Pease Park in Austin, Texas

Nestled more appropriately central by zip-code than Austin’s premiere public use park space, Zilker, Pease Park offers a more challenging and recently re-tooled layout, than the putt- putt 9-hole layout selections available at Zilker. For all discing enthusiasts in Austin, Texas, Pease is also the location of our home-town hero, Dave Moody’s, trailer ‘o’ plastic pro-shop. So the choice is obvious if you are central, want a real game, and thumb through some new plastic in the process.

The original 21-hole layout at Pease has been altered slightly and condensed into a longer-feeling 18-hole layout, keeping original holes 7, 8, and 9 away from Lamar boulevard (one of the city’s main North/ South capillaries) and making it essentially 3 holes in one; further, creating a vastly more difficult hole 7, one hell of a longer par 3 now. In the fall, the canopy along this creek-crossing-heavy layout thins out quite a bit, and opens things up for a lot of tee-shots. As is typical when the foliage abates, narrow gaps, become gaping, creating a false sense of security for locals that play the course year-round. It never fails, the impending subsequent Spring-time mushroom-cloud of green, will force progressively more altered routes and precise lines to the pin placements, that may also vary slightly.

The one downside to this Austin park is of course the erosion, run-off, and the open sewage apparent at a lot of discing venues around the country; echoing how disc golf suffers the cross, that is second fiddle to the playscapes, and sand volleyball, and hike and bike trails in the forefront of neighborhood committees’ envisioned use of public space in the planning/ development stages of any parks’ inception. Disc golf will for now remain the bastard child of public recreational use of park space which is the single biggest challenge facing the growth and perpetuity of the sport.

Having that in mind, especially at Pease, “if you pack it in, pack it out.” If you visit and use the park, do your part. Let the community know that disc golfers aren’t the slovenly, unemployed, hooky-from-class/ work, rough-neck, beer-drinking, heads that we are. Pick up some litter now and again, and help maintain a semblance of an appearance that disc golf is here to stay, and worth time and public parks dollars. And maybe, just maybe, the next local course in Austin, Texas might be the jewel in the park’s crown, instead of an afterthought.