Course Design Ideas

[five2loves42]

Has anyone here ever played or seen the Animals course in Warwick NY? It has two pads (Blue/Silver) and two pins(Blue/Silver) on EVERY hole. If you play BLUE to BLUE you have a monster with tunnel drives and tight approaches. If you play Silver to Silver, it is very much a beginner course. Then you can play Blue to Silver for more challenging tee shots and Silver to Blue for more challenging approaches AND possibly tee shots.

I had only been playing for about 4 months when I was there in '08, but we played three rounds and had a variety of shots on all three. 

Is there room for something like this in KC, I say yes. Anyone else?

[jack]

Thread drift....and more a course drift....

Tom, this is essentially what I am working towards at Blue Valley, but slightly different.  I want to incorporate the land at BV to encapsulate 2 additional courses, and maintain the large course that is in place.  They would have different color baskets, as you mention, and then alternate pads for the courses as well.

It would be 3 courses and a larger footprint than what is currently used on the "Big Course" and the executive course as well.  That area on the Executive course would be part of one of the other courses that I am working on.

This was approved by the city P&R, and received financing for it in 2010, but the water park that is by the entrance to the park wasn't funded properly, so they asked to use those funds for that.  Being a proponent of more amenities, and better use of the parks, I didn't have an issue with it, and have again requested the financing for this project this year, and should find out about the results in January on it's approval.

It will make a fun and challenging courses (albeit shorter) for the park, and also allow us to possibly host the Blue Valley Open, 3 rounds, three different courses over the course of a weekend.

[Kevin Montgomery]

Bluemont Park in Arlington, VA is similar. But it has a red, white and blue tee on each hole. playing from the red is a very beginner friendly nine-hole round then you can increase the difficulty two more times for 27 holes total with the blue tees being a pretty tough layout including two par fours. They now have multiple baskets on six holes and each holes has four pin placements. KC could use something like that or something like Tom described I think. USM is nine holes with 18 tees. It's a nice way to cram lots of options in a small location. Playing from all the short tees at USM makes for a pretty easy nine holes. But we're way up here in Leavenworth and the course isn't really open to lots of public traffic.

[Tom]

I would very much love to see a highly technical additional course in SMP, however I feel that getting more small beginner friendly courses should be the clubs main focus.  I love the technical courses but there is no way to get my fiance out to those  courses.  I have used Rosedale down under to introduce beginners to the game for years.  I know I have seen lot of new players get discouraged when they play their first round and they consistently have to throw 6 time to get to the hole their host gets to in one or two.  In my experience I also know most new players don't want to be seen teeing off the short tee as it has the stigma of the ladies tee in golf.  I really saw this problem when I took a group from work for their first game to Prairie Center shortly after the recent course updates.  I really do want to see a new A tier course at SMP and it hurts writing this but if I do not believe we should make any existing courses harder until we are able to populate the city with more short beginner level courses.  I know of some people that I could get out to a 9 hole confidence building course that are scared to go out to the existing courses.

There is a sweet little nine holer at a school in Blue Valley off 164th and Antioch I think....?

It would be a really good introductory course for newbys.

The new stuff at PC is gradually softening up around the edges as well. Also, it's very easy to play 1-10, then 17 and 18 at PC, which keeps you from having to deal with holes that players like Hemme, Tank, and Emac appreciate most.

[john theiss]

Multiple tees and multiple baskets  with color coded tee pads and different colored baskets is a great way to go.  With land that has nice tree stands and moderate elevation with  + or - 20 acres, you get the best of both worlds.  Total cost for  tee pads is about 2k.  That is a drop in the bucket.  Second set of baskets, signage, a few benches can get more pricey, but for an extra 10k, you get a lot ammenities to please everyone.  I agree with Tom and would like to see this option incorporated more in KC.  I have talked to LS about that.  You got 500 ft holes with high rough and newbies come out with their one disc and lose it on the first hole. 

If i am fortunate enough to design another course i would lean heavily towards multiple baskets even if i could do it on a few holes and definately multiple pads.  Pads are cheap and folks need to check their egos.  Who plays ball golf from the pro  tees?  Newbies need to be reminded of starting from a spot where you can be successful.

[five2loves42]

I am going to send a note to Greg to get this thread moved/copied  to General Banter-Course Design Ideas (maybe we can sticky that as well.

There are a lot of good ideas in here and want to keep them coming. More visibility on the General Banter thread may just do that.

[TPalmer]

Sure wish the proposed course at Lake Lenexa would resume.  Anybody hear anything new regarding the project?  When they initially announced it, I thought they had secured Houck out of Texas to design it.

[Cooper]

They had. Money fell through when the economy went to hell. It was listed on his website for a while as an ongoing project.

[Mike Hyzer]

With the exception of Legacy, it sure looks like all of our courses were perfectly designed, as far as using the land and topography available. Not sure where the need to bring some big-name designer in from Texas comes from. I'll take our local course designers over that guy any day, and F Texas too.

[sportwood]

I would very much love to see a highly technical additional course in SMP, however I feel that getting more small beginner friendly courses should be the clubs main focus.  I love the technical courses but there is no way to get my fiance out to those  courses.  I have used Rosedale down under to introduce beginners to the game for years.  I know I have seen lot of new players get discouraged when they play their first round and they consistently have to throw 6 time to get to the hole their host gets to in one or two.  In my experience I also know most new players don't want to be seen teeing off the short tee as it has the stigma of the ladies tee in golf.  I really saw this problem when I took a group from work for their first game to Prairie Center shortly after the recent course updates.  I really do want to see a new A tier course at SMP and it hurts writing this but if I do not believe we should make any existing courses harder until we are able to populate the city with more short beginner level courses.  I know of some people that I could get out to a 9 hole confidence building course that are scared to go out to the existing courses.

