Every course is a pay to play...

[Dcinmd]

Dang you all have "Free" Public Parks.

The budgets in our area have been cut so much are public parks have fees.

 

[curmudgeonDwindle]

I used to work in parks and recreation. We used to put "we are the fun part of paying your taxes" in the brochure.

It is a jumbled mess to figure out, though. There are huge measurable advantages to green space and places to recreate in your community, it leads to healthier and happier residents. The idea of parks is that the community (through taxes) would support these places to the advantage of all.

Then there were problems. Things like swimming pools are expensive as all Hell, so in order to offset the losses you had to charge. People seemed to get that, so it wasn't a huge deal.

Then you get to the 80's when the people making the decisions move from the Greatest Generation to the Baby Boomers. Baby Boomers were a wave of selfish, self absorbed, greedy people all looking out for themselves and not the greater community. Parks under their leadership were not about how you could make the community healthier, it was about the bottom line. Kids in the summer are going to a free day camp in the park. Forget that, charge them. Families are reserving shelters for picnics for free? Charge them. Youth baseball teams are practicing on the ball field? Make them buy a permit. The idea that the ball field is there in the first place to give kids a constructive place to play goes out the window. It's all about the almighty $.

Then you had to have a fancier water park than the next town, and you had to have golf course, and you had to have this and that (disc golf courses included) that would create programmable space in your parks. That open field that you mowed that people used to play in on their own? Bah, pass a bond issue and build a skate park and tennis courts and a concession stand in the middle to sell unhealthy snacks and soda and make that open field turn a profit. Open space be damned.

That disc golf courses would be shoved toward the "pay" model is not surprising. Parks and recreation isn't about the experience or the exercise or the place to mingle with your neighbors anymore, it's about balancing a budget.

One might just as easily respond, "A sales pitch filled with resentment and advocacy of ideas not universally shared." and we'd both be 'right'.

Why couldn't the push for fees motivated by other concerns than the ones you point out?
While you may have 'public opinion' on your side along with the appeals from/to various authorities (studies which feature these measurable advantages) the fact remains that the resources MUST come from somewhere, which generally means you are taking from someone else, often through the use of force (government). How 'moral and righteous' is that? OR your moral high ground has feet of clay...

As a rant, I say fair enough. As a persuasive sale pitch, a fail.

Personally, I prefer Catholic Disc Golf funding initiatives, with fees related to your sins against God and Man - masochistic rituals solely designed to scrub away your individuality and self-worth until at last you emerge a perfected and cleansed tool of the State. Refreshed and ready to pick up small limbs and trash off the course...
signed - the devil's advocate...

 

[Doofenshmirtz]

Either everyone in the tax base is paying for pubic courses, or you pay individually for private courses, but I think all of us are attracted to disc golf as being "free". Free disc golf is a misnomer.

Yep, this is just a misunderstanding of what it means for a disc golf course to be free. Examples:

1. I drove through Jackson MS a year ago and stopped to play at a public park. I paid nothing to play it. I also am not part of that tax base.

2. I played a private, free to play course. Paid nothing to play it. I donated some money to the course. I was not required to do so.

3. My home course was built and is maintained by the Red River Waterway Commission. No charge to play. RRWC gets revenues from fees, leases, grants and other sources.

4. Finally, and what your contention seems to be are the bulk of the public courses that I have played, which were built and some are maintained via taxes. None of those taxes are based on whether a the taxpayer plays disc golf at the parks. I.e., there is not cost to play as David Sauls pointed out earlier. So even those courses are free to play even if you are part of the tax base.

All of these examples are free to play courses.

 

[Three Putt]

As a persuasive sale pitch, a fail.

It's not a sales pitch. If you come at the subject from the lens of post-Reagan neoliberalism the subject pans out differently. My libertarian friends often tell me that public parks are evil, the result of overreach of a State that has no right to own any land. They get to have their opinion, I get to have mine. Their opinion doesn't change mine and mine does not change theirs. In the end, it's just, like, my opinion, man.

 

[teemkey]

Another position is that charging fees gives the fee-payer the "right" to use the facility, as opposed to a member of the public who hasn't paid the fee. I'm not saying that's a proper solution, just that it is a solution to assuring a public facility is used as intended.

 

[curmudgeonDwindle]

It's not a sales pitch. If you come at the subject from the lens of post-Reagan neoliberalism the subject pans out differently. My libertarian friends often tell me that public parks are evil, the result of overreach of a State that has no right to own any land. They get to have their opinion, I get to have mine. Their opinion doesn't change mine and mine does not change theirs. In the end, it's just, like, my opinion, man.

And some people are exactly like the stuffed shirts they love to hate OR they can't take a joke.
chill out, brah (hard to do in hell but give it the old college try for the audience's sake)
signed - the devil's advocate

 

[Three Putt]

And some people are exactly like the stuffed shirts they love to hate OR they can't take a joke.
chill out, brah (hard to do in hell but give it the old college try for the audience's sake)
signed - the devil's advocate

Some people tell jokes that are funny. You can give that the old college try. :|

 

[curmudgeonDwindle]

Some people tell jokes that are funny. You can give that the old college try. :|

wow. tough audience, not even giving the benefit of the doubt for the old college try. practice makes perfect...but at least you didn't have to 'pay'...

 

[Mr. Butlertron]

Is it not free if I'm arriving to a course run by a state or municipality that I do not live in? Asking for a friend.

 

[etdefender19]

an old topic, perhaps not thoroughly rehashed enough…

it seems a truism that 'there's no such thing as a free lunch', which ultimately may have some thermodynamic underpinning - this indicates everyone 'groks' this at an intuitive level at least. notice how i'm trying to persuade you?

fruitless are the complaints of 'freeloaders', as their existence appears an omnipresent fact of human social life. dualistic arguments have been made stating in effect, that were 'everyone always contributing' we would have no basis of comparison - without the rainy day, one could not appreciate the sunny. even so, a hierarchy always emerges, who contributes 'more' and in what manner. the very structure of golf is an elaborate hierarchy ritual (or game). I suggest that a complainer's best course of action would be persuasion, rather than condemnation - if the intention is a more enthusiastic participation in the game. In many respects, that's how we got where we are today.

regarding taxes: despite the fact of the astonishing loss of privacy in today's world, only a non-tax paying fool would publicly admit to it - he might get eaten…anybody remember that old Molly Hatchet hit?

I'm fascinated by the fact that the only two words you capitalized were "Molly Hatchet"

 

[Tripper]

Dang you all have "Free" Public Parks.

The budgets in our area have been cut so much are public parks have fees.

Come down for a visit. Not too far and we have some amazing public courses; Rockness Monster, Rock Ridge, Sasquatch, UNC, Cedar Rock Park (wellspring), East Clayton. There was a $750 ace pool at cedar hills dubs tonight.

 

[Tripper]

Come down for a visit. Not too far and we have some amazing public courses; Rockness Monster, Rock Ridge, Sasquatch, UNC, Cedar Rock Park (wellspring), East Clayton. There was a $750 ace pool at cedar hills dubs tonight.

And apparently no one took the ace pool....

 

[BogeyNoMore]

that's the one with a cabin and fire pit after the day rounds while you ready up for a night round.

...plus you even get to weed whack and chop wood for the fire pit.

 

[curmudgeonDwindle]

Yep, this is just a misunderstanding of what it means for a disc golf course to be free. Examples:

1. I drove through Jackson MS a year ago and stopped to play at a public park. I paid nothing to play it. I also am not part of that tax base.

2. I played a private, free to play course. Paid nothing to play it. I donated some money to the course. I was not required to do so.

3. My home course was built and is maintained by the Red River Waterway Commission. No charge to play. RRWC gets revenues from fees, leases, grants and other sources.

4. Finally, and what your contention seems to be are the bulk of the public courses that I have played, which were built and some are maintained via taxes. None of those taxes are based on whether a the taxpayer plays disc golf at the parks. I.e., there is not cost to play as David Sauls pointed out earlier. So even those courses are free to play even if you are part of the tax base.

