DG DEAD ZONEZ

[Titan Bariloni]

I know of a few but I wanna hear from the people

Ever drive for a long time and say this sux there is no DG course here or there should be a course here?

That is what I am talking about

example after west t driving down the highway there is nothing(soon brooklyn)
or driving to J Park saying this sux I gotta go to NY...lol

discuss

[Karl Molitoris]

There has to be people in the area to build the dg course! Squirrels and Chickadees don't build good courses. One believes that trees ARE the fairway and the other just wants to go over everything every time! And they have NO distance on their throws so all their courses end up too short. TeeRexs WISHED they could "Rex a shot" like S's and C's can.
As it turns out, the VAST majority of courses are built 'in the proximity' of thoroughfares. Just look at CT. Most of the courses are on the 95/15/84 belt (southwest to northeast)...AND that's exactly where the population centers are! Can't build them in the 'inner city' (well, not too often anyway) and if there are no people to play the course it sort of gets neglected.
That 1 is going in in the megalopolis of Brooklyn, CT - to me - is quite excellent / out of the ordinary. And the NW corner of CT is almost expected to have none (although someday I hope I'm proven wrong).
While dg may be thought of as a 'rural sport' (due to the land need for it), it really is a 'rural / urban sport' that truly IS on the fringe of things.

Karl

[Brad Harris]

Everett Turnpike in southern NH. Nashua, Manchester, and Concord make up three major population centers. Total courses along that route: zero. The first one is top o the hill north of Concord. I-93 to Salem makes a nice triangle with another major population center. Including that region brings the course count to a whopping one (muldoon park in Pelham)

[Karl Molitoris]

I know what you're trying to say Brad, but for every case you state that's like the one you did, I can state 5 to confirm mine. Just saying. Why do you think there's a splotch of land the size of southern New England just NW of Albany that has zero courses (except for Morgan's)? And how many courses are there north of Orono in ME? Ya need SOME people to build / play it!

If someone is looking for where ARE the dead zones, that task has already been done. A guy by the name of West (PDGA web threads I think) has done a LOT of work on this topic.

Karl

[Brad Harris]

Karl,

I'm not trying to counter your point in any way. I completely agree that courses are never going to pop up in areas with no population.

I think Titan's intent here is to identify areas of New England where there may be a good concentration of population, as well as major thoroughfares that do not have any courses. I'm simply identifying one of those areas.

The Everett Turnpike is a major North/South highway passing through Nashua (pop 86,494), Manchester (pop 109,595), and Concord (pp 42,695) as well as several smaller towns in between. This region features a large enough population to keep courses occupied and enough open space to build them.

[Karl Molitoris]

Cool. Sorry that I took your words wrong.
Courses will spring up IMO where there are a few diehards willing to put in the initial effort to put in one course and then others will learn (of the sport), get hooked, spread the word and try setting up another course close by. But just a few will really transplant the game far; most will take it "just down the road"...and thus courses bequeath courses (and why multiple courses end up 'close by' and not evenly spread out).
And it may not be really a bad thing IF there are dead zones! In a nut shell, why have courses where no one plays? In 1975, what good would a dg course have been in Iceland (I assume) no one had even heard of the sport? Eventually, as was the case of Iceland, people DID hear of it and a course WAS built. It's kind of like the wild west. People didn't just go from eastern KY to CO via "Scotty, beam me up" - they had to migrate slowly out to CO via western KY, MO, KS, etc. DG courses will probably be the same.

Karl

[Thomas Bentley]

Boston.

[Dylan Courtney]

Boston.

Ditto.

[Matt Stroika]

Middlesex county and North into NH. One nine holer in Burlington and one in a town park in Pelham, NH. [bleep] of people live in this county. 1.5 million at the last census.

[Brad Harris]

Middlesex county and North into NH. One nine holer in Burlington and one in a town park in Pelham, NH. [bleep]-ton of people live in this county. 1.5 million at the last census.

