Unger Park - Improving the Golf Holes

[gflap]

Played here this past w/e. Love the new design. What a fun round. Is there enough room on that same side of the park for another 9?

[REDARMY]

Once again, action speaks louder than words. You, REDARMY, have just as much capability as anyone else as far as completing this task is concerned. Do some research, take some pictures, do some work, and come up with a design for these tee signs. Make it your baby, not your mouth.

D'OH

why don't you ask chris and ron and matt w. who was there helping dig out stumps and pour teesigns last october greg?

[irwinje]

I think before spending valuable club money on new tee signs, we need to finalize a course layout. Though the original layout did not allow for year round play, the new layout sucks worse than Watson Trails (that's right Watson!) In my mind, there are a couple options for Unger
1) Keep original design with the understandign that this is a "Winter" course - only open from Sept-Apr (like many courses in other areas)
2) Try and re-design another 18 hole course, utilizing more of the front area and rear area
* Of course this point is moot since the park/gates close as soon as teh Meramec comes over the spillway
3) Abandon Unger all together - use the 18 baskets (that are paid for) as the 2nd 18 at SP or JB (preferably SP)
4) Abandon Unger all together - use the 18 baskets for another new course somewhere, Queeny, Carondalet, Sylvan Springs, St. Charles (anywhere that is playable)

Though I think the terrain of Unger is an awesome challenge, it may just not be a good location for a course since the park is actually designed to take on extra water during flood season.

[Jorge]

Jeff,

I gotta say, your suggestion #3 is a very good one. As much as I would love to see a new course in St. Charles County, I'd like even more to have another 18 at Sioux.

I've played Unger and it was ok, but I think having another 18 at a course or adding one in St Charles would do more to help stl disc golf.


Just throwing stuff out there.

[REDARMY]

#3 vote for me.

sioux is dying for 18 more holes.

[buckstlkr1]

It's obvious to anyone impartial that having a course only playable a portion of the year is not a wise use of club funds. That being said, if Unger is this type of course (which apparently it is) maybe the smartest thing to do would be to abandon Unger and use the baskets in another place. St. Charles has only one course, and no Lindenwood does not count because it is private...no leagues, no tournaments. If the club wants to be serious about recruiting members from the St. Charles county area then it time to step up. From the rumors flying around Quail, the parks department has approved a new course for one of the other county parks, but the funds are unavailable. This would be great opportunity for the club to show they are serious about including St. Charles in the club. Many of us felt abandoned by the club when we saw Unger go in while Quail was falling apart. I think it is awesome how much is being done to Quail with some help from the club and see this as a real turn around from the previous policy toward St. Charles. I do understand that adding another 18 to Sioux would help during a tournament, but to me its a question of purpose and need. I feel at this point in time St. Charles needs another course to relieve pressure on its only disc golf course, while another 18 at Sioux could wait a little longer. No matter what I think the club has really worked to improve in so many ways and look forward to seeing what happens in the following year.

[irwinje]

It seems that most people in St. Charles choose to believe that the RCF refused to help out there in years past, which IS NOT TRUE! There was a desire to do much much more at Quail than has previously done, but it wasn't until only about a year ago that the St. Charles County Parks have allowed us to do anything.
Magic has done a great job in St. Charles building leagues and running great events and that is definately a step forward for St. Charles. But, even when I was involved, we had earmarked money for St. Charles that we weren't allowed to use because the Parks Dept did not believe that upgrades were needed. I'm not sure what Andy finally did to convince them, but we have been moving forward with upgrades and new pin placements since then.

So, to be clear, St. Charles is not a bastard child of the RCF, we just didn't have a written agreement with them the way we did with St. Louis. Now, it appears that we do, and things are getting done. This message needs to be spread through out St. Charles as it seems that most golfers from that area have a pre-conceived notion that the RCF is going out of their way to make St. Charles courses fail. We are all in teh same boat, but as a volunteer organization, the RCF can't afford to just throw money around, which again is why we had to wait for a written agrteement with St. Charles before putting money into courses out there. It is very much a common sense issue, but again, the general consensus I'm getting from St. Charels golfers in that they think the RCF wants to be an enemy rather than an ally

[buckstlkr1]

Unger was a BAD idea period. Putting money up for a golf course in a flood plain seems very foolish to me. As for the rest if my comment I gave the club a compliment on how well they are doing now overall...sorry you have such a problem with that, but it's true. I have seen more get done over the past year to improve the club such as obviously help out at Quail, tournaments running more smoothly (ex. starting on time), listening to what the members want, and more transparency in the way funds are being spent, this is what I like to see. This is my opinion and I am entitled to it. You had your chance to show St. Charles how the club felt and I'm sorry to me you failed. I feel the people in there now have made it clear from the start that they want St. Charles as are part of the club and I for one have appreciated this fact. Attacking me and St. Charles for stating that we would like an additional course seems counter productive to good relations for all members. Relax the past is the past, lets look to the future as a club for betterment of disc golf in both St. Charles and St. Louis.

