CHOOSING RIGHT PARK SPACE IS KEY TO GOOD COURSE DESIGN

Written By: Bill Ashton

In my opinion, one of the most important steps in creating anoverall well balanced disc golf course design is to first survey allthe particular parks a city offers within its community. This willallow you to choose the best possible park site. This will alsohelp in determining the appropriate space and land utilization for adisc golf course. I would say the general rule of thumb fordetermining your total size of course is to simply figure at leastan acre a hole. A 9-hole course by this standard would then need a9 acre park. A twelve hole course, 12 acres and an 18-hole coursewould need up to 18 acres of park land and so on. Although this isjust a guideline, I believe courses can be built and installed onmany different types of terrain. So a particular parks naturalesthetics and topography really can play a unique role in theoverall course design.Once you have narrowed down park locations, you can review whichpark has the best "potential" for disc golf. From there, you canselect the number of holes or size of course for the park space.Remember, not all courses are 18-holes. So don't get discouraged ifyour choice of park only accommodates a 9-hole layout. Go with itand design the best course you can!After you've chosen the appropriate park space for courseinstallation, you'll need to look at course design. Here there aremany factors to consider such as parking, other park activities,safety, are bike or walking paths present? Where are peoples homesin relation to the park? With houses that border the park property,it's good to exercise fairways away from the direction of homesalong the park area. Roads that surround the park area can havesome safety issues as well, so extra consideration is always neededin terms of designing holes near roadways, sidewalks or bike paths.You also want to see if you can utilize both open spaces and woodedareas to help create a level of difficulty to some holes. Is therea pond or a creek present within the park setting that can beutilized? Wooded holes and holes that play near or along water canincrease the challenge and can make a course more interesting toplay. Trees, bushes and water hazards are the most common obstaclesfor disc golfers, so if possible try to involve some of theseelements when choosing a final location.Another general rule of thumb per say is to utilize the parking lotarea as the starting and ending point to the course. This willhelp to provide and create good design "Flow". From here, thedesign possibilities are endless. I find one of my best attributeswith working with course design is choosing the right park.Over the past 29 years, I have helped to establish a total of 10disc golf courses in the state of Minnesota. Every course projectwas a unique challenge and I certainly look forward to continuing myinterest for promoting and designing even more disc golf courseshere. I've learned a great deal about course design over the yearsand each one of my course projects has been a rewarding experience.Here in Minnesota, we are blessed with an abundance of 34 courseswithin the metro and we now have well over 92 courses statewide.

Bill Ashton
Roc Solid Design
MFA #425
PDGA #2747
DGCD #67