Private course closing...

[discoriented]

Just read on the PDGA site where a private course was closing. The owner sited the reasons as his struggle with arthritis AND a lack of volunteer help / donations to a mower fund. As a disc golfer, owner of a private course and distant friend of his, my heart sunk as I read the post.
I'd just like to encourage people that have the opportunity to regularly play private courses to keep this in mind. Maybe skip buying a new disc this month and donate the $ to the owner, or better yet, skip a round and donate your time to course maintnence. I guarantee it will be appreciated more than you'll ever know, and may be the factor in keeping a course open.
To all those that build ANY courses and/or volunteer time maintaining them, I thank you every day!

 

[Bamm]

Which one?

 

[Grungedude42]

Pouring out a 40oz to our fallen friend...

 

[Deuces]

We are all only here but a little while. Tis the nature of things. Morn not that which is gone, but rejoice instead in it having ever existing.

 

[DavidSauls]

If you did a Top 20 of extinct courses, how many were private ones?

*

I agree 100% with the O.P. Most heartening was the news from Harmon Hills; after Jerry Harmon passed away the initial word was that it would close, but apparently the local disc golf community there has risen to the challenge and kept it open.

 

[grodney]

If you did a Top 20 of extinct courses, how many were private ones?

A lot.

http://www.dgcoursereview.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-73139.html

 

[DavidSauls]

Which one?

Fossil Hill

 

[curveball4]

Fossil Hill

Kinda odd since it's about 5 minutes from HH

 

[Witty User Name]

one of my favorite courses ever is a private course. i only got to play it twice while i was in town and it was amazing. next time i'm in town, i'll definitely be donating some time to help around the course.

 

[Tmart]

From what I've experienced my local public courses are much better than any private courses I've played, and they're free.

If a private course has to shut down it's because it wasn't good enough to be worth the $ or it was never feasible to maintain in the first place. If that guy was having trouble with mowing, maybe he could offer some locals a free pass to help with maintenance instead of expecting people to pay to play and also help him out for free.


Now if this guy was only taking donations then that's a shame, he was banking on good samaritan pay it forward help that never came through I guess, or maybe he was just too proud to ask for help.

 

[TOURNEYPLAYER]

From what I've experienced my local public courses are much better than any private courses I've played, and they're free.

If a private course has to shut down it's because it wasn't good enough to be worth the $ or it was never feasible to maintain in the first place. If that guy was having trouble with mowing, maybe he could offer some locals a free pass to help with maintenance instead of expecting people to pay to play and also help him out for free.


Now if this guy was only taking donations then that's a shame, he was banking on good samaritan pay it forward help that never came through I guess, or maybe he was just too proud to ask for help.

I dont agree with much of this.

my 3 favorite courses are all Private.

Flyboy,
Stoney Hill
and RIP to a certain course in NC.

 

[DavidSauls]

From what I've experienced my local public courses are much better than any private courses I've played, and they're free.

If a private course has to shut down it's because it wasn't good enough to be worth the $ or it was never feasible to maintain in the first place. If that guy was having trouble with mowing, maybe he could offer some locals a free pass to help with maintenance instead of expecting people to pay to play and also help him out for free.

Now if this guy was only taking donations then that's a shame, he was banking on good samaritan pay it forward help that never came through I guess, or maybe he was just too proud to ask for help.

It's interesting that you've had that experience. Private courses have increasingly dominated the Top 20, and my experience has been overwhelmingly that good private courses are better than the great majority of public courses I've played.

The subject course was open for 13 years. Since they don't have taxpayer funding, few private courses will generate revenue to justify themselves, no matter how good they are. They tend to exist on the free labor of their owners---which eventually runs out.

 

[BgWvDave]

They tend to exist on the free labor of their owners---which eventually runs out.

This is prolific.

 

[morefadeplz]

Thank you to all the private course owners who work so hard to etch out of the earth a slice of disc golf heaven.

RIP Jerry Harmon, the dream will continue.

Thank you David Sauls, we appreciate your vision.

 

[DavidSauls]

I don't know about vision. But maybe perspective.

High on my all-time favorites list are closed private courses. If you read the thread grodney linked earlier, a lot of others feel this way. Moreover, most of my wish-list is private courses.

Private courses are almost always dependent on a single person. With a public course, if your indispensable local Old Pro leaves town, the parks department will keep mowing the grass, and in all likelihood a new generation of players will keep things rolling. But not for private courses.

And no matter how much someone has worked on a public course---and, Lord knows, there are people doing heroic work out there---until you've built and maintained a private course, you have no idea of the difference in scale. Which I don't say to drape glory on the private course owners; it's a labor of love. It's just that, to ask the local community to pick up the slack when the owner can no longer manage, you're asking them to do far more than they've ever done before. It's been done, but it's rare.

 

[DavidSauls]

.....anyway, I've heard a lot of good things about Fossil Hill. Too bad.

 

[Sadjo]

The private courses that I'm most familiar with all have another primary source of income that covers the cost of the course...or at least helps carry the load. That might be just the ticket.

The most famous private course may be Boylan Family Farms in Laurel Springs, NC. His Christmas Tree operation paid the cost of maintaining the course. Not sure why he sold the property.

Blue Ribbon Pines is on a sod farm. North Georgia Canopy Tours has the ziplines to help the property owners with the funding of the course. Chattooga Belle Farm has a you pick orchard and they also host several weddings each year.

The private course I'm installing this week is already maintained by the property owners. It won't be open to play for anyone that doesn't know the owner and even then I don't expect he will want anyone playing it regularly.

 

[BionicRib]

My wife and I stopped through Fossil Hill on our honeymoon. Solid course. It was especially nice to meet John. He has put a lot of time and effort into that course. He wouldn't even take money from us to play. Very sad to hear that this one is going to close, especially since it was ran by such a stand up guy.

 

[jcburton24]

From what I've experienced my local public courses are much better than any private courses I've played, and they're free.

If a private course has to shut down it's because it wasn't good enough to be worth the $ or it was never feasible to maintain in the first place. If that guy was having trouble with mowing, maybe he could offer some locals a free pass to help with maintenance instead of expecting people to pay to play and also help him out for free.


Now if this guy was only taking donations then that's a shame, he was banking on good samaritan pay it forward help that never came through I guess, or maybe he was just too proud to ask for help.

I totally disagree with this also. I am a course designer and maintainer in my area and I know how hard it is just to get people to help do anything in my town. We have tons of disc golfers, most who are college kids who won't even bother to pick a limb up off the ground. Maintaining a course without any help is a very hard job. We schedule workdays leading up to tournaments and the same five people is the ones that show up. I believe most of these players around here think the city maintains the courses in this area but unfortunately they do nothing except mow the grass, in which they screw something up on the course everytime they do mow, like knocking over a basket or tee sign.

Also some off the best courses I have ever played are private courses. I know areas where people embrass the private courses they have around them. Anytime help is needed for anything people are quick to jump in and do what they can. There just needs to be more cities where people get involved like this.

 

[DavidSauls]

In fairness, we can't disagree with TMart's first statement. I accept that either his free public courses are great, or the private courses he's played weren't, but that's his experience. It's contrary to that of many others, but it's his.