[emptv]

Disc Up,
Living in Saint Charles county, I like the idea of a second course in Saint Charles county. But if we, the RCF, wants to hold bigger events ie., Worlds, USDGA championship, or another major event, it would be much easier to have two 18 hole courses at 1 park. IMHO.
That being said there are 2 courses that are private, but still within 20-25 minutes of St. Charles county, Turtle Oaks & El Shaddia. I guess if you count Creve Coeur and Bluebird, you have 2 more within the same drive time, just the other way. Technically though, none of the 4 mentioned are actually in St. Charles county. I guess the decision really comes down to priorities, either go where the demographics dictate or go where the event scene can prosper. Personally, being a traveling player, I will go wherever the courses are. A new course, anywhere, is 1 more course to play and isn't that what is all about?

[irwinje]

On Unger
We were given the 80 acre park and asked if we wanted to put in a course. The opportunity seemed good despite the looks of the park, because we were told it only flooded 3 times/year and they weren’t bad. The overgrowth was a bigger concern than flooding potential in the beginning. Additionally, a majority of the board (at the time) voted to move forward with the project because we (as a club) needed to spend $3,500 pronto (I’ll explain the effect of that contract later)

The Agreement/Contract
The RCF has a contractual agreement with the StL Co. Parks Dept. This agreement allowed the RCF to put the money that they would have used for shelter rental directly back into the course. We just need to show them receipts from the improvements.
To simplify, the Parks Dept would allow us to use the money that we would typically pay them for the shelter rentals for course upgrades like benches, retaining walls, etc. No such agreement existed with St. Charles

St. Charles
I know I shouldn’t do this, but my biggest problem is my inability to just let people be wrong. When I got involved with the club St. Charles did not have a delegate on board. So I joined the league out there and tried to start recruiting people.
I was Sarah’s doubles partner and got along well with Dan so I invited both of them to a meeting to represent St. Charles. I was hoping I could get one to be the treasurer, but the goal was to get more young people involved with the club. Shortly after that, their personal lives became much busier and they could not be part of the board.
By this time, Jerry’s daughter had gotten sick and he asked me to take over for him as president, which I reluctantly did. Through league and email, Andy and I had multiple discussions regarding St. Charles. I told him that nothing could get done unless we could get a delegate from the area to come to meetings and he stepped up. Now we’re at approximately May of 2008.
Since I am a bit of a digital pack rat, I went back and looked at the agendas that I drew up for our meetings. The first one I did was for the June 10th meeting, the next meeting was June 30th and St. Charles was on the agenda. In fact, St. Charles was on the agenda nearly every meeting after that.
This was about the time that Andy started making threats about seceding from the RCF and starting a St. Charles DG club. Though I’m not fond of being threatened, Andy did get people and the board to start taking St. Charles seriously.
At the time we came up with the idea of getting 50 QR stamped putters to sell at Quail Ridge and raise funds for additional chains on the baskets that liked to spit putts. Is any of this starting to sound familiar?
The putters were made, stamped and delivered, and sold, but we still didn’t have a contract with St. Charles Parks Dept. The RCF basically needed to proove that this game was popular enough to rent shelter and close the course on league nights, so we, the RCF scheduled more tournaments out there.
They would not allow us to do anything more than what Andy and his group were already doing, which was simply cleaning up the courses and trimming some limbs where needed. This means, even though we knew we needed retaining walls and different pin placements and new benches, they didn’t want us doing that type of stuff out there.
Finally, Andy was able to work his “magic” on the Parks People and they started allowing us to do some minor upgrades. In fact, if memory serves, I think I even signed the check for the first $600 the RCF was allowed to use at QR. Since then the relationship between the RCF and QR/St. Charles has been much better.
Again, the general consensus, even from you post, is that St. Charles DGers felt “abandoned.” But, mark my words, it was not due to lack of effort on the RCF’s part. We did not have permission to go into QR, or any park in St. Charles and do the things that are now getting done.

Other Courses
I know people are impatient and disc golfers are no different. But, to put things in perspective about how quickly volunteer organizations move, the upgrades that were recently completed this past May at Endicott had been on the RCF agenda and “To Do” list since my first board meeting in November of 2007.

The RCF
I actually think the club is doing great now, and I am proud to have been part of the organization that was allowed to move to the next level. I’d like to think that I helped them achieve those goals since I was part of the board that put those things on the “To Do” list and the events that my administration ran basically footed the bill for all the great things that are being done now.
I am not taking credit away from any of the new board, but rather trying to shine the light on how little the general membership actually knows about what goes on. Its not your fault you’re clueless, you were just uninformed. Now, I know I’m not going to win and popularity contests, and I can admit that I’m about the worst politician out there, but certainly don’t need people like you talking shit!
/rant