In Memory: The Best Extinct Courses

[Designjah]

Yes, utility construction. Course will be back with appropriate re-designs in about 1.5 to 2 years if everything goes to plan. We're all hoping to keep some of the signature holes... waiting to see the extent of the construction and how it affects the course. Baskets have been pulled and it is not playable at this time.

[Timber]

Laurel Springs map created with help from Craig Gangloff's memories and Rick Rothstein's records. I have much higher resolution but no photo hosting service at this time.

[Three Putt]

Kinda funny that a legendary course like that had crossing fairways.

[Central Scrutinizer]

Originally Posted by RootsDiscGolf

What about the Hippodrome? All those are gone from what I heard.

Woah, I hadn't heard. I see it's been gone for just over a year now.

My nephew was stationed for a couple of years at Ft. Gordon so I had the great privilege to visit greater Augusta a couple of times. Loved IDGC of course, and had a blast playing the Hippodrome's courses too.

Anybody know what happened?

[DavidSauls]

Originally Posted by Three Putt

Kinda funny that a legendary course like that had crossing fairways.

I'll bet they never had enough traffic to cause issues, outside of a few tournaments.

My favorite extinct course, possibly my favorite course period, had crossing fairways. The original Canyon course in Brooksville, Florida, where they now play Throw Down the Mountain, had them.

Though ours is not a legendary course, nor extinct yet, when my brother and I embarked on creating our private course we felt free to create crossing fairway. If The Canyon could get away with it, we figured we could too. And like Laurel Springs, traffic has not been an issue.

[Three Putt]

Originally Posted by DavidSauls

I'll bet they never had enough traffic to cause issues, outside of a few tournaments.

My favorite extinct course, possibly my favorite course period, had crossing fairways. The original Canyon course in Brooksville, Florida, where they now play Throw Down the Mountain, had them.

Though ours is not a legendary course, nor extinct yet, when my brother and I embarked on creating our private course we felt free to create crossing fairway. If The Canyon could get away with it, we figured we could too. And like Laurel Springs, traffic has not been an issue.

It was really just an observation.

What you can't tell from the picture is what is the elevation there. In the early 90's, Morley Field still counted as a "legendary" course. It had crossing fairways someplace on the back as I recall, and it had the most traffic of any disc golf course in existence at the time. The one hole was set way above the other, though. Even with groups playing the holes at the same time, there wasn't always a conflict. There was a potential for conflict, but you could also hit somebody on #2's tee and still have an inside the circle birdie putt on #1 so conflict at Morley Field was a given.

Things like that now jump out as bad course design, but back in the day they were just things you did if you ran out of room to get 18 to shoot back at the parking lot. It just struck me as funny that a course that to my generation of players was mythical has a design feature that would make people ding it on DGCR today.

[Timber]

A higher resolution image of the Laurel Springs map can be viewed at: https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared...PlmGntJ3azL_i7

The elevation changes and hole info is much more legible.

If anyone has free image hosting that allows hotlinking please feel free to repost the map at higher resolution.

[pmay5]

Originally Posted by Timber

Laurel Springs map created with help from Craig Gangloff's memories and Rick Rothstein's records. I have much higher resolution but no photo hosting service at this time.

Wow, that's a great map for a 25 year extinct course! Guess that's a result of good memories, records and modern software.
It doesn't look like the 2 criss crossing fairways would be much of an issue, both are mid-fairway.
Impressive list of former champions of the LSO.
Does anyone know if there was a double mando on #9, between the two sets of trees?

[Timber]

I don't recall the crossing fairways on 17/14 being much of an issue. The tee on 17 was 34 feet higher than the basket and most players just threw a putter so they wouldn't blow past the 352 foot hole.

On several occasions the groups I was in allowed the lower hole 14 to play through while we watched other groups drive on holes 1, 2, 3, 15 & 18. The break also gave players time to psych themselves up...or out for hole 18 which was 450 feet uphill with an 88 foot elevation change.

The ceiling on 9 through the orchard was low enough that a double mandatory would have only added insult to injury. Many of the trees on holes 4 and 9 were lost due to a microburst or tornado a few years into the courses history.

BTW, the color gradations on the map represent 20 foot elevation changes