St. Charles, MO

[JoshBusche27]

I am a sopomore at University Missouri-Rolla, working on an Engineering degree. This summer I landed an internship working for the St. Charles Parks and Rec Dept. My main task was to design a new park located near downtown St. Charles. Inbetween North River Road/Hawning Road and Highway 94, just north of 370 before you hit the river. In the park is going to be sports practice fields, baseball, soccer, football, picnic areas, a lake, and a big bmx course/track (but you guys don't care about that...)

In this park is going to be (the city of) St. Charles first disc golf course! :eek:

Before I got this job, I had not played before, but have been trying to get some first hand experience if I am going to be designing a course. I have played courses, and viewed many courses on this site for ideas, both good and bad so I know what to do and what to stay away from.

Right now I have a good mix of a course with two par 4's and sixteen par 3's with the 18th hole going over water. The course will take you in and out of the woods, interacting with the rest of the park without worrying about telling people to move out of the way before you shoot. Also, the area is very flat right now, but after we dig a lake for the park, we will have plenty of dirt to use for elevation change for the course.

It is still in the design process, the park as a whole is coming along nicely, but it being +100 acre park is going to take a while to build. I am trying to designate about 25 acres to the Disc Golf portion, and it looks like it is going to happen. :D

I just wanted to start this thread to give everyone a heads up, and I will keep updating this thread as new items come up. Like I said before, it is still in the design process and will take many months, if not years to build. But I will keep sending updates for anyone in the St. Louis area on this thread. Also when the head of St. Charles Parks Dept is looking for input I will let everyone know so you might be able to give some input to help the course reach it's full potential. :)

Thanks everyone.

[blackandwhite]

sounds AWESOME. if only there were more positions available such as the one you landed.

Qualities I like in a course: water play (not much, but some where you MIGHT lose your disc), some holes that have narrow fairways, and holes that have hills in play that throw off the 'distance look' of where the pin is in relation to the tee.

hope everything with this goes as planned, if it does, i foresee a GREAT course. Gl and keep us posted

[Chucktown]

Hey Josh that is great news to hear that St. Charles is finally going to get a disc golf course. Is the park completely in the open or are there any trees there yet?

[JoshBusche27]

It's overrun right now. Used to be a mobile home site but got flooded in '93. now it's all flood buyout property. Quite a few trees right now along with grass and shrubbery, but if you threw a disc anywhere in that area it'd take you at least 3 minutes to find.

One thing it does not have is elevation, the whole 100 acres has a total of 3 feet of change in elevation from one side to the other.
Which is why we're digging the lake... so that problem is solved.

We're going to burn/chip the trees for the fields and rest of the park. but a lot of work needs to be done for the disc golf part for it to become a course.

Luckily the head of the parks department is a very nice lady, and is pretty well educated in disc golf, knowing that there needs to be obstacles, elevation changes, maybe water, etc. and she also knows that when the time comes if she gets the word out she can get help and incite from local disc golfers.

Also the park board of directors that I gave a presentation a week ago are nice as well. One man had this to say:
"If this is going to be St. Charles first disc golf course then we need to do it right."

so... I think we're off to a pretty good start, even if it is going to take a while to develop.

[Three Putt]

Is this the Ed Bales Area you are talking about?

[Three Putt]

Or is it the area North of the Ed Bales area and south of Hawning Rd with all the streets and no buildings?

[JoshBusche27]

North of Ed Bales. That's correct with all the streets. Well, they used to be streets, but they're all overrun and no one lives there.

Actually, during the buyout, EVERYONE sold except for one guy, so there's still 1 road... with 1 guy... living on like 300 sq feet of land in the south of the park.

On the north side of it is farmland, mostly corn, then the street, Hawning Road.
West side is highway 94.
East side is North River Road.
And bordering the south is a huge fenced of property owned by Boeing, one of their plants, which is why I placed the dg course on the north side of the park. Haha, don't want any discs flying over there.

[JoshBusche27]

And like I said guys, this is still in the planning process. Nothing is official yet and we're still working on a lot of stuff.

But it's looking good.

[JoshBusche27]

http://suburbanjournals.stltoday.com/articles/2009/07/28/stcharles/news/0729stc-parkland0.txt

I know it doesn't say anything about a DG course, but trust me. It's in the plans.

[Maddisc]

Josh my name is Mark Dudenhoeffer I would be happy to help with whatever you need.
I have been playing disc golf for 12 plus years. If there is anything you need or want just let me know. We will do what we can to help.
Mark Dudenhoeffer
Course Captain Jefferson Barracks Disc Golf Course
314-713-8640

[discinvan]

This is excellent news. I travel often to St. Charles and would love to play a new course when done.

