Golf Courses in Professional Disc Golf
A recent hot topic inside the professional disc golf community is the increasing usage of golf courses for top level pro events. Touring pros share varying opinions on the matter but before the 2021 Portland Open Paul McBeth made a social media post acknowledging the increase with seeming distaste. While I agree with Paul that golf courses offer a very limited disc golf course, it is important to understand the benefits they bring to the sport as well as the negatives.
The largest asset of a golf course is that it offers professionally maintained facilities and an expansive property for the course designers to work with. The golf courses that host professional events typically have a clubhouse, rest areas, running potable water, and easily accessible bathrooms while the rural beauties best fit to host large tournaments typically have only a few of these if any. Golf courses offer an A+ experience for the tournament director and staff but only a B+ experience for players.
As seen during the OTB and Portland Open, long holes and short grass forces the player to rely on rolling the disc in order to keep pace with the top distance throwers. This is not an issue. To keep up with the top players, one should have a mastery of most aspects of the game, roller included. But this type of course is extremely exclusive towards the women’s fields. This is a massive issue that requires solving if women’s and men’s tournaments are to be played simultaneously in the future. Remember, disc golf is currently the only golf sport where men and women play the same course on the same weekend. In order to continue accommodating gender combined tournaments, disc golf must focus on creating a more technical challenge and stray away from creating a massive, sprawling MPO course and sticking the FPO field on a dampened down version of the same course. It’s a sad and pathetic conclusion that tour events have come to but unfortunately, it is the only feasible option at the moment because of how few high caliber yet easily accessible tournament locations there are. It also properly demonstrates the lack of consideration given to the women’s divisions but that is a topic for another article.
The top tier accommodations and facilities provided by golf courses are not free. Most disc golf tournaments in public parks require a paid permit or reservation unless the park is not being rented for tournament purposes. However, all golf courses charge the tournament for each individual player’s greens fees and sometimes a flat rate for reserving the course. This money comes directly out of the payout because it is the only non-fixed expense for a tournament; a large price to pay for touring pros who rely on income to continue touring. These same pros are typically charged greens fees for practice rounds prior to the tournament and during these rounds disc golfers frequently find themselves being hit in on by golfers because they do not view disc golfers as “other golfers”. That being said, players did not have to pay to practice for the 2021 Portland Open. A note that had ought to be taken by every other golf course.
The primary way for a tour event to compensate for facility costs is via large quantities of spectators and the revenue they bring, which is notably one of the largest advantages to a golf course. The terrain is inviting and easily accessible for fans from all walks of life. Golf courses, along with park courses, are the only courses easily accessible for the handicapped and impaired, but unfortunately, fan inclusion mustn’t be the focus of a tour event. The players need to be challenged by the course in a way that is fair to all players…. All of them. A 12,000 foot behemoth up and down the fairways of a golf course does not constitute a proper Disc Golf Pro Tour or National Tour event, let alone major. It provides the difficulty necessary to challenge top touring MPO competitors but offers a course that every other division is unlikely to want to revisit.
A beautiful point brought up by tournament director and course designer Mike Byrne is that golf courses put far too high a premium on distance, which innately lessens the importance of shot shaping and precision on any throw that does not approach the basket. The only course I can think of where this is not the case is Iron Hill in Delaware but that is not a golf course so we move.
“I recently watched most of the Master’s Cup where the majority of players could reach the majority of holes and shot control and putting was much more important than pure distance. To me, it was more fun, engaging and exciting to watch than the Portland Open which was played on perhaps the longest course ever,” claimed Byrne. “Ironically, a hole that all players could reach in one throw turned out to be the most difficult and gave us viewers the most jaw-dropping, dramatic finale imaginable.”
Mike’s quote perfectly illustrates where golf courses need to improve and how the sport has properly analyzed its issues but come to the wrong solutions. Disc golf, naturally, cannot help that it is an easier sport than golf. It is objectively less difficult to throw a disc accurately than it is to strike a ball accurately, so disc golf scores get much lower, yielding hot rounds of -15 sometimes. The tour has seen this and has actively begun “Tiger Proofing” courses in an effort to heighten scores when in reality, distance will heighten scores but make a course much less desirable to everybody who cannot throw 600 feet. This form of “Tiger Proofing” is set to exclude 95% of disc golfers, whereas a shorter (than a golf course) yet more technical course would include all divisions and has proven to be equally as difficult for touring MPO competitors as golf courses. For example, reference the scoring at Dela vs OTB: both are similar yet one is held on a top ten disc golf course of all time and the other leaves a bad taste in some competitors’ mouths.
