A group photo shows the 60 players who took part in the March 1 opening day tournament at the Rock Harbor Disc Golf Course in Morro Bay. Photo by Jo Koumouitzes
Lovers of the ever-popular pickleball have a place at Del Mar Park in Morro Bay to play their favorite game. And now lovers of disc golf have a cool place, too.
March 1 marked the grand opening and first tournament for the Rock Harbor Disc Golf Course, located on a beautiful piece of hilltop property at 1475 Quintana Rd. (near South Bay Boulevard). Rock Harbor Christian Fellowship and a couple of “crazy surfers” have put together a wonderful disc golf course, with 10 holes, each a par-3; each posing unique challenges for players; and stretching out over 160-feet on the longest holes. It’s taken a couple of years and a whole lot of sweat equity to first clear out brush and then design the hole lay outs; build tee boxes and plant the catch baskets.
“It all started,” said Bobby Chapa one of the disc courses driving forces, “with two crazy suffers clearing out over an acre of overgrown coyote brush, poison oak, which took over a year.”
Clearing out poison oak, as anyone who’s ever done it can probably attest, is an itchy problem, but a dedicated group of volunteers stuck to the task and eventually prevailed over the scourge of the local environment.
“Once the vision was cast,” Chapa said, “various folks in our community got on board. What made it easy, was we had a youth pastor (at Rock Harbor) who is a disc golf player and knew the game well; and he worked with UDisc to get us on notice.”
Other donations started to come in. Chapa said Smitty’s Auto Shop in Los Osos donated the shiny metal baskets that serve as the “cup” in a regular golf course, the hitting of which is the goal of every throw by the disc golfers.
Encircling every basket is a cleared area covered in wood chips that marks the “gimme” zone, meaning that if a golfer tees off and the disc lands in that circle, it’s a “tap in” and a two score on that hole. A disc must land inside the basket for an Ace (a hole-in-one).
Another generous donor was the Morro Bay Yacht Club, which gave the project pavers that the club removed from its entrance for a fund-raising commemorative brick drive. It made the Rock Harbor course playable in wet weather.
Chapa added that Morro Café donated a nice picnic bench, and two other people donated more benches, giving the course rest stops along the way. And a local handyman made the waste containers, Chapa said, “who is also part of the church community. Many private donors gave us materials to build other benches that are scattered throughout the 6.5 acres.”
Disc golf designer, Rusty Schusterick, “designed the layout and Rock Harbor Christian Fellowship has gracefully permitted the use of their church grounds to be freely used by the public,” Chapa said. “One more honorable mention would be Andrew Grivjack who coordinated our very first tournament with 60 participants.” Grivjack has Option Disc, a disc golf gear company, so disc golf and the specially made discs are his business.
A game that started using the classic Wham-O Frisbees has evolved to today, while one can still use a Frisbee, the discs are harder, smaller, and shaped differently for each throw. Just as golf clubs have special uses depending on the lie of the ball, disc golf players carry a bag with several different discs, switching them around depending on the next throw.
And the church property has numerous mature trees that double as fairway hazards. While not exactly a sand trap, throwing a disc into a tree can ruin your score just as effectively.
The first tournament, which carried a $30 entry fee and had an Ace pot of about $600, promised high scorers some cool prizes and more. They had 60 players sign up for that first tourney, which tells Chapa they were right about demand.
“We’re the only disc golf Course in Morro Bay,” he said. Sea Pines Golf Resort in Los Osos has a disc golf course too, and there used to be one in Morro Bay State Park, nestled amidst the pine and eucalyptus woods of Black Mountain.
It was a labor of love, and a pretty long labor at that.
“This took two years to set up,” Chapa said, “with all volunteers, and very generous people.” Referring to the Bible, he said, “Where God guides, he provides.”
He laughed and added that a lot of the wood they used to build the tee boxes, was picked up amongst the piles of free offerings Los Osos residents famously put out by the road.
He noted one young man, Joshua Bacci, 13, toiled right alongside the grownups on the course. “He’s from a generation,” Chapa said, “who don’t like ‘outdoors.’” He added that this gives young people a place where they can leave their video games (and cell phones) at home and get out into the fresh air. And it’s a game that mom and dad can play too, indeed mom and dad probably know how to better throw a disc, given that tossing around a Frisbee was probably a large part of their lives growing up.
But perhaps the coolest aspect of this new facility is that it is free to play and open to the public daily; and it even has lights affixed to the baskets for twilight play (it closes after dark). The course sitting atop a small hill offers a sweeping view of Chorro Valley but is also open to the wind. And of all the possible weather events, wind probably plays hardest on disc golf, and can send a disc sailing far off course, on some holes even down onto Quintana Road.
And just as there are goofy-foot surfers, and cross grip putters, disc golfers throw backhand or forehand, which seems more of a fling than a toss.
There are rules, including: open daily during daylight hours, and closed Sundays from 7 a.m. to noon (during church services). Church services are Sundays at 8 and 10 a.m. and the church welcomes disc golfers to join them.
Other rules: no drugs or alcohol on church grounds; dispose of all trash in designated cans; be aware of other golfers, pedestrians and vehicles; and if you find a lost disc, “please call the number provided or place it in the lost disc box near hole 9’s basket.”
And just like a regular golf course, this one will need maintenance. “We all (the volunteers) who take care of the ground,” Chapa said, “always welcome volunteers, as we still have goals of making it a better disc golf course, like planning more coast pine trees, better irrigation and just general maintenance, you know… fun work.”
The volunteer maintenance crew meets from 10-11:30 a.m. on Tuesdays, if readers would like to pitch in.
