FPO disc golfer Hailey King made this statement on her Instagram account:

[u/DiscGolfFanatic]

[u/GrodyOne]

I’ll just add, as someone who lives in Los Angeles, kinda sad there isn’t much Pro-stuff happening at all in SoCal. Lots of disc golf around here, pretty big community

[u/pmipunisher → u/GrodyOne]

The courses around here aren't up to snuff to be able to host a tour stop. Most of the courses are in public parks which,if even allowed, would be expensive to rent out completely and then the dgpt would have to do something for crowd management so they could still get their ticket sales. All the private courses I've seen are just thrown together on someone's 3 acres of land or on ball golf courses like goat hill. Which raised their prices so much that Risley had to change venues to Reidy to host his event this year.

There is a big community here, our 400+ player events a couple times a year at Lami shows it but none of the courses can handle the skill of the tour players and provide a good spectator experience. I think it would take a wealthy individual or company willing to put disc golf over money to create a course specifically for a pro tour stop, which I'm sure we can all agree won't happen. The courses we put in at a camp in Crestline could prove to be a viable challenge to tour players with a bit more work but it would be terrible for spectators since it's in the mountains.

This is all from my experience being involved with tournaments in the area for the last 7 years or so.

[u/No-Back-3380 → u/pmipunisher]

Well said. Also, people who don’t go to these events (understandably) don’t ever think about parking.

Just wait. Going forward I predict that parking will make or break certain tour stops. It probably already has tbf. You need to have enough room to both park cars and have room for a vending area.

[u/scsteve3 → u/No-Back-3380]

Parking was very packed at Ivy Hill and it was very hard to get out

[u/Plupandblup → u/pmipunisher]

I was in LA a couple of years ago. I was pumped to get to play some of these "historic" courses. Used uDisc, Facebook groups, Reddit posts, etc. to try and find the best course based on my location in the city and time that I had. Safety was also a decent factor in the decision.

The best course was some random park style course that you can find in the middle of heckin' nowhere. Nothing special. No history. Just... a park.

I was honestly surprised it was rated as highly as it was and wish that I had more time to get to one of the cornerstones of the city.

[u/pmipunisher → u/[deleted]]

They could, maybe, but that would probably come at a cost more than it's worth to the dgpt. Our club has contacted a few different golf courses about potentially running an event there, even when they aerate the greens. They have no interest because even with messed up greens, they'll still have all their tee times booked.

Of course those are only in our area, there's other groups that run events on golf courses every year but those courses would make for a very boring pro tour stop. Like LVC courses are more interesting.

But it would all come down to money, running anything like that in socal won't be cheap.

[u/thatskarobot → u/GrodyOne]

All of CA, really. We have an amazing diverse collection of courses and clubs.

[u/[deleted] → u/thatskarobot]

Seems like it’s always somewhere else but California.

[u/octipice → u/[deleted]]

I think catering to the "big throwers" is the biggest mistake professional disc golf is making. The greatest advantage that our sport has over other similar sports is that you can shape shots to do incredible things. Watching pros throw the same shot over and over again in a wide open golf course fairway might as well just be watching discus at a track meet.

Pro-level should be about accuracy, precision, and shot shaping, not just power. Yes it is harder to film that and yes you can't have as many people physically present, but I think it's worth sacrificing short term gains to promote what's truly unique about the sport.

[u/PLNTRY_Geophys → u/octipice]

The problem is, the pros have so much power that they look at a hole designed to be a 450 foot flex line and just throw a giant hyzer over everything. You have to include length to make a course pro level because they can simply skip most challenges that amateur players face by using distance (it’s super effective!). Even heavily wooded courses are adding distance to make things harder (e.g., idlewild), which is crazy, because the shortest pro tour courses are still like 2000 ft longer than anything amateur players see on a regular basis.

I will add that I agree that there are other ways to make a course difficult. I like what we saw at worlds with the hazard areas. I think adding hazard areas to bail out zones is a way to punish shots that miss in a fair way, and emphasizes the precision part of the sport. For example, if you miss by a foot into hazard, you might be 30 ft from basket for par. But if you’re 20 ft in hazard, you now have a 50 footer for par rather than moving closer to the pin if the hazard were out of bounds.

[u/GrodyOne → u/octipice]

I would agree. One of the reasons I really enjoy both Veterans Park and Oak Grove. Neither really requires a big arm. But I’m a newbie mostly.

[u/rebelliousjuicebox → u/GrodyOne]

My home courses. Love both but neither would be great for spectators. Maybe Morley in San Diego?

[u/moonunit54 → u/octipice]

Completely agree. We have more than enough courses where we get to watch artless 400-500' hyzers. I want to see a more course design on the dgpt that will test shot-shaping, placement, and controlling how the disc lands. Everyone acts like it's beneath them or way too easy to throw a straight putter 200-250', but every time there's a hole like that on the DGPT where they have to hit a gap and control the landing so many pros struggle and there's a ton of separation. We need more skills tested by courses, not just distance.

[u/Software_Entgineer → u/moonunit54]

Strong disagree, there is no separation in short holes, they always average at least half a stroke under par and it is almost always a birdie or par. Almost no one is taking a double or triple, or really even a bogie without some sort of OB or unlucky roll away.

