New course in Uwharrie National Forest

[chainmonkey]

I have heard that there is a new 9 hole course planed for the Kings Mountain Point area in the Uwharrie National Forest near the community of Eldorado. It will be located between a activities field and a walking path. It will be fairly short holes between 150 and 300 feet, wooded, and somewhat flat. But will have nice views of the lake and there are abundant picnic tables, grills, two restrooms facilities one with running water. There are several places to fish from and a nice 5 mile hiking trail that starts and ends at the parking lot. I have mixed feelings about this course, to many picnic tables in the area of the fairways, to limited an area to install the course, to great a chance of a errant disc hitting a walker, the Forest Service personal do not really understand disc golf, but they do have a volunteer that has been playing for 8+ years and has done some design in the past helping them in the design.

[King Griplock]

this is good news. You will be able to get a warm up round in and then go right down the road to Fox Chase. It sounds like it has the potential to be a good course if thought out thoroughly.

[chainmonkey]

I have found out that they are suppose to start work on the course this week. Russ from Innova is suppose to be in town on Wednesday, I was told, to go up and look over the layout. The Uwharrie National Forest consist of somewhere in the neighborhood of 40,000 acres and they are putting this a 9 hole course in a day use area that gets somewhat crowded on weekends in summer. In winter it is ofter deserted, there is often a fairly strong breeze coming off the lake. At the present time there are a lot of downed trees in this area which makes me concerned about maintenance on the course or the possibility of the lack of.

[chainmonkey]

From what I understand the sleeves for the baskets went in today, although they have not stated clearing the fairways and greens and have not done anything with tees.

[chainmonkey]

Yesterday I was told that the folks at the Uwharrie National Forest do not plan on doing any under-brushing, clearing of fairways, or installing tees. Just installing the baskets next week

[BrotherDave]

Cool, thanks Chainmonkey for the due diligence.

[chainmonkey]

Well Dudes; today I decided to take a drive up to Kings Mountain Point in the Forest and see what I could see. There are 9 shiny new DISCatcher Basket -- Pro baskets out there. This is the 1st time I have been there in over a week, and the last time I was there no baskets where in site. There also appeared to be fairways marked with blue flagging. And several of the dead trees have been cut down, but there are still a lot of dead trees remaining that need to come down. I hope that none of these remaining trees fall on any of the baskets. There are no tees under construction at least I could not find any. The sun was setting when I was there and that made for some interesting looks at the baskets several of times I would have been putting directly into the sun. If any of you are interested in the location of the course visit http://www.uwharriemountainfestival.com/ the festival takes place on the point where the course is. The 1st hole is at the west end of the parking lot. Throw well

[chainmonkey]

Another update; I went up again today to see what was going on. The forest service was up there burning some brush piles. Charles an associate of mine has worked with the Uwharrie Mountain Festival for 2 years setting up a temporary course that was used during the festival. The piles of brush were mainly his efforts from those layouts. They were cutting down some dead trees and they said that they had plenty more to cut down. I talked to Drew, the fellow in charge of installing the course and ask him about tees. He said that he was not going to put any tees in, just tee markers, something like a 16X16 square maybe rubber maybe concrete he was not sure. Then he said that this course is for families not pros, it would not be recognized for tournament play so run-up tee shots are not going to be provided for. I know when an associate of mine talked to him another time he said the same thing about the fairways and landing areas, that is that it did not need to be a clean course with definite fairways because it is for family play not pros. It seems that the US Forest Service thinks that family play is not as important as pro play. Or maybe they think that family players can put the disc exactly where they want too. I am afraid my excitement for a new course is waning.

[BrotherDave]

Yeah, that's disappointing, to me my definition of family fun is not hitting a tree every 30'. Thanks for the recon work.

[chainmonkey]

Hey Dudes; I make another trip up to the Uwharrie National Forest today and took my tape measure with me. As noted earlier there are 9 holes and each hole has 2 tees. Additional trees have been cut down. At least all I saw was flagging that said long tee and short tee. the 1st hole, is 255 & 270 playing uphill old road bed to a basket protected by trees. 2, 215 & 299 short plays L to R mostly flat old road bed long plays S with 1st 120 uphill then flat. 3, 230 & 283 mostly flat. ST is in a wooded section fairly tight technical, LT is old road bed. 4, is in a wooded area there were no tee flags on this hole. 5, only 1 tee flag 212 feet straight with slight fade at end flat. 6 ST 227 LT 306. ST is right to left flat, LT is old road bed left to right nice long curve. 7, ST 155, LT 228 ST plays right to left LT straight & tight. 8, ST 202, LT 239; ST plays rt to left, LT plays left to right old road bed and both play uphill. 9, ST 155 LT 260, Plenty of room to lengthen ST level and straight, LT starts uphill and 1st 130 feet is tight. There are 18 picnic tables near the course each pad being 11 X 23 concrete pads with a grill on each one. but there was not enough room for cc tee pads. There is also a good sized cleared area that is mowed on top of the hill but none of the course was allowed in that area. seems horses use the area once a year. Several of the holes tees could be lengthened. there are 2 toilet facilities in the area of the course one has real plumbing.

[chainmonkey]

I went up to the Uwharrie National Forest today. There were 2 guys with 16 inch square concrete stepping stones and bags of concrete there. I ask them what ya doin? They informed they were installing tees. I walked around and noticed that several of the so called tees were not in the places that the flags had designated as tees. I ask them about it and they said that it was just too hard to did in the areas designated. Also one hole only had one tee on it. Number 6 I believe. Drew the guy in charge said that he had to have the course ready for the Uwharrie Mountain Festival in 10 days so i guess you can start playing any time now. Best of luck. I will try and post the course on the course description page as soon as I can get the necessary info.

[chainmonkey]

I think I have all the information I need to post the UNF course in DG course review. I hope to get it done this weekend. My desktop died so I do not have access to the web I use to.

[chainmonkey]

I have posted the course in DGCR and hope to get some photos soon

[Ryan P.]

It's officially opening on Saturday.

[chainmonkey]

Yea this weekend is the Uwharrie Mountain Festival. Everybody come on down and fling a few disc.

[chainmonkey]

Well I went out to the Uwharrie Mountain Festival, I hope that nobody made a special trip to play the course. I got there after lunch and there was a car parked next to the #2 basket and there were 3 cars parked on the #6 tee. Also the National Forest Ranger had 4X4 post planted next to the tee markers so that you would hit your hand on them in your followthrough. But there were a lot of folks at the festival.