I reached out to Kona Panis for her opinion on the matter because as an MPO player, I am well aware I can miss some integral arguments that matter to FPO players. Kona has played five tournaments this year on golf courses and that number is likely to change before the offseason.
“Golf courses allow for lots of spectators, allow more people to play, and are pretty to the eye. These are all great things, but sometimes the trees aren’t utilized enough when designing some of these courses. I also feel like the women can be a second though,” Kona continued. “Half of the women in our field don’t throw over 300–350 feet so some of these courses they will never come back to because of the length”
“I think they are gorgeous and can make for some great views on camera, but like I said, making the pro shape their shots in order to have a good look at the pin is important. I also think OB could be utilized better as well.”
Kona hit the nail on the head with the utmost precision with both of these arguments. First of all, as stated, distance oriented courses exclude most of every women’s division which is absolutely unacceptable for a sport that plans to maintain gender inclusive events. Eagle McMahon and Adam Hammes shot the same hot round score (-14) on two very different courses, yet women actually want to play just one of the two courses referenced.
The second nail upon which she has struck is that the nature of golf and disc golf are almost incomparable. Golf requires a manicured course or else the sport is unplayable at the highest level. Disc golf is not burdened with the same bounds: disc golf can be played anywhere. The premium on distance and lack thereof on precision and game plan mentioned by both Mike and Kona is a large issue that is almost adhered to golf courses. Natural vegetation is one of the best obstacles for disc golf, yet golf courses cannot have trees in the fairway nor the green…. So remind me, how are approaches and drive accuracy supposed to be as crucial to one’s round as they would otherwise be? Well, some courses are lined with artificial OB which serves its purpose and can change a course for the better, but it cannot replace good hole design nor natural obstructions. Or at least that is just my opinion.
To make sure I wasn’t alone in that theory, I asked Latitude 64 team member and SoCal favorite Clint Calvin for his opinion.
“I believe that if we are going to be playing down golf fairways, which is innately one of the lame parts about golf courses, there should be OB separating every fairway on the course. Let’s look at Goat Hill for example: people are across fairways on other holes and yet still inbounds. I also saw this at the Portland Open, where there are no OB’s in place where bad drives or even errant long throws would land. OB needs to be implemented on every hole on golf courses. The OB doesn’t need to be extremely punishing, just present and in play.”
The reason I saved Clint’s quote for last is because he recommends the same solution to monotonous golf course play as I do: Shorten the holes but make them harder. There is zero excuse for elongating holes when there is not adequate OB around the otherwise gapingly wide open course. Taking a long course that is already long and elongating it further instead of adding technical challenges is like painting your Honda Accord vomit green because you hated the shade of brown it was previously painted: it is a solution but just not a good one.
I would like to say a massive thank you to Mike Byrne, Kona Panis, and Clint Calvin for their input on the topic. Without them, this article would’ve been about as attractive as the aforementioned Honda Accord.
With that being said, I would like to leave this article with a little subjectivity. The paragraph following this is my opinion and may or may not be your opinion as well, enjoy.
Golf courses have their place in disc golf, sure. But their place had really ought to be a desperation measure for a lack of a better course option or a temporary “Tiger Proofing”. The limited terrain reflects 0% of what makes disc golf great. Disc golf in itself leaves virtually no environmental footprint whereas a golf course is literally nothing but an environmental footprint. Disc golf is fun in the woods, not in a wide open field, well, it is fun in both but I vastly prefer one over the other. The best courses I have ever played involve all sorts of elevation change and other natural aspects that make disc golfing a challenge, including: dirt, tree roots, rocks, tall grass, bushes, trees, running water, unkempt fairways, jail-like rough, clusters of trees, unique pin positions, cliffs, hills, logs, fallen branches, natural OB, uniquely shaped fairways, natural fairways, and intermittent shrubbery. Only a few of these can be found at golf courses and usually they are man made.
To wrap it up, golf courses have their place in disc golf, but course designers and tournament directors have yet to properly utilize a golf course. The OTB Open is the best we have seen a golf course utilized for disc golf and even then, it was not as good as it could have been. Disc golf tournaments hosted on golf courses have a long ways to go before they are an acceptable norm.
Thank you, enjoy your day, and let me hear your opinion in the comments.