Thoughts on the next course

[Jason Southwick]

The next course I'm thinking about won't be 4.5 miles away. It'll be 3.5 miles away, in Leicester.

To break it down to the bare essentials, the way the ownership and the stewardship of this particular large parcel is, it would be a volunteer effort.
Selling a free disc golf course is actually easier than people think. Is there one more in the tank? Weekends for one summer, and if I'm disorganized, maybe $5000 for supplies and equipment and paying younger workers.

Questions to ponder. There's always going back to just TALKING about creating disc golf courses. I did that for eight straight years, till the mouth vomit started backing up.

And one more disc golf course nearby? One more step toward disc golf meccadom? Geesh, it's fairly irresistible.

There are a couple details to work out, but I'm pretty sure the land is just waiting there naked and beckoning like a bride on her wedding night with the groom passed out drunk in the other room.

[Jeff Wiechowski]

I see that same DG utopian-type plot of land here in NY......... I pass it on the way to and from work every day. 30+ acres within a mile of the Northway.......... just a lottery ticket away.

[Jason Southwick]

Um, after walking the land, it just ain't going to happen. Densest thicket imaginable. I'm back to just talking about making disc golf courses.

So let's talk about making a disc golf course as if we're actually going to make one.

This is a familiar place, but not a satisfying one.

Redesigning holes 3, 4 and 5 at Pyramids is a nice diversion, but not enough. Fixing the worst aspects of Newton Hill is also a nice diversion, and something we'll have to do before the next tournament there. Also not enough.

Creating a brand new disc golf course is the only thing that pumps fresh oxygen into the blood. Is this a syndrome, a neurosis, a condition, a state of mind, or a disease?

Maybe we should talk about all the courses that'll never happen because we don't know how to proceed. Dagnabit!

So many people want it but don't know how to do it. Right now, me too.

Time to clear the mind, at least enough for it to reveal not just what it wants, but how it plans to go about getting it.

[Titan Bariloni]

Who will find this artist a canvass?

[Jeff Wiechowski]

Who will find this artist a canvass?

Saratoga Spa State Park.
All we need is funds for baskets & cement.

[Karl Molitoris]

Jason,

If I lived in the area, I'd have beaten you (to the punch) and talked to the Spencer "powers that be" to obtain the OK for a complete redesign of Luther (vandross) Park. Could be really nice (and a lot less dangerous).

But I don't...so it's your lucky day!

Karl

[Jason Southwick]

Emerging from a funk, it becomes painfully obviously clear how all limitations are just mental blocks. Thoughts become things if you follow them with the right actions.

I really am getting there, like James Woods in Videodrome reaching into himself and pulling out the remote control which is all bloody and has his entrails on it. You gotta reach deep to figure out how to do the thing you want to do.

Luther Hill Karl? Talk about poison ivy the size of palm leaves. Disc golf emanating differently directly from a very vague and uninformed concept of disc golf. Some nice holes there.

Someone said Hadwin Park. I know nothing, understand nothing, know nobody. Groping forward just by feel and smell and instinct.

Deep down it's a "don't give up, don't give up, don't ever give up" kinda thing.

[Karl Molitoris]

I know it's Luther HILL but that's not as cool as Luther Vandross (few things are...). I could have called it Lex Luther Park but I'm not a villain (neither is the park...).

@#$%#& the poison ivy!! Kill it! Kill it! Green is good, but that's what chemicals are for.

Karl

Ps: OK, how about BENNY Hill Park? Mary Hill (Billy Joe Royal anyone?)?

[Jason Southwick]

You know I talked about my desire to build another course to some locals over brewskies and one friend of a friend said Hadwen Park, which is five point one miles from my house with only two stoplights and an easy drive.

I don’t speed, and I don’t like to drive. (Would I enjoy driving more if I sped?)

So I walked two of the dogs (Pierre didn’t want to get in the truck that day, oddly and unusually) there for three or four hours last week on a weekday afternoon, and designed a rough draft of a course in my mind, where somehow you have to wind up at the top of the big mowed hill for the signature downhill shot.

And I was psyched, cause it has the potential to be an excellent course, and about twice as easy to build as Newton Hill, with virtually no storm damage or all the storm damage is cleared and just a bunch of small trees and brush to cut to make fairways.

All alone, I could do one fairway a day. Three a day with Belhumeur. Relatively easy cutting and dragging. Tee pads and basket installation take extra separate days. It’s not supposed to be wicked easy.

I called Rob Antonelli the guy in charge of Worcester Parks and we had a lovely conversation. He oversaw our creation of Newton Hill, and said he’s heard nothing but positive things from people about it.

And he called me back.

So we’re talking and he wants to alert the Hadwen Park neighborhood about this disc golf plan with an official letter inviting them to the meeting in late June, when I’ll be presenting disc golf to the same committee Rick Miller and I submitted disc golf to for Newton Hill, and I’ve got to submit my little proposal by June 11.

I mentioned how great it was to make Newton Hill, and what a success it is. And then mentioned how even better it would be THIS TIME to have a more “cooperative financial relationship” with the City of Worcester regarding the new course and Rob pins me down immediately and I tell him $10,000 for the hardware.

It’s begging and pathetic and I don’t care. I’ll sell another free disc golf course to the City of Worcester, if the Hadwen Park neighbors let me. About the ten grand, Rob says there could be some room there.

Do I need more commitment from the City on this? Of course not; remember, I’m still begging. The fact that I’m a minuscule fairy fem [bleep] is completely offset by the hope that in two months I’ll be holding a running chainsaw with permission to build a disc golf course. Try calling me names then.

I’m really confident after Newton Hill and believe come July we’ll be cutting out a new course. Sure, we gotta be honest and admit this is still just talking about creating courses.

But I’m following my own steps:

1) Find a suitable piece of land
2) Get permission to use it
3) Build it, and everybody will come. In a sexually orgasmic way.

Right now I’m past 1) and working on 2). It’s unfolding like visualization in progress or something.

And otherwise statistically so what if I’m theoretically past the four-beer buzz? I see this happening. The yellow brick road is a bureaucratic path that requires two or three awkward meetings, plus a proposal where you put your thoughts into words.

Closer to home, just talking about building new courses with friends and acquaintances is electric, with everybody’s ideas important all at once.

Like dogs after raw meat.

Another new disc golf course. It’s like the disc golfers’ version of 47 virgins. Me? 47 Virgins? Okay one a day till I need a break and Kelley gets suspicious. How about one a week? One a week would be good, if we could waive the suicide mission.

Makes you realize why suicide bombers are young. At some point you reach an age where at the end of your mission you get to say “Yay,” have a barbecue (disguised as a tournament), and invite everybody over.

I want to say “Yay,” have a tournament (disguised as a barbecue), and have someone else drive the 5.1 miles home.

[Brian Russolino]

Sounds like you are jones-ing worse than me. We met a month ago at pyramids, and discussed creating a course. I have a nice business plan going and some possible funding, I just need to acquire a nice parcel. I vote for southeastern CT or RI for the next course, I even volunteer to run the whole operation...lol

[Felix Harvey]

It's a disease and it may be terminal.

[Jeff Wiechowski]

It's a disease and it may be terminal.

It's definitely contagious...... We just got Schenectady in the ground and neighboring Niskayuna just offered up some prime property along the Mohawk for a course. I hope this "disease" spreads to Saratoga, there's a beautiful park up by the track.

[Mike Murphy]

Metrowest needs the disease over here.

No course closer than 30-40 min away from most of this area.

[Titan Bariloni]

could be another DAM course going in........that is the BUZZ

[Andrew_Bottcher]

Which Dam?