Disc golf divide: North Vancouver park-goers clash over soaring sport
The rising popularity of disc golf in a North Vancouver city park has led some residents concerned for their safety, peace and quiet to confront lovers of the sport.
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Nestled among tall evergreen trees in the Lynn Valley neighborhood, Eastview Park is an idyllic setting for the small but technically challenging nine-hole course that is attracting a growing number of fans of the game also known as Frisbee golf.
But the course could fall victim to its own success if residents push through to have the course closed or relocated. They say they worry their kids and other users will be hit by hard drives flying far and fast, and say gamers are disrespectful, smoking weed and drinking beer, trampling on plants, damaging trees and urinating in bushes and even defecate.
“I’ve seen the park change,” mother Shelli Fayle said at a recent city council meeting. “It now has an unwelcome, sinister quality. My kids are too scared to go to the park.”
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But local players say the no-fee-to-play course, built in 2009, offers neighborhood families a chance to play a sport that’s fun for all ages and costs little.
They welcome any changes to reduce conflict with other park users by instructing new players on etiquette and safety rules, said North Shore Disc Golf Club’s Athal Christie. He met with city officials and bylaw officials about 18 months ago and said the number of complaints has since decreased.
Nevertheless, the issue ended up in the municipal council.
“We’re definitely not looking to torpedo disc golf,” Coun said. Tony Valente, who tabled a motion at a meeting this month to get staff to consider possible solutions to the conflict. But “all options are on the table,” including changing the course layout or adding nets to protect other users from the flying discs that players throw at targets on the nine-hole course.
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One of the challenges is that a footpath crosses in front of the fairway, he said.
“Security is something I worry about,” he said.
Since the course attracted more players during COVID-19, Fayle, who said she represents Eastview Elementary School’s mothers who are too afraid to speak out, at the council meeting, said her children supported her suggestion that they take a walk in the park to go because they said, “It’s full of Frisbee people.”
And as they play in the adjacent schoolyard, they can “smell clouds of cannabis from the players blowing out of the forest,” Fayle said in her prepared submission.
It used to be a place for kids to run and bike, “instead we have overprivileged, entitled bullies smoking and drinking in our park,” she said.
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“Our amazing park has become a dangerous place where discs of different weights are thrown at high speeds, accompanied by shouting, swearing, drinking, smoking, verbal abuse of non-players, including our children,” resident Vicki Lambert said in her prepared Submission.
She said she had been “threatened many times” and RCMP told her not to engage with them.
None of the players who contacted the council spoke of conflicts with local residents, but an online Google review of the park four months ago noted: “Very cool and well used space, everyone is friendly except for one disgruntled local, who started berating me for being a golfer.”
“What I’m seeing is a real danger to the kids,” Gordon Moore, who uses the park twice a day to walk, told Postmedia News. “They throw discs and I can just see what’s happening. The trails criss-cross the (fairways). It’s a real danger.”
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He said that because of the way the course is set up, there is no way to make it safe because the park is too small. He said the only solution was to remove it.
Valente’s motion, which the council passed unanimously, says staff should “evaluate options” for making Eastview Park safe for all ages “by considering the potential for conflict between users of Eastview Park, including disc golf users.” address the potential relocation of disc golf to another city or to Metro Vancouver Park.”
Valente said employees are expected to get in touch within a few weeks.
Disc golf was invented a few decades ago, shortly after Wham-O invented the frisbee, and was particularly popular on the West Coast.
There are two other courses on the North Shore and a number of courses throughout BC. The goal is to throw a disc into a hoop in as few throws as possible. The courses are usually built in public parks and there are no fees to play.