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Design Choices…Five Levels of Disc Golf Course Design

Jeff Crum

Jeff Crum

1 minute read time

October 30, 2024

Pitch ‘n Putt, Entry level, Competitive, Championship, and Hybrid

A brief introduction:

Disc golf course design takes into account many factors when approaching a project: Here are five factors to consider.

  1. The vision and desires of the park department or land owner.
  2. The amount of acreage, and features of the land available. 
  3. The needs and desires of the local community, park departments, and area players.
  4. Safety of the players, and other park or land users. 
  5. And of course, we desire to create excitement! Establishing tee, pin and fairway placements that highlight the unique features of the land to create Interesting challenges. 

Initial evaluation of these areas is necessary prior to beginning a project in order to address the needs and maximize benefits.  

To summarize; Jeff’s approach at Add Disc Golf is to empower the vision for the land, incorporating area needs, maximizing safety, while creating excitement for the game. All being done through his unique vision, awareness, and experiences. 

Evaluating and processing these vital components culminates in the creation of a planning document that will summarize the purposes with concrete approaches for implementation. 

“The Circle” Putting Ring

Jeff’s original putting practice concept consists of a 6” concrete curbing circle at grade, 20 meters in diameter. The interior is grass, with an approved disc golf basket at the center. 

This feature when adorned with attractive shrubs and classic benches placed around it creates a beautiful, yet functional visual landscape attraction.

A brief explanation: Ten meters in the rules of disc golf determines how a player is allowed to putt. Outside of ten meters the player can jump forward when putting, inside of this distance the player must maintain balance briefly after the disc is released. “The Circle” Putting Green concept establishes a permanent circle around a practice basket with concrete curbing. 

ADD disc golf has established two putting greens of this type in the city of Spokane. This is becoming a popular feature. Seeing this concept, the park director for the Spokane Valley requested that this feature be included in an upcoming park expansion project.  

Easy Pitch and Putt Courses

The Pitch ‘n Putt course is an easy, fun, course for anyone who can throw a frisbee. These short courses are designed for the beginner or those looking for light recreation.. Fairways are typically 100 – 150 feet in length. 

Pitch ‘n Putts are great to have in combination with more competitive courses. Players will often warm up at the short course before a tournament or a competitive round with friends. 

Course designer, Jeff Crum, recently created and helped to build a Pitch ‘n Putt in Spokane, Washington. This course is called Follower’s Church Family Disc Disc Golf Course. To help with visualizing this type of course we’ve included a few photos of another course of this type  in Idaho, called Little Black Bear.

The images above show a 9-hole course designed by Jeff Crum at Add Disc Golf for Followers Church in Spokane, Washington. This course was designed to fit into the space around the church offering recreational opportunities to the church community, the neighborhood, and other players from around the city.

Entry Level Recreational Courses

Last year we finalized an exciting new course at Liberty Park in Spokane. This course has 19 holes with an average hole length of 250 feet.

Often on weekends or evenings there will be 20 to 30 cars parked at the course. Many families, and players, from amateurs to top pro players find this course fun and challenging. 

Placement of disc golf at this park has drastically reduced transient activity and illegal camping. This has increased overall public usage for the park, thus improving the neighborhood. The images above show the course designed by Add Disc Golf at Liberty Park.

Challenging Competitive Level Courses

When designing courses at any level, we seek to create well-balanced fairways featuring a wide variety of hole lengths and layouts. This is especially true with higher level courses, where a player would be required to utilize a variety of throws. Courses with a good mix of fairways require the player to show skill and control over left, right and straight drives. In addition, a good design utilizes elevation, area foliage, with an eye to avoid future erosion issues. 

These courses are often developed with multiple configurations to create challenging opportunities for both beginners and advanced players, while working within the budget and design needs of the park department or landowner. 

For example, a 400 foot fairway may offer a shorter pin position at 300 feet. The same fairway could also have a shorter tee for beginners. In this way a competitive course serves a wide group of player skills. 

Jeff Crum the designer for Add Disc Golf designed and implemented a 20 hole course in a picturesque area of Spokane near the Spokane River. Set on hills adjacent to the river, Camp Sekani Jamboree Disc Golf Course has become a destination course for players throughout the region as well as visitors from other parts of the country. The course, utilizing a former Boy Scout campground features holes with one tee on a cliff, creative rock features, beautiful holes in the midst of trees, and views all around. As a competitive course, the Camp Sekani Jamboree course also hosts tournaments throughout the year drawing the best players from around the city and region.

Championship Pro Level Courses

These courses typically host highly competitive tournaments such as local, regional, and even national events. Comparable to traditional golf, these courses offer the maximum challenges for players with very long distances and utilization of the terrain that maximizes challenges and rewards for the most skilled.

The images above show the various levels of golf challenges at Farragut State Park, near Athol, Idaho.  Little Black Bear - Pitch ‘n Putt, Wreckreator, Competitive level, North Star, -Competitive level, AWOL - Competitive level, and Cutthroat, - Championship level.  These 5 courses are all accessible from one parking lot area. (Note: these courses were not designed by Jeff Crum, though Jeff has played and competed on these courses for many years.
Jeff Crum

Jeff Crum

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