Grow the sport? No thanks.

[Pwingles]

Jub,
A lot of places in the US utilize existing parks to install dg courses on. Its not ideal and can be a pain, but those would likely mostly remain free if your town or a nearby one installed it.

I dont mean to imply that dg has to follow ball golfs path with country clubs and all the exclusivety that golf stinks of. Dont get me wrong, i personally love the idea of pay to play courses, but i dont love the idea of all courses requiring a fee.

Also i dont think its out of the question it could get televised giventhat there was higher quality equipment and people using, better editing and production etc, all that takes is money, which could come from advertisers and such, its a log shot for sure, but it could happen.

[Ryan C]

I agree with Mark. I would happily pay $5 or maybe even $10 to play a quality, professionally maintained course. I don't want this to become like ball golf, which is why I switched to disc golf, but $5 is very reasonable. I am honestly sick of the huge groups of casual players at my home courses. There are always groups of like 7 or 8 of them, and they are universally terrible players, who cause tons of chaos.

I would love to see disc golf taken more seriously. If growth caused the game to be taken more seriously, then hooray for growth! But if all that growth causes is more and more groups of stoners at my local course, I'll pass. Disc golf is such a cheap hobby, compared to many, that I have absolutely no reason to fear my favorite courses costing a few bucks to play.

[veganray]

I would love to see disc golf taken more seriously.

By whom? Why?

[Pwingles]

I would love to see disc golf taken more seriously.

By whom? Why?

Cities and park boards mostly imo.
Would make it easier to propose new courses, change/improve existing ones, a chance to run more organized events due to its new found publicity and accessibility.

More exposure creates interest, creating a larger market, more demand for courses(hopefully the majority of which will be dg only or have a seperate dg course from the park) more competition among companies to put out a better product at a reasonable price.

Imo..These are potential biproducts of dg becoming more commercialized. And integrating outside companies not previously associated with dg may not hurt either, red bull, nike, etc

[Jeronimo]

IMO, I'd like to see $10 a round on quality courses with seasons passes offered for the local crowd at a reasonable discount. I pay $150 for a years pass at my local course that is $5 a round and after 30 rounds (YAY MATH!), which I inevitably surpass every year, its paid for itself. I sincerely think the $5 standard for pay-to-play private courses is too cheap to cover the costs of a quality course and be profitable for its owner AND/OR be alluring enough to interest other parties in building quality courses.

I'm afraid Mark is correct, at least from all the circumstantial evidence i've seen, that $5 is too cheap to discourage the riffraff from "Bro-ing" all over the courses. At least in New England anyway... way too many high fives and fist pumps going on around up he'ah.

[Jeronimo]

Jub,
A lot of places in the US utilize existing parks to install dg courses on. Its not ideal and can be a pain, but those would likely mostly remain free if your town or a nearby one installed it.

I dont mean to imply that dg has to follow ball golfs path with country clubs and all the exclusivety that golf stinks of. Dont get me wrong, i personally love the idea of pay to play courses, but i dont love the idea of all courses requiring a fee.

Also i dont think its out of the question it could get televised giventhat there was higher quality equipment and people using, better editing and production etc, all that takes is money, which could come from advertisers and such, its a log shot for sure, but it could happen.

Had one of those earlier, poor janitor looked horrified when he went in to clean the stalls.

[jubuttib]

Jub,
A lot of places in the US utilize existing parks to install dg courses on. Its not ideal and can be a pain, but those would likely mostly remain free if your town or a nearby one installed it.

They do it in Finland too, where they can. Parks in Finland though tend to be small. Really small. For example the biggest one in Kuopio is about 2.3 acres (something like 120 meters by 80 meters). OK, there is one bigger than that, but it's 99% water, basically a pond with a ribbon of ground 20-40 meters wide surrounding it, about half of it paved, and an additional 30 percent filled with a basketball court, a tiny soccer field, a beach volleyball court, etc...

The parks in the surrounding areas are pretty similarly sized. There's lots and lots of open land in Finland, but it's mostly privately own forests.

[JR]

120by80 is ridiculous especially in a smaller town surrounded by lots of forests. Helsinki has scores of way larger parks and the city center is on a wedge sticking out to sea from the mainland.

