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"Disc Golf Not as Green as it seems"

scarpfish

scarpfish

Resident Grouch
Gold level trusted reviewer
Joined
Jan 13, 2009
Messages
8,158
Location
Brownbackistan
A guy some of our Norcal folks are familiar with, Ken McGary of "Save McLaren Park" fame, is at it again...

http://www.hmbreview.com/opinion/ma...cle_02d15fd2-8c20-11e2-9b5c-0019bb2963f4.html

The Half Moon Bay Review, a local newspaper puts up a positive editorial about wanting a new course in the region. Of course, he can't let that pass without getting his two cents in.

You can see his argument in full here. (I wonder if he asked Steve West for permission to use his data).

http://www.savemclarenpark.org/SMP4_timeline.html
 
There are two sides to every story. The fact is that disc golf does destroy plant life. None of us can deny that. It is only one small facet of the game though.
 
BigSky said:
There are two sides to every story.
Click to expand...
Three actually, one of which is the truth. I'm certainly not going to proclaim that our often heralded claims of "low impact", "friendly for the whole family" aren't a degree of propaganda in their own right.

But this guy is taking things beyond the standard NIMBY practice of protecting the park near his house. He is now actively writing rebuttal letters to the media hoping to help dissuade parks departments elsewhere from installing courses based on suspect findings. If I were a disc golfer in Northern Cali, that's not someone whom I'd just blow off as a gadfly.
 
"who wants to walk around an open space with hard plastic projectiles flying around at highway speeds? No one takes a casual stroll on a regular golf course, and they won't on a well-used disc golf course either." The main course here in Boise is Ann Morrison Park... there is A LOT of foot traffic that includes non-DGers during the summer... and there is rarely a problem. There are signs around the course that say "Caution, entering disc golf area" or something of that nature. Just seems like this guy has a general disliking for the sport. Yes, discs hit trees/bushes.. but he makes it sound like were big lumber jacks who have come to hack down the wildlife. IMHO there are more respectful DGers out there than not. At least from what I have seen out on the course.
 
One need look no further than the Memorial as an example of two courses packed with pedestrians and cyclists who coexist with disc golfers.
 
This guy is an absolute tool. He pumps his own constituents with lies and gets them riled up. The McLaren park community meeting was an absolute hornets nest because of this dudes fear mongering tactics.

The one that pisses me off in this particular article is the part about the "Dept. of Urban Forestry" being against us. First off, I've never once seen a member of said department at GGP. Secondly, the SF Parks and Recreation Dept. LOVES us because we actively improve the course by combating erosion, clearing debris, planting grass, spreading mulch, etc. (see the blog!)

This is a case of a man with a personal vendetta beyond reason, and its sickening IMHO.
 
^ i agree for the most part courses with clubs and leagues do a great service to parks. obv there are exceptions, for every 5 people picking up trash ect is one person littering.
 
This guy certainly falls into the NIMBY camp and probably would like to ban everyone (but himself) from going to the park.

However, the DG community does need to realize that there is a little bit of truth in some of his points. The area around the pads and baskets are generally bare and most trees in the direction of the fairway within 50 ft of the pad are hacked up. Since most of the courses are free (as I hope they stay) they are not going to look like a ball golf course, but they could be better. Especially in terms of erosion control in and around the baskets.
 
He is right in some points but also must think that money grows on trees.

I bet he would write the same type of thing about taxes going up for park improvements (generally levied on taxes by most municipalities with NICE parks) and integral part of the local governments. MN has a TON of parks, some of the nicest in the country but those same areas also have the highest land taxes of any others regardless of the improvement on them...

In a perfect world, like his, every park would be a "nature reserve" and the headaches involved with such land is INSANE due to costs and restrictions involved trying to develop land where it is not suppose to look developed. :| With all respect to mother nature-- humans and her have always had a battle co-existing without issues but its what we do to give back which makes a difference, not trying to preserve every last piece of it without good reasoning.

The same type of people like this guy would rip the logging industries too for destroying forests and trees, birds, bugs etc but they alone have planted more trees in the past 20 years than have ever been planted on planet earth and continually renew forests as well as habitats which often become over-grown and subject to massive erosion on a huge scale vs a DG course'

I love nature, I think we all do who play DG but I can't stand a tree hugger! They are generally some of the biggest hypocrites out there and it's just not a viable way to act in this day and age.
 
