LookIhitAtREE
Par Member
From the Democrat-Gazette:
LITTLE ROCK — There's an attractive rock outcropping atop a cliff about 100 yards into Hindman Park's Long Trail, and Norm Berner was about to point out its unusual no vaculite formation. But his guest, disc golf course designer John Houck, interrupted.
"Man, this would make a great hole," he said, pointing up the hill toward the rock. "Do you think we could stabilize a little bit of the slope up there to hold the basket?"
Houck, of Austin, Texas, was invited to Hindman Park's Keep Little Rock Beautiful event March 10. The city and Meadowcliff/Brookwood Neighborhood Association had installed a nine-hole disc golf course at the park in 2010, and they liked the result - more people using the park.
To welcome Houck, members of the Diamond State Disc Golf Association were out in force on the course, and judging from the number of discs Houck signed - and the number of players he greeted - he's a well-known course designer.
Berner, public affairs coordinator for the neighborhood group, said adding more disc golf holes is a popular idea. He invited Houck to come look at the land after doing some research.
"One name kept surfacing with regard to superior course designs," he said. "I've been e-mailing and conversing with John and Dee [Mrs. Houck], who is also his business partner, on a regular basis for quite some time now."
Houck wasn't paid for his appearance at Hindman, although consulting is part of his Houck Design business. He has designed more than 100 courses, and he's also a co-founder of Millennium Discs, a maker of disc golf equipment.
When told that the number of disc golf courses in Arkansas has doubled in five years, from 15 to 30, according to the map on the Professional Disc Golf Association website and local developers, he wasn't surprised. He said the sport,which has been around more than 40 years, is going through a period of rapid growth.
"People who are into disc golf, if they move to a town without a course, they get something started," he says.
And he adds, putting in a disc golf course is not an overly expensive proposition for a municipality that has suitable parkland available.
"Compared to the cost of a swimming pool ... the cost of a disc course is in the low six figures, about the price of a diving board," he says.
Houck is proud of two courses he recently designed near Mount Vernon, Texas, at Selah Ranch, a private retreat center that had the course installed to give visitors another activity. The owner has told Houck that disc golfers are booking rooms to play the course, which is between Dallas and Texarkana.
Berner would like to see nine holes added to Hindman Park, and he took Houck on a tour of Long Trail, which follows a Little Rock Wastewater pipe route through thick woods to a field alongside University Avenue. Berner would like to thin trees between the trail and Fourche Creek, sell them for lumber and use the money to pay for park improvements, including the disc course.
"The trees are way too close together and dying. They need thinning out," he says.
Across Fourche Creek from Hindman Park is Westwood Park, the former Western Hills Country Club, which closed in 2007 and is now owned by Little Rock. In conceptual plans for the park, the city has drawn a disc golf course. It's on this land that Berner and others see the potential for a top-notch disc golf course that goes beyond the region's mostly par-3 layouts threaded through forestland.
Houck agreed, saying the park's variety of mature trees, open spaces, water and slopes had great potential.
A disc golf course is about one-third the length of a ball golf course, and the fairways are much narrower. When Houck looked down the 5-foot-wide path on a berm adjacent to the Westwood Park Lake, he saw a pretty, if pretty devilish, disc golf hole.
1688, MEET 2305
Houck started playing with the original Frisbee and specialized in freestyle, in which he won two world championships in 1984-85. In freestyle, contestants are judged on the athleticism and creativity of their throws and moves with a disc.
He was an early member of the Professional Disc Golf Association - his membership number is 1688. At Hindman, he ran into Don Grisham of North Little Rock, who also has been playing a while. His number is 2305.
Newbies to the association are being assigned numbers above 50,000.
Grisham told Houck that he was pretty sure they had played in the same group in a tournament in Dallas circa 1984.
Thor Holoch, also of North Little Rock, showed up to say hello. Holoch, the association's 1997 amateur world champion, was sponsored for a time by Houck's Millennium Discs.The men played a few holes together at Hindman Park, a course that was laid out by Holoch, his friend Doug Trantham and Leewood Thomas of the neighborhood group.
Houck was circumspect in critiquing the design, and his only criticism was the placement of a tree that his disc caromed off.