There is a sweet little nine holer at a school in Blue Valley off 164th and Antioch I think....?

It would be a really good introductory course for newbys.

The new stuff at PC is gradually softening up around the edges as well. Also, it's very easy to play 1-10, then 17 and 18 at PC, which keeps you from having to deal with holes that players like Hemme, Tank, and Emac appreciate most.

That is a great beginner course and it is now an 18 hole course but we need more to get new players.  New players are not as likely to travel very far to play.  To maintain growth of our community I think it makes sense make it easy to find an easier course to try out the game.  Ten years ago the courses we had were fine for promoting growth but there were far fewer people that had heard of the game back then.  Now that the disc golf community has matured a bit here the next logical demographic is not as enthusiastic about diving in full throttle.  PC is where I took my company and it scared a number of them from the game.  I am suggesting what I am because in my experience I have seen a lot of potential new players run off due to the difficulty of the courses around.  I am not saying make existing courses easier.  I am saying that we should put more focus on making the sport more attractive to a wider demographic so that we can afford to continue building increasingly sophisticated top level courses in the future.

I think this thread has been a great conversation to open.  It has sparked a lot of conversation and differing opinions.

[sportwood]

So we agree then. We don't need every course to be super hard, we just need one or two or three to be super hard.

I think, in the end, it comes down to variety. The base SMP course fits within the variety of KC disc golf for having multiple pin positions and being moderately challenging but yet maintaining that air of beginner friendliness. If the park would give us more land, I think we need to swing for the fences and put something out of character for KC there. At least two par 5's, 4-8 par 4's, and the rest can be varying degrees of par 3's. Then, if it needs to be adapted from there, there can be a goal to have two tees on each hole, with one being shorter and much easier, just like at Young Park.

I agree that variety is the key thing for future planning.  I think we need super courses as much as beginner courses as long as there is a good variety.

[jamidanger]

i hate to agree with kyhzer but why bring in an outside designer? let the work be bid right here in town, as smithville was, and let the land managers decide. if a course architect from texas or st. louis would like to come out and bid, send them some specs. with the exception of hole 4 at woodhenge, those 3 courses are great. F D-twat too.

[mpetrin]

I would very much love to see a highly technical additional course in SMP, however I feel that getting more small beginner friendly courses should be the clubs main focus.  I love the technical courses but there is no way to get my fiance out to those  courses.  I have used Rosedale down under to introduce beginners to the game for years.  I know I have seen lot of new players get discouraged when they play their first round and they consistently have to throw 6 time to get to the hole their host gets to in one or two.  In my experience I also know most new players don't want to be seen teeing off the short tee as it has the stigma of the ladies tee in golf.  I really saw this problem when I took a group from work for their first game to Prairie Center shortly after the recent course updates.  I really do want to see a new A tier course at SMP and it hurts writing this but if I do not believe we should make any existing courses harder until we are able to populate the city with more short beginner level courses.  I know of some people that I could get out to a 9 hole confidence building course that are scared to go out to the existing courses.

There is a sweet little nine holer at a school in Blue Valley off 164th and Antioch I think....?

It would be a really good introductory course for newbys.

The new stuff at PC is gradually softening up around the edges as well. Also, it's very easy to play 1-10, then 17 and 18 at PC, which keeps you from having to deal with holes that players like Hemme, Tank, and Emac appreciate most.

It is actually a 18 hole course if you are talking about Blue Valley West High School.and yes 164th and Antioch It is a grest Beginers course as this is where I learned alot. nothing is over 248-260ft with some minor challenging holes. When I first started i used drivers, now I seem to be leaving them in the bag and using mid-ranges

[mpetrin]

Great Topic Cooper, As a beginner I can go to rosedale and hit a 59-60 and a week later get a freaking 72(non-windy day). PC front 9 is great for beginners than gets more challenging towards the end. WW well that place just kicks my butt as soon as I get out of the car, but its fun to challenge myself every once in a while. But on the other hand ya more challenging courses would be great but we do have a hard time getting people out to some of the courses now to help police up trash etc...Smp is fun for beginners as well thats the place I learned alot on my up-slope drives

[jack]

Dear haters......

Yes we do have some good course designers in town.  We also have a ton of courses.  Why on earth wouldn't we want to have a course designed by one of the premier architects currently in the game?

I for one am in the process of trying to get work for John in the area, here is my rationale.

Why not?  Why not have a "Houck Designed" course right here in the metro area to compare our solid folks against?  Why not have that to lure some people to the area that may want to just visit it as an attraction?  Why not then understand that the diversity we bring in may enable us to get new ideas from him, or solidify the notion that we do know what we are doing with our lands that we play on?

Though not a large proponent of Texas, his accolades follow him, as such wouldn't we be silly to shoo him away because of favoritism?

I for one am very interested in not only having a course here but hopefully the chance to work and develop them with him and learn from the experiences that he has.

Even with all of our wonderful folks designing courses in the area, collectively we are still a small fraction of the courses that he has designed.  You learn better tricks from the top pros to help your game, why not learn some new tricks from a top pro on the design side?