This guy seems to have a vendetta against disc golf. It sounds a lot like the people that were against the course going into a park in NJ.

That said, yes, disc golf can be pretty hard on the environment. If there aren't concrete pads, the ground is usually pretty worn around the tees. Discs can ding up trees (one of our local wooded courses is a testament to that). Ging after lost discs can tear up some foliage (although I don't know anyone that calls that one of the funnest parts of the game). Trails are cut out, brush trimmed back. It's the usual type of thing you would see if anything came in to utilize the land.

So the question is, is it better for the land to be left completely alone, just looking as mother nature leaves it, or is it better to to trim it back some and actually utilize it? I don't think that most city parks are meant to be absolue undisturbed nature preserves. I don't see disc golf causing more damage than most other activities that happen in a park, its actually much less damaging than other ark activities. It's just really hard to argue with a lot of those types because they don't want to listen at all.
 
I've played both of the Memorial courses (Fountain Hills and Vista del Camino) and like what was stated earlier, there are plenty of cyclists and pedestrians using both parks. I've never seen or heard of any incident between golfers and pedestrians, so I really have no idea where this guy came up with the idea that golfers feel like they "own the park" and are disrespectful to the other park users.
 
BigSky said:
One need look no further than the Memorial as an example of two courses packed with pedestrians and cyclists who coexist with disc golfers.
Click to expand...

You can see that with any major tournament. 100+ disc golfers running around, and everyone else still going about their business. The last on I was at the LARPers still showed up and did their thing, DG didn't get in their way, they didn't get into ours. Other people were around the park, and for the most part still got to do what they wanted. People jogged trails, people walked their dogs. All i saw interrupted was a family with a photographer who were there to do family photos. Most of the spots they wanted to use they couldn't stop at long. But any other weekend that wouldn't have been a problem.
 
Sure would be nice if media required evidence / sources for everything they publish as fact! Sorry got off topic but KnightsDG struck a nerve.
 
KniceZ said:
Sure would be nice if media required evidence / sources for everything they publish as fact! Sorry got off topic but KnightsDG struck a nerve.
Click to expand...

Yeah if I have to do it for worthless college papers that only a professor is going to read then media outlets should do the same.
 
KniceZ said:
Sure would be nice if media required evidence / sources for everything they publish as fact! Sorry got off topic but KnightsDG struck a nerve.
Click to expand...


Have you not read a paper, magazine or watched the news lately? It's all unsourced opinion and spin. Why should DG get treated any differently than any other story?

DG is more environmentally friendly than bulldozing everything and building soccer fields that need to be fertilized, mowed and watered, and people don't seem to mind an unlimited amount of those. May e because those are for innocent little kids, and disc golf has a different image???? :\
 
The article does make some points about disc golf's negative effects on the environment that are true. But I think the impact is very minimal compared to ALMOST EVERYTHING HUMANS DO.

If anything, disc golf makes people more aware of the environment since they're spending more time out in it. The damage to trees is small and any impact on erosion can be easily repaired. Sure, the plastics most discs are made of are not good for the environment but that's no reason to be against the entire sport. There are far more outdoor activities that have a much worse impact on the environment than disc golf that aren't being accused of deforestation that perhaps should be.

The car that guy drives and the farts from all the beef he has eaten in his lifetime have made a much bigger negative impact on the environment than the one disc golf course he is wasting everyone's time trying to prevent will ever do.
 
Given the condition of the land at some courses (Cass Benton, for instance), it's tough to argue that disc is free of negative environmental impacts. Some of the points made by this dude are true. I suppose an appropriate counter would be to highlight some of the courses that are taking a more proactive approach to preservation.

All that said, I'd be interested to hear whether this guy has any alternative proposals. Is his position, 'No disc anywhere, it's bad for the land'? Or, 'No disc in this particular park, here's another location that would be more suitable'? If it is the former, than it should be pretty easy to paint him as an extremist. If it's the latter, perhaps some sort of partnership would be possible to identify other areas for course development.
 
this is why i'm glad i don't live in a liberal area... i had fun during my trip to SF but when I saw a teenager get out of a BMW dressed like a bum, walk across the street and sit down next to other teens dressed like bums and start asking for change i knew it was one ****ed up town.
 
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