ActiveStyle, Pages 23 on 03/19/2012
Yes, please on the bold section :thmbup::thmbup:
LITTLE ROCK — There's an attractive rock outcropping atop a cliff about 100 yards into Hindman Park's Long Trail, and Norm Berner was about to point out its unusual no vaculite formation. But his guest, disc golf course designer John Houck, interrupted.
"Man, this would make a great hole," he said, pointing up the hill toward the rock. "Do you think we could stabilize a little bit of the slope up there to hold the basket?"
Houck, of Austin, Texas, was invited to Hindman Park's Keep Little Rock Beautiful event March 10. The city and Meadowcliff/Brookwood Neighborhood Association had installed a nine-hole disc golf course at the park in 2010, and they liked the result - more people using the park.
To welcome Houck, members of the Diamond State Disc Golf Association were out in force on the course, and judging from the number of discs Houck signed - and the number of players he greeted - he's a well-known course designer.
Berner, public affairs coordinator for the neighborhood group, said adding more disc golf holes is a popular idea. He invited Houck to come look at the land after doing some research.
"One name kept surfacing with regard to superior course designs," he said. "I've been e-mailing and conversing with John and Dee [Mrs. Houck], who is also his business partner, on a regular basis for quite some time now."
Houck wasn't paid for his appearance at Hindman, although consulting is part of his Houck Design business. He has designed more than 100 courses, and he's also a co-founder of Millennium Discs, a maker of disc golf equipment.
When told that the number of disc golf courses in Arkansas has doubled in five years, from 15 to 30, according to the map on the Professional Disc Golf Association website and local developers, he wasn't surprised. He said the sport,which has been around more than 40 years, is going through a period of rapid growth.
"People who are into disc golf, if they move to a town without a course, they get something started," he says.
And he adds, putting in a disc golf course is not an overly expensive proposition for a municipality that has suitable parkland available.
"Compared to the cost of a swimming pool ... the cost of a disc course is in the low six figures, about the price of a diving board," he says.
Houck is proud of two courses he recently designed near Mount Vernon, Texas, at Selah Ranch, a private retreat center that had the course installed to give visitors another activity. The owner has told Houck that disc golfers are booking rooms to play the course, which is between Dallas and Texarkana.
Berner would like to see nine holes added to Hindman Park, and he took Houck on a tour of Long Trail, which follows a Little Rock Wastewater pipe route through thick woods to a field alongside University Avenue. Berner would like to thin trees between the trail and Fourche Creek, sell them for lumber and use the money to pay for park improvements, including the disc course.
"The trees are way too close together and dying. They need thinning out," he says.
Across Fourche Creek from Hindman Park is Westwood Park, the former Western Hills Country Club, which closed in 2007 and is now owned by Little Rock. In conceptual plans for the park, the city has drawn a disc golf course. It's on this land that Berner and others see the potential for a top-notch disc golf course that goes beyond the region's mostly par-3 layouts threaded through forestland.
Houck agreed, saying the park's variety of mature trees, open spaces, water and slopes had great potential.
A disc golf course is about one-third the length of a ball golf course, and the fairways are much narrower. When Houck looked down the 5-foot-wide path on a berm adjacent to the Westwood Park Lake, he saw a pretty, if pretty devilish, disc golf hole.
1688, MEET 2305
Houck started playing with the original Frisbee and specialized in freestyle, in which he won two world championships in 1984-85. In freestyle, contestants are judged on the athleticism and creativity of their throws and moves with a disc.
He was an early member of the Professional Disc Golf Association - his membership number is 1688. At Hindman, he ran into Don Grisham of North Little Rock, who also has been playing a while. His number is 2305.
Newbies to the association are being assigned numbers above 50,000.
Grisham told Houck that he was pretty sure they had played in the same group in a tournament in Dallas circa 1984.
Thor Holoch, also of North Little Rock, showed up to say hello. Holoch, the association's 1997 amateur world champion, was sponsored for a time by Houck's Millennium Discs.The men played a few holes together at Hindman Park, a course that was laid out by Holoch, his friend Doug Trantham and Leewood Thomas of the neighborhood group.
Houck was circumspect in critiquing the design, and his only criticism was the placement of a tree that his disc caromed off.
ActiveStyle, Pages 23 on 03/19/2012
Yes, please on the bold section :thmbup::thmbup:
