A friend of mine (Bob Herbert -- a former PDGA Rookie of the Year) who had a hand in helping Fred Salaz design and install Idlewild (Gold level course, greater Cincinnati area -- Burlington, KY) suggested i post the following question:

what are some preferred approaches to defining OB along creeks? We are considering staking the whole creek that runs through the course similar to ball golf. In the area around some of the greens, we have already created walls to define OB regardless of the fluctuation of creek levels.

Here is a picture of hole 2 long before the wall was installed, and just after the wall was installed (mulch still waiting to be spread).

Hole 2 tee shot:
http://www.cincinnatidiscgolf.com/images/CoursePics/Idlewild/Idlewild2.jpg

second shot: short pin (Mach 3) is visible right of center; long pin and pond are straight ahead left of center http://www.cincinnatidiscgolf.com/images/CoursePics/Idlewild/Idlewild2a.jpg

shot of pond and long basket (Discatcher Pro): http://www.cincinnatidiscgolf.com/images/CoursePics/Idlewild/Idlewild2b.jpg





this latest pic (below) was taken (after construction of the OB wall) on the way to hole 3's tees after playing hole 2...

http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/6718/idlewild2002largewebview2ze.jpg

The wall looks good.

Stakes work really well. Keep them close enough that they are easy to sight along, and add extra ones where there are turns or things in the line of sight.

I run a tournament on a ball golf course, and it is easy to paint between the stakes or even string them for tournaments.

I think your walls are great looking and excellent to put at the greens. Stakes in the fairway would complement them well and you wouldn't have to build 2 miles of walls. :)

thanks for the feedback Rhett.
we are mulling over what color to make the stakes -- white (as in ball golf?) or yellow (like the USDGC rope). what do you think... ?

White is becoming the OB standard for paint lines.

any suggestions for buncr line color?

I can see using white for any offical paint marking lines. Maybe flags spaced along the lines could be different colors depending on the reason for the line: tee lines, drop zone, casual relief, buncrs or bunkers.

thanks for the feedback Rhett.
we are mulling over what color to make the stakes -- white (as in ball golf?) or yellow (like the USDGC rope). what do you think... ?


I think the ball golf standard for a lateral hazard, which is closest to how we play our OB except we don't have the option to hit/throw out of the standard, is red.

that's right. for the player's cup we had to paint red lines around the ponds so as not to confuse the ball golfers. we also had white lines and string lines. the string lines were for areas that weren't in play for ball golfers and we didn't want to have to repaint year-to-year.

we only had one ob related issue that i'm aware of when a disc crossed a bridge and continued ob without having crossed "land". since we stated at the player's meeting that cart paths themselves were always "in bounds" when they bordered ob, we made the ruling that the next shot had to be played off the bridge. for this year the bridge itself will be considered ob as well as the water it crosses.

if we were to consider CR hazards, distinct stroke & distance OB's, or some other type of novel hazard we'd have to rethink the marking strategy.