My home town needs a disc golf course

[Itchy]

The neighboring city had a course but it's on private land behind a hotel. I think it has a new owner because people are no longer welcome there.

I've been looking at Innova's web page and they claim for about $3,500 you can get 9 baskets, tee signs and a little rules sign. I figure $500 more for concrete (tees and planting baskets) and padlocks for the baskets.

Can you really put together a 9 hole course for $4,000 and the parks department's say so?
Are there other expenses I'm not accounting for?

Does anybody know any place I can get grant money or sponsors? Michelle Obama's Let's Move is real big on regular exercise in nature and walking but I'm not sure if they give out grants. I think I can get local sponsors, but I'm not sure I can get $4K worth of local sponsors.

Any lessons learned from people who have built courses?

[mliguori]

I don't have any personal expereince building a course, but I know one was just proposed in my town this year. They pitched a number of 25k for a 9 hole course with two baskets her hole, but that may have included other costs like desgn fees and such.

[lsf21]

I think courses should have a donation can in front of them. Its expensive to install and maintain, I would put a dollar or two in every time I played.

[Itchy]

We wouldn't be professionally designing the course, just me (RHBH mostly), a RHFH player and a LHBH player are taking a portable basket to the park and setting up the best lines we can find. We've been doing it for almost a year so we know the space pretty well. We sometimes get surprised when we take somebody new out there who shows us a hole we never thought about.

Yeah, a donation box would be nice but that only helps once the course is already in place. The main goal though, is a place where families and Ams could go for free and enjoy a challenge that one person on private land can't take away.

[mliguori]

I do know one of my local courses has baskets that were donated by local players and businesses, has it labeled right on the basket. So that an option for deferring costs if you have some connections.

[Itchy]

So basket #1 has a Big 5 decal on it and basket #2 has a K-Mart decal on it. Something like that?

That's a pretty smart idea, if I can get 9 local sponsors. Then we'd only need a few hundred for concrete.

[Wordgie]

I've been thinking of this alot lately.

The equipment, form what I've seen, is the cheapest part. The designer, land and decorations/landscape is where it gets you.

Sponsorship?

Is it possible to set up a tier program for the park in general then add hole sponsors? You can do local merchants, restaurants, churches (one sponsors a hole at my home course), manufacturers, law firms, etc.? How about trade sponsorship for landscape work? If it's for a not for profit, there are tax credits.

Volunteers. I read about a short 9 hole course in Columbus, OH that was designed and built by an Eagle Scout for his project. Which comes to scouts. There are all sorts of badges the guys can earn related to DG.

Schools. Maybe find a school with an industrial arts/construction program that is looking for work. They can do the benches, sign posts, etc. Then maybe the art class for the painting.

Community service hours. This both criminal justice related as well as civic groups/students who need to volunteer for hours. On the criminal justice side, we have teen court in FL. Most crimes the teens commit can qualify and they get to go into the program a diversion from the regular criminla justice system. It's a great alternative and has a very high success rate. One of the sanctions imposed is community service hours. You've got otherwise decent kids who were charged minor offenses, many of which can shine at this if given the right supervision.

If there is a club involved, see if they can do fund raisers?

[lsf21]

Also you dont HAVE to have concrete tee pads to start with.... but whatever you do please dont fill a box up with sand and call it a teebox.

My shitty local course did this, I tee off from the side of it in dirt.

[Itchy]

Does anybody know if the cost of stamping tee info onto the teepads is comparable to having free standing metal tee signs? My town has a graffiti problem and the city likes the idea of stamping the info on the tee pad. I know people do that kind of work professionally, but is it something I can do with a set of larger metal stamps?

[Itchy]

Turns out it's pretty easy to stamp your own tee signs if you use mason mix cement mix.



We also finished the first disc golf course in Lompoc's city limits late today. Tees and baskets are in, we'll have to wait a week or so for our course sign and mando sign, but it's in and people are already playing it. Pictures soon... hopefully.

[keltik]

Awesome, I'm glad to see you accomplished your goal! What was the final cost?

[Itchy]

Thanks. We got a ton of stuff donated by the community and ended up just under $4k.

[Hoey]

Congratulations!!

[Itchy]

Thanks Hoey, here's some pictures.

What our tee pads look like. 4' wide by 9' long.


Our baskets... bet nobody's seen one of these before.


Tee signs are part of the tee box.


A look about 1/2 way down hole 9.


Tee sign for hole 4.


Me teeing off on 4.


Me trying to pretend I don't have a camera in my face while putting up the hill to basket 2.


There was more playing than photo taking going on, but I hope you guys liked the short tour.

[keltik]

those teepads are schweeeeet!