I moved away from that area a year and a half ago after the first summer of P2P (summer 2013). I haven't been back since, but I should be there this summer and I'm excited to check it out to see what the changes look like. A few things...
First, like stated, they are charging $40 for an unlimited seasonal pass to both Elver and Hiestand, which are city parks. As someone else mention they don't charge people to walk through the park if they aren't throwing a disc or charge them for playing a pick-up game of basketball, soccer, or baseball. I personally feel that a city park should remain "free" in all aspects of usage because we as a group are already paying for the park with our tax money.
However, I think the P2P is really great, if, and only if, all of the collected funds for disc golf passes go only to the disc golf courses. When I bought my pass in 2013 it was pass #2,XXX. So say 2,000 passes got sold in 2013 (less than what was actually sold) and that trend continued through 2014 and into 2015. We are at roughly 6,000 passes sold at $40 a pop. That is a total of $240,000. Split that between two courses and we are at $120,000 accumulated for each course as of now.
Did each of those courses need $120,000 in improvements? It seems a little outlandish. It seems like more of a money-making tactic to me. Tack on the fact that they aren't going to stop charging for those courses. If there is zero growth on the passes sold each year and we stick with a static trend of 2,000 a summer, that's an additional $40,000 for each course every year. Will they constantly improve the courses? In what way? What exactly is this money going towards? I know people are saying erosion control, benches, maybe new tee signs, install and maintenance labor,etc, but that stuff only costs so much money. Can the city post a public data file with what improvements they are going to make and what the projected costs of each task would be? That would help justify the cost of the pass in my opinion.
Some people say it's good because it keeps the hooligans away. I beg to differ. The amount of trashy people out there playing without passes was still high. Just because speeding is illegal doesn't mean every single person drives below the speed limit signs.
Again... I'll be back in the Madison area for a short period of time this summer and there better be some serious improvements. That's a lot of money to charge people, especially year after year.
Right now I'm living in an area saturated with top-notch disc golf courses that all blow away the courses in the Madison area away and none of them cost a penny.
I understand P2P has benefited a lot of courses around the US. I just want to say... surprise me Madison. I really hope I don't come back to minimal improvement, if any. If anyone can post pictures of where they are at with improvements I'd love to take a look.
? Does anyone know when this happened ? 