I was going to include some of that area in my Southern NH dead zone as well. Lowell to Manchester has a huge population with just one course.

[Kevin Silvia]

Rhode Island.

There's Ninigret in Charlestown .... if I feel like traveling 2x the distance as I currently do to MA & CT courses.

There USED to be a nine hole course in North Smithfield until Satan got his way. I blame Satan, until they can find the thief who stole the baskets.

[Bill Bureau]

Boston....sadly,so much under-utilized land at Blue Hills and(my DREAM)the arnold arboretum....

[Thomas Bentley]

There is a lot of underutilized land in Boston prime for a great course and while having a course in the Arboretum would be really cool, I don't think its possible. That place is a tree museum owned by Harvard and teeming with foot, bicycle and stroller traffic. Also don't want to count the Blue Hills because while it would be awesome to have a course there, its not in Boston.

Across from the Arboretum is Franklin Park which has 65 acres of hilly woods officially called "The Wilderness". The amount of use that area of the park gets lives up to its name. Getting something going there will entail a huge organizing effort because its the crown jewel of Olmstead's Emerald Necklace and there are a few non-profits invested in preservation. I am encouraged by precedent though. Golden Gate Park in San Francisco is an Olmstead park and after about 7 years or organizing, there is a great 18 hole course there.

An easier route for an 18 hole course in Boston would probably go through the Stony Brook Reservation which is DCR land.

Another encouraging tidbit: both Franklin Park and Stony Brook Reservation have municipal ball golf courses inside of them.

[Ben DAmore]

Expanding Tom's area, go from Boston down the expressway to Route 3. Nothing until the Cape. I know there was once talk for a course at Wompatuck SP (HIngham) but nothing came of it. Plymouth is all forests, as are most of the towns around it. Would be nice to have less than a 40 minute drive to a course!

Ben

[Andy Powell]

I think the idea of "local course" varies a great deal too. Up here in VT, drives of over an hour to get to your local course are common and people don't think much of it. I've driven over an hour and a half to play casual rounds up at black falls on a whim. In MA, it seems people are more used to denser population areas and being able to find 10 of anything they want within a half-hour drive. We are always trying to get a course in the Burlington area, but it's more for convenience for the UVM crowd and to ease the congestion on other area courses. I am surprised that no courses exist in the immediate Middlebury area though, especially since it is the home to the former GMDGC point series and PDGA tour title sponsor (Woodchuck hard cider).

[Matt Stroika]

The difference is that counties we are talking about in MA have more people than the entire state of VT.

If you live in MT you know it will take you an hour to get to the grocery store. In eastern MA you have 7 of them within 10 minutes.

[Titan_Bariloni]

come on thresh hold DG'ers get out there..cold call some land owners and lets push for some new courses

[Jeff Wiechowski]

Yea, it's happening................
Harry J Betar Recreational Park

[Titan_Bariloni]

wow..ty for sharing...looks like a gem of a park with all those surrounding woods attached
did the town just decide..or was there a DG warrior that deserves a TY..?

[Jeff Wiechowski]

wow..ty for sharing...looks like a gem of a park with all those surrounding woods attached
did the town just decide..or was there a DG warrior that deserves a TY..?

Johnny Chowske approached us a couple years back but we were in the middle of CPS installation and talks with Niskayuna about Blatnick. Greg and I walked the property with him but nothing more came of it.

A few weeks back a new guy, Glenn Allen, posted on the forum that he was interested in getting the ball rolling again. He's already contacted the Town about it. I met him out there yesterday and he had the property map to help us walk the correct areas. Has potential to be pretty cool. Some mild elevation and a small sand pit will make for some interesting holes.

Glenn and John are in contact with each other and we're gonna walk the park more this winter to start laying out holes.

[Kenji Cline]

The great news with this new DisCap endeavor is that Glenn has had informal talks with the parks&rec dept and they think it is a wonderful idea. So hopefully another DisCap course coming soon.