Lincoln Park Disc Golf Poll

[snyderman]

How much would you pay for a annual pass to play Disc Golf at Lincoln Park (ball) golf course in SF?

[joegraham]

Is this seriously being considered? It would be GREAT! Good revenue for the city. San Diego had a course on Mission Trails Golf Course. Par 72, longest course in the world and awesome! Reese Swinea of Fly 18 put it in and it had a good run for a couple years. Ride in carts, roll for miles on manicured fairways!!! This is a fantastic idea. No land to develop/shape/maintain. Just put in baskets and play!!!

[pepe]

$50? are you kidding?

Ok maybe not. But let's be realistic here people. Lincoln Park's greens fees alone with an SF resident's card ($45 per year) are $25 each time you play, the cheapest in the city for an 18 hole course.

[Stick]

I think it's Sarasota Country Country Club in FL. has a really nice course. You get a tee time and pay the price of renting the cart. I think it's 18 bucks. The normal greens fee is 40 plus cart. You buy a membership, say $30 and then rent the cart when you play.(If your required to use a cart.)

[dantarango]

I would pay 50 or 100 a year for that(cart fees not included). San Diego has a course at Emerald Isle, that has the same concept. The greens are OB as well as all sand traps, and the normal D.G. OB's. It is a great idea, and the golf course(ball) would only benefit, with a hell of a lot more revenue. The best part about it. is that you don't have to wait for a dog walker or a old man with his grandchildren swinging in a fairway.

[pepe]

I wouldn't think it would be a helluva lot of revenue if disc golfers would only fork out $100/year for this. Lincoln Park is unbelievable scenic: views of the bridge and the marin headlands. They charge residents $25 to play each time, and that's with a residents' card (a one time fee of $45).

So do the math. You'd probably play the course at least 25 times a year if it were to be put in. GGP would still be free and fun but this would be epic.

[jahfool]

pepe, I'm sure you're right about $50, even $100 being absurdly low as far as reasonable costs for playing on a ball golf course, given the maintenance costs of a typical course. The poll is what *would* you pay not what *should* you pay. I'd pay $50, maybe $100 a year (not including cart fees, which I hadn't considered anyway). Or I'd pay a higher per round price with no/low annual fee a couple of times a year, more like what Stick suggested.

In general, I'm not willing to pay ball golf prices to play disc golf, even on a lovely plot of land such as Lincoln Park. But I don't represent the hard-core disc golfer that would be playing the course 25 times a year, either.

[joegraham]

The actual greens fees for disc golfers at Fly 18 courses are a lot lower than ball golf fees. $7 to $10 probably would be reasonable for Lincoln.

[pepe]

This is the 6th tee I believe. Yum.

[jahfool]

That picture does loosen the wallet a little bit. My previous post certainly should not be read as any sort of argument *against* a Lincoln Park course-- I'd love to play it.

[crosstoby]

I think pursuing this very same concept at the GGP 9 hole course might be feasible. Certainly worth discussing.

JT

[Kevin]

This is the 6th tee I believe. Yum.

17th. I've knocked a few balls into the water after my tee shot.

A little unclear on the concept here. Lincoln would allow baskets to be set up on certain days? Or is this after the financial cratering of the golf course? Both Lincoln and Sharp Park in Pacifica (which SF also runs) have been on the chopping block at City Hall.

[breazealeian]

$100 a year and $25 a round sounds reasonable to me. I would pay it. Where do the baskets go? Not on the green right? Probably off to the side in the rough?

GB

[pepe]

I believe the purpose of this poll was to gauge how much money disc golf could bring to lincoln park. If we had a better sense of what folks would be willing to pay to play, we could then go to the people in charge of the golf course and present them with some numbers. The bottom line is this:

- an 18 hole disc golf course costs about $10,000 to install (18 mach 3s, fly 18 pads, signage)


So how quickly would disc golfers be able to recoup those initial capital costs? If we had 100 golfers who bought $100 annual passes then they would recoup themselves immediately and any revenue past that would be a margin of profit. Of course, nobody's sure that would happen, but I think that it could be possible. Non pass holders could be charged 10-15 bucks a pop (without cart) and $20 with. They'd make a boatload of cash.

In other integrated discs/ball golf courses, the greens and bunkers are OB, and the basket is usually off to the side in the rough, so it doesn't really get in the way of the other golfers.

[joegraham]

If we are going to present numbers to the city, then we need to go all out. Give them the numbers for our club membership, Berkeley's membership, Sonoma's, San Jose etc., Give them the numbers of the weekly and doubles players (and for the other courses.) Let them know there are hundreds of golfers that will play Lincoln. My experience on 4 such courses is that we play much quicker, can play through ball golfers that spend a lot of time on the greens, and very low impact to the course. By placing the baskets off to the side and before most greens, greens don't get hit by discs and no dammage. This is not the case at Emerald Isle because a lot of the baskets are behind the greens, but they love us and deal with it. A course of this length will necessitate baskets forward of the greens. And we can ride carts!!! This is such a cool idea. I don't know if any existing such course is on a city owned course, but we have huge numbers of players to support this here. Various business plans can be submitted, like the club owns the baskets and gets a percetage of each fee paid, or the city takes ownership after paying off the baskets and gets all the revenue, and disc sales in the pro shop.