short game

NEOSHO, Mo. — It didn’t take club members long. Once the Neosho City Council gave final approval to an agreement, members of the Neosho Disc Golf Club built a new disc golf course around a walking trail between Spring and Coler streets in Morse Park.

Council members on Dec. 21 voted unanimously to enter into an agreement with the club that allows club members to build and develop the course on city-owned land, with the parks department covering mowing and maintenance.

Club members had the course up and running last week, thanks to work from club members Jared Brown and Derek Green, said club president Frank Hebert.

“We already had a design in mind,” Hebert said. “We had already bought the baskets. We just had to have the approval so we could put them into the ground.”

The course has emerged as a need ever since the city beefed up its disc golf offerings. It has two other 18-hole courses in different parts of Morse Park, and the group in July expanded its annual Little Big Show Disc Golf Tournament to two days through a $4,786 grant from the city’s hotel-motel tax.

While no expansions are planned in the city’s current budget, disc golf could be further expanded in future years, said Clint Dalbom, parks and recreation director.

“We’re not opposed to the idea of adding more,” Dalbom said. “There was an idea for building one at the west end of the (Neosho Municipal Golf Course). There is some land there that’s not being used, and it seems like this sport has a huge number of participants, and that number is getting bigger all the time.”

The popularity of disc golf has expanded over the past decade and has spiked because of the pandemic.

Representatives of UDisc, an app that tracks disc golf course activity, reported that about 70% of disc golf courses have been built over the past 10 years. In its Disc Golf Course Report for 2020, a vast majority of those courses are free, and participation requires investing in only one disc. Costing about $15, the discs are engineered to be smaller and fly farther than a standard Frisbee, Aerobie or other flying disc.

Dalbom said the city had no numbers about how often the disc golf courses are used. Because disc golf is a free activity similar to using one of the city’s walking trails, the city has no way to track usage, he said. Anecdotally, however, Dalbom said the courses see visitors daily in all sorts of weather.

“Last winter, when there was snow on the ground, the regular golf course was closed,” Dalbom said. “At the same time, there were so many tracks on the disc golf courses that it looked like a herd of buffalo passed through.”

Intended for newcomers

While the new course is labeled as a beginner course in city documentation, Hebert described it more like a short course — none of the holes are longer than 280 feet. The intent is for newcomers to have some success as they learn the game, without having to deal with longer holes found in Morse Park’s other courses. Some of those stretch as far as 600 feet.

Hebert said the new course is perfect for developing his short game, a phase equivalent in golf to hitting the ball from the fairway to the green. While the holes were designed to be shorter, they weren’t designed to be simple, he said.

The course is also drawing experienced players. Hebert said the design has revealed shortcomings in his own short game that he can now work on.

“People of all skill levels are playing that course because it’s still challenging,” Hebert said. “It’s one of those things where we made it with a certain set of players in mind, but it turns out everyone likes it.”

Another aspect of the new course that is attractive to city leaders: The club is taking on the cost.

Hebert said that the club is working with sponsors to develop the course. The course is playable now, with baskets at each hole, but plans call for concrete tee pads with informational signs and sponsor displays.

When the club is finished, Hebert said, it will have $7,000 to $9,000 invested in the course.