Magic Mountain, Southern VT: Maybe the best course you've never heard of

[DoWork]

Lots of improvements for year 2, including lots of C1 wood chips around the baskets, lots of cutbacks & cleanups on the fairways and a bunch of crushed stone walkways/hand cut drainages to disperse water more effectively. The bar at the lodge is also now open every Thursday-Sunday, so afternoon players can enjoy a cold beer or hot food while they watch other cards play 18 or 1.

Honestly though, have you been or are you planning to? It's a super challenging course, and is also incredibly dramatic in terms of scenery. It would be a really nice hike even without a DG course. It's well maintained and a kick-ass bar right at the bottom. I'm obviously biased because I built the place but I've never seen anywhere like it.

To bring you up to speed, we hold buy-in cash bracket league (Pay Brackets, 3 cashout CTPs and Ace Pool) Saturdays at 2pm, and we're planning to hold our first unsanctioned Fall Classic tournament October 12th. We are starting our Night King bi-weekly glow points league on Friday nights in August-Sept (stay tuned for dates) and also hope to unveil a REALLY cool course redesign that would add another downhill bomber hole on the existing back 9 and eliminate what is now Hole 9. We also hope to upgrade the front 9 tee boxes to match the back 9 this season, but are currently building a chairlift so time is VERY tight for our limited grounds crew. Nearby 18 hole courses include Chester, Manchester, Bromley Mountain, Bennington, Killington and

I'd love to hear from anybody who's been to Magic, anybody who wants to go or heck even casual observers that will likely never make it out. We're doing the best we can to build a regional hub that does this sport justice and would love anybody's input to help make that a reality.

Here's a few pics in case you've never feasted your eyes on the place: (if someone could legit embed the pics that would be great, I suck at it)

https://www.dgcoursereview.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=68869&stc=1&d=1563198959

https://www.dgcoursereview.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=68870&stc=1&d=1563198959

https://www.dgcoursereview.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=68871&stc=1&d=1563198959


As always, questions, comments, rants, complaints, and scathing vitriol are always appreciated in a big way while we find our way. :thmbup: Happy hyzering out there!

Also, facebook group is located here:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1694933290555431/


Instagram here:
https://www.instagram.com/discgolfatmagic/?hl=en

 

[Horsman]

This course was on my list for a trip I just took to Maple Hill but ultimately it was cut out of the courses I played because of the tee pads. I couldnt risk injuries from throwing off of raised gravel tee pads. I know the tee pads will 100% always keep me away from any course, no matter how good it is.

 

[DoWork]

This course was on my list for a trip I just took to Maple Hill but ultimately it was cut out of the courses I played because of the tee pads. I couldnt risk injuries from throwing off of raised gravel tee pads. I know the tee pads will 100% always keep me away from any course, no matter how good it is.

Our surepac tees aren't bad but we are hoping to turf them soon. We have a turf guy that plays here and is helping in his spare time but he is on the road most of the year. I will update the course once it's finished, and I hope to see you once we've got that upgraded. Thanks for the feedback!

 

[ballgolfconvert]

I think it is more about dropoff than materials used. Hopefully you install the turf at ground level.

 

[DoWork]

I think it is more about dropoff than materials used. Hopefully you install the turf at ground level.

On a mountainside that's sometimes the hardest part. Several of our tees are built into a steep hillside and thus may be below grade in the back and protruding in the front. We tried to build everything level, and it's often a give and take to accomplish that. 13 is a good example. It's one dimension that will take a lot of work to mitigate, but I am developing some ideas that will help- mostly moving tees but some require machine excavation for a larger tee area as there is no realistic alternative otherwise.

 

[dreadlock86]

looks awesome, it was already on my wish list (but so are 3k other courses)

so are the front 9 all turf now? personally, i'd rather have grass than gravel.

 

[DoWork]

looks awesome, it was already on my wish list (but so are 3k other courses)

so are the front 9 all turf now? personally, i'd rather have grass than gravel.

No, we have the turf but I want to upgrade the tees to the heavy lumber we used on the back 9 themselves before we install the turf.

 

[dreadlock86]

heavy lumber frames? like the pic of hole 15 above or even heavier lumber?

i'll echo the other statements: too much drop off in front of or behind the tee is rather undesirable. i feel that wooden frames almost always make that problem worse.

 

[DoWork]

heavy lumber frames? like the pic of hole 15 above or even heavier lumber?

i'll echo the other statements: too much drop off in front of or behind the tee is rather undesirable. i feel that wooden frames almost always make that problem worse.

The lumber will be exactly like 15, except minus the marks from being hit by the snow groomer during the ski season. By design they are supposed to be flush mounted to the ground, in reality there are TONS of rocks, roots and other stuff that make it darn near impossible by hand so we have to go back and excavate to finish some of them- which is expensive and time consuming so we have to budget and allocate carefully. We are also right in the middle of a chairlift install, a new pond dam construction and I have a 5 month old at home so my spare time flat out does not exist haha

The full plan for tees was to put them in as best we could with the budget we had at the time to get the ball rolling and then address any issues after playing for a bit. 15 is by far the most pronounced and an area like that requires a large flat to be excavated, and then the tee recessed into that. It's first on my list but it's really tough to shoehorn a day or two with a machine as operator into DG and pull away from huge CAPEX projects that are always behind schedule. I just want everyone to know that we do care about these details a TON and will absolutely be addressing them but don't have a ton of time this summer- and they are all clean, dry and totally playable for the time being.

I'm looking forward to the next round of improvements for sure but it's already a really nice setup. Final tee design looks like a ground-flush red frame as shown in the pic with a flush inner area of turf but it'll take a while to make it happen for the whole course- they should be finished for next summer season realistically. I'd love to do pavers but they're significantly more pricey.

The course is looking great though. Played last night and the new trims have made a few of the lines a lot more fun to throw on.

 

[dreadlock86]

impressive plans for an already impressive looking course. thank you for all your work!