The Vermillion City Council learned last summer of efforts being undertaken by a newly-formed non-profit organization to create a new disc golf course at Cotton Park while, at the same time, bringing some much-needed improvements to the property.
Helping to make this project a possibility is $25,000 the City of Vermillion has allocated for use in creating the new 18-hole disc golf course.
“Last August, the parks department discussed allocating $25,000 to place a disc golf course in Cotton Park. Recently, in the last year or so, we’ve lost about 10 acres of (park) land over at Barstow Park,” said Vermillion Parks and Recreation Director Jim Goblirsch.
Barstow Park is located on land owned by the Vermillion School District. Much of that property will be used as the site of the new elementary school currently being constructed.
“We lost our practice area for baseball and softball, the younger groups, we’ve lost our tennis courts and pickle ball courts, we’ve lost green space and parking areas over there,” Goblirsch told city council members last August. “And, we’ve lost our 9-hole disc golf course over there. It wasn’t super long, but it was another area to have disc golf.
“I’ve been working with Bjorn (Flanagan, who helped create the Vermillion River Disc Golf organization) … he and his group have done some really great things down there (Cotton Park).” Goblirsch said.
He added that Vermillion City Engineer Jose Dominguez has assisted with the design of the new course.
“There’s some trickery down there with the topography and you can’t get too close to the railroad tracks, but they’re really going to make a productive use out of that area,” Goblirsch said.
Mike Phelan, a Vermillion man who is a disc golf enthusiast and has been involved in the creation of the new course, shared information about the sport with city council members and described how the activity is growing in Vermillion and in the region.
“Disc golf really got started in the 1970s and kind of grew slowly throughout the 1980s and 1990s, with the addition of a disc golf course in Prentis Park sometime in the 2000s,” he said. “In the last decade, the members of the Professional Disc Golfers Association (PDGA), which in actuality is made up mostly of amateur players, has grown by 400%, he said, with most of that growth…