[REDARMY]

rock on dude!

hope this all comes to fruition. :)

[Chucktown]

Any word on this course? I have not driven out there to check it out and nobody has talked about it yet in my league.

[REDARMY]

nothing on the st. louis boards either.

i'm sure lindenwood will be in the ground before this one, stealing his 'first in st. charles' crown.

[REDARMY]

any updates josh?

[REDARMY]

dunno where the actual lindenwood thread went, but the course is there!

#20 for St. Louis area! woohoo!

[Three Putt]

dunno where the actual lindenwood thread went, but the course is there!

#20 for St. Louis area! woohoo!Hmmm...
1. White Birch
2. Creve Coeur
3. Sioux Passage
4. Jefferson Barracks
5. Watson Trail
6. Schroeder
7. Endicott
8. Bluebird
9. SIUE
10. Quail Ridge
11. Woodland
12. Kircher
13. Roxana
14. Rocksprings
15. Unger
16. Arnold
17. Lindenwood

I guess you are counting El Shaddai and the two courses in Festus to get to 20? I guess it's all where you draw the line in the sand. You could go all the way out and claim Centralia and pull in four more courses right there and be sitting at 24. 26 if you count the dead courses in Washington and St. Charles.

[discinvan]

I guess you are counting El Shaddai and the two courses in Festus to get to 20? I guess it's all where you draw the line in the sand. You could go all the way out and claim Centralia and pull in four more courses right there and be sitting at 24. 26 if you count the dead courses in Washington and St. Charles.

I would count Festus because from south st. louis it's no further of a drive than Quail Ridge is.

[REDARMY]

Hmmm...
1. White Birch
2. Creve Coeur
3. Sioux Passage
4. Jefferson Barracks
5. Watson Trail
6. Schroeder
7. Endicott
8. Bluebird
9. SIUE
10. Quail Ridge
11. Woodland
12. Kircher
13. Roxana
14. Rocksprings
15. Unger
16. Arnold
17. Lindenwood

I guess you are counting El Shaddai and the two courses in Festus to get to 20? I guess it's all where you draw the line in the sand. You could go all the way out and claim Centralia and pull in four more courses right there and be sitting at 24. 26 if you count the dead courses in Washington and St. Charles.

correct. from my zip (63031), those are all within a 50 mile radius, and the RCF has done/will do something official or semi-official with all of those save for the piece of garbage that is SIUE....

[Donald Smith]

Josh,

Not that I'll make it to your area to play, but I'm curious how many Dog legs left and right does the course have?

If you're still researching, INNOVA has a PDF file about how to design a course, another on how many acres it takes, yet another on determining PAR, just in case you haven't discovered them yet.

http://www.innovadiscs.com/coursedesign/course5.htm

There is a menu on that link that will take you to the other PDFs.

They say on the average, an acre of land per hole is good. so with 25 acres you could almost get in 27 holes, if you're thinking about expansion. For the last 9, you could consider a lighted course (IF it is a safe area to be at night.)

I live up by Kirksville, I've played their 9 holer many times, Moberly recently put in a course, Fulton has 18 holes, Marshall, has 18 holes. Playing some of these courses, I have to wonder "what was the designer thinking????"

Stillwater, OK has two courses, both are 18 holes, but the one at Boomer Lake is on fairly flat ground, there is more than 3' of elevation, but since it is so flat and open, and they had a LOT of ground to setup on, they opted for LONG fairways. #10 I believe is 726' long and a par 4, if memory serves me. It is the longest hole. #7 is over water, but there is a second Tee on the other side of the lake if you don't want to risk loosing a disc, and I really appreciate that feature. Even with a Dragon, I don't want to wade or swim in the chilly water of Oct. through April.

One thing I've read is that most designers put in a lot of dog legs to the right, because most people throw RHBH so they naturally curve to the left. Just makes the course a little more challengeing.

The person that designed the 9 hole in Kirksville could have set it up so another 9 could be added later. There is enough unused ground to do that, but it would be hard the way it's setup to add more. The other problem at that park, is who ever is in charge, lets other people do what ever they want. They have a hill for snow sleding. when they added the Disc golf course, they put a basket in the slope to the east, and a Tee in the slop to the north. Most sleds can't be steered, so people crash into the poles. OUCH! Then someone decided to beautify the park, and they've planted 3 trees in the fairway on Hole 9, which is just plane stupid, because you're already shooting over a creek with very steep sides, and it's a dog leg to the right, with the creek all along the right side.

Sorry, I'm sort of ranting, but my point is that who ever is in charge of your park, should allow people to come in and do what ever they want with out consideration of how it will effect the other uses in the park.

I hope this helps in your plans, and that your DG course is a big success.
Donald