I don’t know how hard you throw, but I can throw ~440’ and have an absolute max 400’ hyzer. The further you throw the easier it is to slightly mess up the nose or release angle and be off in no-man’s land because of it… controlling all of that at 70mph+ is… incredibly impressive and the harder I throw the more impressive those shots become to me.

A 330’ hyzer is boring sure, a 450’ hyzer is impressive (70 mph) and a 500’+ hyzer is bonkers. I’ve played in tournaments with a few people with that power and on some professional level courses and it is wild to see. That doesn’t even cover choosing the right disc, reading the wind, giving the disc the correct width, hitting the right landing zone to have an upshot, etc. Part of being a professional is that they make that shit look easy, don’t be fooled into thinking it is “artless”. They are.. Just. That. Good.

If you want those 200’-250’ woods lines I would recommend watching some Gatekeeper A tier coverage of some mediocre courses. I occasionally will and find those type of courses have two types of holes:

1. The hole is fair and pros just slay the course and birdie early every hole.

2. The hole requires some sort of luck and the unlucky people par.

You’ll see the high local open player’s players struggle to hit them, but the pros will 9/10.

[u/jaxassassin → u/moonunit54]

I agree with your opinion that disc golf is best in the woods but your statement that pros struggle to throw 200-250ft straight putter shots is just wrong. Find me any 225ft hole on tour where the hole ranks in the top 3-5 holes in difficulty of the course. I can’t think of a single one off the top of my head. The reality of a course that plays like that is that half the mpo field would shoot -10 or better and people would complain that it’s birdie or die. I also don’t believe that there is much score separation on a hole that short without adding ob. There’s going to be plenty of 2s, some 3’s and less 4. Usually on a 225ft hole if they don’t hit the gap they can usually jump putt to the circle since most people on tour are pushing 100ft plus on jumpers now.

[u/DonnyLumbergh → u/[deleted]]

Sapwi & Casitas could both be laid out for A-Tiers I think. Plenty of dynamic topography to play with and a TON of space.

[u/destinybond → u/GrodyOne]

Good thing LA gets literally everything else

[u/Little-Tax1474 → u/GrodyOne]

Cause there's too many cuntservatives in disc golf and they hate Cali.

[u/eagle_talon → u/GrodyOne]

Would be awesome to see LA host an event with a temp course in Griffith Park.

[u/soberpenguin → u/eagle_talon]

If you thought pros were salty with rollout on hole 14. Chavez ridge will spit you out 200ft down a hill

[u/eagle_talon → u/soberpenguin]

They can’t handle Chavez. Half the course is hole 14 worlds. lol

[u/GrodyOne → u/eagle_talon]

I’d love that so much !

[u/rebelliousjuicebox → u/GrodyOne]

I wonder this as well. LA alone has a few courses that would be stellar.

[u/QbiinZ → u/GrodyOne]

Even in CA there are some great courses in some racist backwards ass hick towns. I think the problem isn’t necessarily isolated to specific states. It’s very unfortunate that good courses happen to be in terrible areas.

[u/GrodyOne → u/[deleted]]

Natalie..? Sorry newish to disc golf

[u/box_fan_man → u/GrodyOne]

Maybe if you celebrated your racist past more you could have more events.

[u/BluntAndHonest76 → u/GrodyOne]

I’d love to see the Hypodermic Open! Catch a round of disc golf and a stray fentanyl needle at the same time!!

[u/GrodyOne → u/BluntAndHonest76]

👎🏻 you obviously don’t get out much

[u/BluntAndHonest76 → u/GrodyOne]

Please tell me more about me, oh one who has no clue who I am.

[u/GrodyOne → u/BluntAndHonest76]

I don’t. Sorry didn’t mean to be rude. Just , as a transplant to the area, I actually love SoCal and LA and will defend it

[u/BluntAndHonest76 → u/GrodyOne]

I think it’s great. But don’t pretend SoCal doesn’t have its reputation.

Clearly it’s okay to slap a reputation in the south as if all southerners were slave abusing asshats, when it’s just not.

But none-the-less. Yeah, “you don’t get out much” is intended as an insult.

[u/GrodyOne → u/BluntAndHonest76]

Fair on both fronts. I do think there is a general difference though in terms of playing on a course featuring a slave house vs just being in Los Angeles which has “a reputation of being icky”. But I see your point . It was and I’m sorry for that

[u/BluntAndHonest76 → u/GrodyOne]

Not a slave house. For someone telling me I don’t get out much, you didn’t bother to do more than take some woman on social media at face value with her opinion…

AFTER SHE TOOK HER CHECK!

[u/bduddy → u/BluntAndHonest76]

You watch a lot of Fox News, or maybe you used to before you decided it was "too woke".

[u/BluntAndHonest76 → u/bduddy]

Damn. For a professional on me, you aren’t close. Keep guessing though. It’s working out so well for you right now.

I bet you think you know what my party affiliation is, too, huh??

[u/bduddy → u/BluntAndHonest76]

you're 100% an "independent"

[u/BluntAndHonest76 → u/bduddy]

You’re 110% incorrect.

[u/Chip_Marlow → u/GrodyOne]

I'd imagine CA laws or tax stuff keeps a lot of events from going there

[u/GrodyOne → u/Chip_Marlow]

I’m new this year to disc golf. What’s the laws that would prevent ?