The Private DG Course Model

[Anon]

Of the more known P2P places, selah, BRP, VQ, etc, how many offer a seasonal/yearly type pass? Also, are there family pass options or an equivalent? If so, about how much on average are these being priced at?

I feel like these types of operations should offer something similar to what I described since it just makes sense to me, but maybe not everyone sees it that way.

BRP season passes are around ~$150 if I recall correctly. The price goes down depending how far into the year its purchased.

For a local this would be an absolute steal.

 

[DG_player]

Of course, the fact that a quality disc golf course can be placed on land unsuitable for other sports and uses is a strength that may help keep the land costs down.

The other strength of disc golf vs. ball golf is the lack of required maintenance. A decent ball golf course is going to have it's greens mowed daily, fairways mowed a few times a week, and likely will also have a fairly extensive sprinkler system that costs a lot to operate.

A wooded disc golf course may never even need mowed, and even one that is out in the open probably would only need mowed once a week at most.

 

[Doofenshmirtz]

The other strength of disc golf vs. ball golf is the lack of required maintenance. A decent ball golf course is going to have it's greens mowed daily, fairways mowed a few times a week, and likely will also have a fairly extensive sprinkler system that costs a lot to operate.

A wooded disc golf course may never even need mowed, and even one that is out in the open probably would only need mowed once a week at most.

Everything about real golf is expensive. The most expensive part of it, IMO, is the time it takes to play, inluding the amount of practice it takes to maintain a high level of play (single digit handicap). Maintenance of disc golf is definitely a breeze by comparison. Some courses just let the locals do the maintenance.

 

[sidewinder22]

Woods can be more tedious to maintain unless a mower can get through it or you get enough foot traffic to help keep some stuff at bay.

 

[DavidSauls]

Depends on the woods. If dense enough that underbrush is suppressed, woods don't need much routine maintenance. What they require is sudden emergency work, as trees and parts of trees fall, almost always in bad places, and, with the lack of groundcover, erosion has to be remedied.

The worst of all is grassy areas that can't mown---light woods, steep slopes, etc.

 

[Treeplant]

Depends on the woods. If dense enough that underbrush is suppressed, woods don't need much routine maintenance. What they require is sudden emergency work, as trees and parts of trees fall, almost always in bad places, and, with the lack of groundcover, erosion has to be remedied.

The worst of all is grassy areas that can't mown---light woods, steep slopes, etc.

Exactly. You want a woods course without a lot of understory growth. If you have to maintain underneath trees you are in a word of trouble. I think the perfect course from a maintenance perspective is a rocky/knolly/very lightly grassed area with some forest mixed in.

The flip side of that is the maintenance nightmare course, which is a combination of this:

plus this:

 

[curmudgeonDwindle]

Depends on the woods. If dense enough that underbrush is suppressed, woods don't need much routine maintenance. What they require is sudden emergency work, as trees and parts of trees fall, almost always in bad places, and, with the lack of groundcover, erosion has to be remedied.

In some measure I disagree with this premise. When I was a greenskeeper, I was taught that 'if you're not maintaining, you are falling behind.' Where I live the amount of foot traffic and wear/tear over the years is already outstripping the ability of the local club to keep pace, let alone program improvements or forestall trouble.

Unless the private course is a 'curiosity', the expectation is naturally much higher with regard to the quality of the experience, and if one intends an ongoing venture (as opposed to a hobby), this posture is necessary to develop returning business.

With regard to erosion in general, my feeling is that the lack of foresight (and funding) are at the heart of most of these issues.

 

[JC17393]

Depends on the woods. If dense enough that underbrush is suppressed, woods don't need much routine maintenance. What they require is sudden emergency work, as trees and parts of trees fall, almost always in bad places, and, with the lack of groundcover, erosion has to be remedied.

The worst of all is grassy areas that can't mown---light woods, steep slopes, etc.

Even in dense woods, if fairways are cut wide enough for daylight to get in regularly, grass eventually grows. There are holes on my course that when the course first went in, were more or less maintenance free as they were cut out of the woods and undergrowth was minimal. But now, 15+ years into things, those fairways have a good deal of grass (and weeds) that need to be taken care of at least every few weeks. My mower isn't cut out for woodsy work like that (roots and rocks and unlevel ground), so I get to spend 10-15 hours a month with the string-trimmer in my hands.

My boss's other course, which is older and far more wooded than mine, has seen maintenance increase from mowing 6-7 fairways out of 36 to mowing/trimming 25-26 fairways, strictly due to the thinning of the forest (intentional and not) letting more daylight get to the ground.

As was pointed out earlier in the thread, ball golf requires a lot of daily mowing which we get to avoid. But depending on the course, a disc golf course could still require anywhere from 10-20 hours of mowing every week or so during the high growth season. Without a full time maintenance person, the course can easily get into unplayable condition pretty fast.

 

[DavidSauls]

We have some tight wooded holes under dense canopies that, after 12 years, still don't grow any grass. We don't have the traffic that would create erosion problems, so it's just occasionally taking out some woody growth---and dealing with trees and parts of trees that fall.

It takes us 20 hours to mow the course once. If we were keeping it to the standards of a top-level pay-to-play course, yes, it would be a ton of mowing, particularly in May and June.

 

[DavidSauls]

In some measure I disagree with this premise. When I was a greenskeeper, I was taught that 'if you're not maintaining, you are falling behind.' Where I live the amount of foot traffic and wear/tear over the years is already outstripping the ability of the local club to keep pace, let alone program improvements or forestall trouble.

Unless the private course is a 'curiosity', the expectation is naturally much higher with regard to the quality of the experience, and if one intends an ongoing venture (as opposed to a hobby), this posture is necessary to develop returning business.

With regard to erosion in general, my feeling is that the lack of foresight (and funding) are at the heart of most of these issues.

I am co-owner of a private course that probably falls in the "hobby" category; it's certainly not a business. The course has great variety of styles of holes, so I get experience with open and tight wooded and in between. In our case, the wooded holes are much easier to maintain that the open ones.

 

[Mando]

Glad someone else is going to be the canary in the coal mine on that one.opcorn:

I wonder if Maple Hill ever considered listing their green fees on their DGCR course info page?

 

[biscoe]

I am co-owner of a private course that probably falls in the "hobby" category; it's certainly not a business. The course has great variety of styles of holes, so I get experience with open and tight wooded and in between. In our case, the wooded holes are much easier to maintain that the open ones.

pretty much spot on for me too. cattle do a great job of maintaining wooded holes but once the grass in the open starts growing hard in may they can't keep up with that.