All of these examples are free to play courses.

many in the thread are speaking of 'free' in the broadest sense of the term - not limited to cash money fees, either up-front or hidden, which is more like a different reading than a 'misunderstanding'. both are true but neither completely so.

that being said, money seems to be the universal 'token' of 'cost' or 'value' in the thread - what about your time? figuring out your POD or weekend? the gas for your transport? those nice folks who volunteered to put the course in for you to play? those aren't free, perhaps nominal but not free...i think everyone would agree, that like on the commercials, we all hate those hidden charges and fees...no?

 

[zgmc]

TNSTAAFL

 

[Binky Yutz]

I have witnessed trash on the ground in close proximity to a proper receptacle at many courses. Very disappointing.

I have seen this also at my home course. I have also seen racoons and black birds dragging the trash out of a receptacle, looking for food. The black birds love potato chip bags and constantly leave them wherever they are after emptying the crumbs out of them. The wildlife make a far bigger mess than the discers and parkgoers, and we clean up after the animals as well. The park needs wildlife proof trash bins, but I doubt the city will ever spend the money on them.

The most frustrating thing is finding all the empty beer cans and bottles littering the course...you had room to carry the beer on to the course, how is it you don't have the room to carry out the empties??...…

Anyone remember the old anti littering commercial with the native American Indian, paddling on a river in a canoe and seeing all the trash and litter everywhere, as they pan back to the canoe, you see a tear roll down his cheek...this commercial had a PROFOUND effect on me as a kid...

Today on the way home from work , the truck in front of me threw some trash out the passenger window, while at a stop sign...the really sad part is the truck had Retired Navy Tags....one would think a Vet would have more respect for his community.

Humans....most of them leave a lot to be desired....myself included....

 

[R-Ogre]

I have seen this also at my home course. I have also seen racoons and black birds dragging the trash out of a receptacle, looking for food. The black birds love potato chip bags and constantly leave them wherever they are after emptying the crumbs out of them. The wildlife make a far bigger mess than the discers and parkgoers, and we clean up after the animals as well. The park needs wildlife proof trash bins, but I doubt the city will ever spend the money on them.

The most frustrating thing is finding all the empty beer cans and bottles littering the course...you had room to carry the beer on to the course, how is it you don't have the room to carry out the empties??...…

Anyone remember the old anti littering commercial with the native American Indian, paddling on a river in a canoe and seeing all the trash and litter everywhere, as they pan back to the canoe, you see a tear roll down his cheek...this commercial had a PROFOUND effect on me as a kid...

Today on the way home from work , the truck in front of me threw some trash out the passenger window, while at a stop sign...the really sad part is the truck had Retired Navy Tags....one would think a Vet would have more respect for his community.

Humans....most of them leave a lot to be desired....myself included....

I just bring a grocery bag to the course and when I see something like that that frustrates me I pick it up. Toss it in the trash can at the dugout before I go home. It ain't much but it's honest work.

 

[Putt for D'oh]

that being said, money seems to be the universal 'token' of 'cost' or 'value' in the thread - what about your time? figuring out your POD or weekend? the gas for your transport? those nice folks who volunteered to put the course in for you to play? those aren't free, perhaps nominal but not free...i think everyone would agree, that like on the commercials, we all hate those hidden charges and fees...no?

Looking at it that way the return on my investment is amazing and pays off in spades.

Monetarily I figure I've paid off the investment of course cost and fees by mid March.
The rest of the year I'm playing for free.

From the standpoint of time and effort and I am a volunteer and that feels good as well or maybe it's like building credit for getting to play emotionally free. The happiness and health I get from my time on the course pays off all of that other invested time and energy by somewhere near the 3rd round. I'm playing the rest of the year not only for free but making a spiritual and emotional profit.

 

[DoWork]

I wonder what percentage of the disc golf population understands the fact that disc golf is not free...

I feel like this thread is making me pay all over again.

 

[DiscFifty]

Sorry, but you're wrong. It is absolutely free.

You have me curious...what part of disc golf for you is absolutely free?