I’d like to know is more details about setting up my own disc golf course, such as determine par, the right size for non-basket targets, recommended distances between holes, how to set up the tee, etc. Or if you know a website that maps this all out simply, let me know. Thanks!
Let me get this straight – you want to set up a disc golf course on 8 acres IN TWO DAYS?
OK.
Since you don’t have time or money to put up poles with baskets, I’m thinking some sort of target placed on the ground will have to do. Laundry baskets come to mind – you can put them on some concrete blocks and put another block inside to make them stable. You can also nail them to trees, for some variety.
You don’t mention whether this acreage is mown or not. If not, you’re going to have to mow it, at least ‘tee’, ‘fairway’ and ‘green’ areas. Mow different area’s to different heights. If it’s already mown, you can probably trim parts of it as appropriate.
A google search on “disc golf” will provide lots of links…check those out. I “designed” and played quite a few courses in the San Jose area, using the larger public parks. Our targets ran the gamut from trees to fire hydrants to trash cans to having to throw the disc thru a hanging tire in a play area. We had to play early in the morning, in order to avoid the general public…people don’t take kindly to being hit by a golf disc! If you only have trees, just use some colored duct tape to mark them. I played a course in the badlands of a Montana State Park with targets made from rebar stuck in the ground. Use your imagination!
Pretty much the reaction of my best friend, even though he hadn’t heard of disc golf before But with no work, I’ve got lots of time on my hands.
The laundry basket, the garbage can, and the swinging tire are great ideas. Hadn’t thought of those. I was thinking of using one of those spherical BBQ grills.
As for having a tree as a target, yawndave, would the whole tree count, or only part of it?
When we used trees as targets, the usual rule was that the trunk below the first branch (or below 2 meters) was good,
as were any above-ground connected roots. Of course, certain trees required a ‘spotter’ in order to judge close calls. Having a spotter in place was always the responisbility of the person making the shot, and the spotter’s decision was final.
You could mark tees with string/ribbon/tape held down with nails, or plastic/paper cups weighed down with rocks or whatever.
One other thing: design the course by yourself–making a course by committee is very frustrating and takes a LONG time. Just grab a disc and walk around looking for likely tees and targets, and make up the course as you go. Try to keep the targets fairly visible from the tee, and place the tees close to the previous hole.
Mowing, Danalan? What kinda crazy golf do they play where you hail from? Sounds suspiciously like ball golf to me.
As for the OP, just pick whatever happens to be handy. It’s worth doing a below the first branch type rule, but I’m assuming that if you’re introducing your friends to the sport, the bigger the target, the better. I’d be more worried about finding shady spots close to the holes to park the coolers.
-ellis
who hasn’t played in too damn long. blasted open container laws in this communist state.
Most of the times I’ve played non-basket Disc Golf the players just take turns picking the hole, tee and rules/penalties.
Holes can be anything. Don’t just say hit that thing, rather make the hole something like “to the left of that tree, under that bench and knock the reciever off of that pay phone”.
Tees are somewhere in the vicinity of the previous hole.
Penalties are something like “You need to be holding a full beer and it’s a stroke penalty to spill it” or “one stroke penalty for hitting branches”.
Calculating pars is a pain. Just say everything is par 3, play skins or count strokes.
Despite yawndaves claim that people don’t like getting hit by discs, having a person be a hole is great fun. I’d recommend being the first person to sink that one, people shooting later are at a big disadvantage.
Try to incorporate some water hazards. You aren’t playing real frisbee golf unless you have to wade into the muck of a swamp chin deep to retrieve your disc.
Well, there is this swimming pool, but it’s kind of hard to stand in the middle of it. There’s a fish pond, but the fish get annoyed if people walk through it. There’s a winter creek, but there’s very little water in it right now and I doubt many people are willing to brave that hazard I guess I’ll stick with the pool and the people hazards…
Designing a new (non-basket-style) course is a blast, and 2 days is no problem. My thoughts:
Design it for Discraft 175 Ultrastars (the kind of disc you play ultimate with) or Wham-o Frisbees (the kind of disc you play ultimate with if no one has an Ultrastar.) The reasons: a) more people have these lying around, b) the course won’t need as much fairway, c) people are more comfortable throwing them. (Actual golf discs take a while to get used to.)
Possible “holes”
a) hit a tree trunk
b) land (and stay) on top of a stump
c) pass the disc through a swing (i.e., it has to go between the chains, below the support bar, above the seat…)
d) hit a door
I’m not sure what you’ll have available, but hopefully it’s a complex enough area. (I’m used to designing/playing courses on college campuses where there are statues and artwork all around making for interesting targets…)
Things to incorporate as often as possible:
a) elevation changes
b) water hazzards
c) shots with options (where maybe you could take a risky shot under some tree or play a safe high curving shot around it.)
Things to avoid:
a) “mandatories”. That is, avoid arbitrary non-hole-related rules like, “Your disc has to go around this side of that pole.” For the actual holes, such rules can make for interesting challenges, but for the fairways, you usually don’t need/want them. (They limit creative play.)
b) people paths. You’ll find yourself waiting for folks to get out of the way all the time…
Choosing hole lengths: To get this right, you’ll want to play the new course a few times and make adjustments. One thing to avoid is a hole that is, say, impossible to hit in 2, but trivial to hit in 3. (Everyone scores a 3. Boring.) If you have such a hole, either make it longer or change the target definition somehow.
Choosing pars: A good 9-hole course might have two par 3s, two par 5s, and five par 4s. 5’s add some spread to the match, 3’s can be exciting (or boring, for the above reason), 4’s are meat-and-potatoes…
One thing I have noticed on disc golf courses in regards to distance:
Use the general idea of yardage distances for golf holes, but convert to feet for disc golf. If a normal par 5 in gold is 500-500 yards, make a par 5 disc golf hole 500-550 feet and so on.
But with no work, I’ve got lots of time on my hands.
I guess I’ll stick with the pool and the people hazards…