man, that bites. I noticed that basket wasnt in there too well. The ground was caving in a bit. Whoever did it is the epitome of lame, if in fact somebody took it.

Is there any chance the club can vote on some gravel for Mt Airy over the web site. I'm thinking by the time the next meeting comes around I won't be able to organize it. Right now it's too cold to play might as well work. Paul? Anyone?
We could do it this weekend.

Dan stated that $310 was raised for the Fairhaven Mission.
Truly a great cause, and I don't mean to take away from it in any way.
My question: how much will this gravel cost? What can disc golfers do to help erosion? Don't play in mud.
I know Dan raises good sums of money for Fairhaven. However, if we have to vote for money to repair damage, what good was it? Why not, when playing conditions are sloppy, cancel or alter the event, and vote for a club donation to Fairhaven instead?
If I was a park director, I'd wonder about the wisdom of playing in the rain in the first place. Without question, I'd be reluctant to fund erosion control brought about by bad weather play.
When PDGA tournaments are scheduled, and people travel to the tournament, play will ensue regardless of conditions. This was not a sanctioned tournament, and as such, I'm sure no insurance was secured. Does this insurance in PDGA tournaments cover park damages incurred during sanctioned tournaments?
I'm having a little trouble seeing the sense in going through with an event after three straight days of soaking rains on a hilly course, then asking the club to bail it out. I would be more open to vote yea for a donation from the club in the event of event cancellation due to weather rather than repairing a course after the fact.
In this case, I'll go along with a yea vote for gravel. In the future, I'd be leery of continuing with such an event after, and during, such a three day rain.
We would do more for park relations if we learned to respect the course when weather throws such a nasty pitch. I'm all for the "no wimps" motto, and I'll be the first to admit I am, indeed, a 40 degree rain wimp, but this was an extraordinary circumstance. A line must be drawn somewhere.

There's not much we can do about casuals other than post a sign at the first tee that informs them to avoid muddy areas in the rain and post something on the website here to tell people before they get out to the course. You can't really force any of the obstinate casuals to do anything, though. We had an extremely stubborn group insist on playing before us during the 90-player harbin cc last year. I think that we should try to place down gravel in trouble spots as soon as possible, and if it works well enough we can continue to put gravel where it is needed.

You say I insinuated someone was lying. I said it was hard to believe.
Until someone backs up the 'dozen' or so casuals out there, I will still find it hard to believe. Even if there were that many casuals out there, I still take your response as 'for' playing in any conditions above any concerns for the destruction of the course such play brings.

I count four paragraphs there. ;-)
You wanting spaces, too?

Isn't there some gravel on the trail leading from #3's tee along the fairway?

Harbin is more of a problem with the players because I can imagine some of the ditches quickly becoming ponds (like on hole one sometimes. There is often standing water several days after rain.) It could work pretty well though. But we'd have to use the Pig Layout because 14's fairway becames a waterway the second rain hits it.

Are there any alternatives to gravel? Perhaps anything cheaper that we could test out on a few areas and see if it works? That is, of course, if price becomes an issue.

So gravel or sand it is!

I think some people may be cofused with the method of using gravel to fortify soft spots and help drainage.

We do not put so much gravel around the pins that it resembles concrete. It's not going to kill your Aviar when you miss a putt, and it's not going to be even noticible from the fairway.

We put a very thin layer in trouble spots only - it's not even a complete "layer" as much as it's just a sprinkling. It gets compacted and worked into the soil within days, and in two weeks you'd never even know it's there if you were not looking for it.

We've used very fine gravel in the past - think of it as dry, chunky kitty litter. It is as close as you can get to sand without using sand I'd say, and it's effects are long lasting.

Think of hole 10 at Idlewild. All green green grass. Last year at this time if you tried walking down the first leg of that hole after even 1 day of rain, you'd be slipping, squishing, making huge muddy footprints, and that was just walking. Let alone trying to play a shot! A little gravel here, a little gravel there, now it drains quicker, it has better footing, and it takes about 5x the rain to really see any effects. And you'd never know there was gravel there.

Rob could tell you all the places at Idlewild where there is gravel hidden, doing it's job, and not interfering with play. He's been primarily the one spreading it with wheelbarrows all over the course. (Oh, and the pile is always in the parking lot at hole 1, think about that). It's really made Idlewild into a safe place to play with a little wetness, versus the sloppy mess it was little more than one year ago.

Our sport is going to play on rainy days, snowy days, hot days, and cold days. Casuals and tourney players are going to come out when they get the feeling, no matter what the weather. We need to make the course as durable and safe as possible to accomodate this. The situation on Sunday was pretty rare indeed, happening only 2-3 a year around here. What we need to work on are the slippery and soft spots on the courses, where we can help. Nothing can fortify a course for the weather conditions that we had last weekend. We can only hope that the environment comes back strong.

very nice Keith!

Gravelman, maybe you should email this guy and explain all the wonderful aspects of gravel!  :-)