[JHern]

The folks at DGA told me that they sell way more baskets for private courses than they do for public courses, and that nobody is really tracking the growth of private courses. There are over a dozen private courses just in the area I live, and hardly anyone knows they even exist.

My favorite tournament that we attend every year is in the Sierras at a private course (word-of-mouth, douche bags are not invited). It is simply awesome! You just can't do the same kind of stuff on public land that they can pull off on private land. They are in the process of installing another 18-hole course, and are building cabins which will eventually become a disc golf resort...very very very nice! I love to see this kind of stuff going on.

[Ryan C]

I would love to see disc golf taken more seriously.

By whom? Why?

This is a fair question. Most people don't consider disc golf a sport, which I think is telling. When you eat/sleep/breath disc golf, its easy to forget that almost no one has ever heard of Ken Climo. The best disc golf players in the world should be showcased in better, more professional ways, which will eventually bring people into the sport that are not interested because its a practically free hobby, but rather were impressed with what they saw, and want to try competing themselves.

Right now, lots of people play disc golf BECAUSE its free. It requires no commitment. This is why when you go to most local courses, 99% of players you'll see are completely terrible, often smoking weed and drinking beer. THOSE are the disc golfers other park-goers are going to see. THAT is the impression they get of what disc golf is. Its pretty sad, actually.

If we can "grow the sport" in the right way, which in my opinion has a lot to do with media, it will result in better courses, better competition, better equipment, etc. Right now, we don't even necessarily have top tier athletes competing. Feldberg might be a scrub compared to some of the people disc golf might attract if it were viewed as a worthwhile pursuit. But as it is now, why would someone with a sports scholarship, or even a current professional athlete, invest time in a sport that only pays out in the thousands for winning a world championship?

We aren't in danger of our sport ever becoming exactly like ball golf. By nature, we do not require manicured grass for disc golf to be played at a high level. We do not need as much space. Greens fees should never even approach ball golf's. I think growing, if we grow in the right way, can only be massively beneficial for everyone.

[Pwingles]

Jub,
A lot of places in the US utilize existing parks to install dg courses on. Its not ideal and can be a pain, but those would likely mostly remain free if your town or a nearby one installed it.

I dont mean to imply that dg has to follow ball golfs path with country clubs and all the exclusivety that golf stinks of. Dont get me wrong, i personally love the idea of pay to play courses, but i dont love the idea of all courses requiring a fee.

Also i dont think its out of the question it could get televised giventhat there was higher quality equipment and people using, better editing and production etc, all that takes is money, which could come from advertisers and such, its a log shot for sure, but it could happen.

Had one of those earlier, poor janitor looked horrified when he went in to clean the stalls.

lol stupid iPhone and stupid fat thumbs

[turso]

The folks at DGA told me that they sell way more baskets for private courses than they do for public courses, and that nobody is really tracking the growth of private courses. There are over a dozen private courses just in the area I live, and hardly anyone knows they even exist.

My favorite tournament that we attend every year is in the Sierras at a private course (word-of-mouth, douche bags are not invited). It is simply awesome! You just can't do the same kind of stuff on public land that they can pull off on private land. They are in the process of installing another 18-hole course, and are building cabins which will eventually become a disc golf resort...very very very nice! I love to see this kind of stuff going on.

Private DG resorts is actually the way I'd like the commercializing see to go. Assuming the costs are reasonable, few excellent courses and cabins for weekend or longer vacations would rule.

[Ryan C]

I would gladly pay money for that.

[Leopard]

pay to play is where it's at.

[Alcuin]

My town has been thinking about implementing pay to play, and from what I understand while they haven't taken the plunge before they're more serious than ever. The county is expanding one course to 27 holes and building another 18 and those two have their own pay to play fee structure. The others in town will then have a different daily and annual fees regulated by the city. So it could be that the whole town becomes pay to play, which could be great. They are also talking about building some 9 hole courses with more recreational layouts and keeping them free. In an ideal world, this would work out perfectly. I think we've got at least a good shot at having not only quality courses but quality disc golf too while giving people who think that disc golf is nothing but a drinking game a place to go.