4 days ago
Improvements to begin on Flying Dragon Disc Golf Course
May 30—Hall of Fame Course Design will begin to update and improve the Flying Dragon Disc Golf Course, located at the Jack Allen Recreation Complex, next week.
The Decatur City Council approved a resolution Monday to allow Mayor Tab Bowling to sign a contract with the company. Hall of Fame first provided the city with a description of the scope of work in January.
"It's basically just giving the course a refresh and making it more playable and safer," said Lavone Wolfe, owner of Hall of Fame Course Design. "We hope that it will help it get a lot more use."
Wolfe estimated the project will take between four and eight weeks, depending on weather conditions.
The scope of work contract estimates the project's total cost to be $114,312. The city received a grant for $100,000 from Alabama Mountains, Rivers and Valleys. The additional $14,000 will come from the Community Development grant-matching budget.
"We have a ton of quality of life, recreation projects going on, so I think it shows that not everything is a $52 million rec center," said Councilman Kyle Pike. "Some things are as small as a $100,000 improvement to a disc golf course."
In February, the city broke ground on the new Wilson Morgan Park recreation center, the largest Parks and Recreation project in progress. Pike said the disc golf course update is another way to support the varying hobbies of Decatur residents.
Wolfe will focus improvements primarily on holes 11 through 18, including walkways. Updates will include installing new concrete tee pads, refurbishing the targets, adding new signs and removing boulders. The improvements will make the course more navigable, safer and easier to play on, Wolfe said.
Players have requested upgrades to the course in recent years, largely because of the difficulty seeing targets and walking through the course.
"It's to the point that it really needs it," Wolfe said.
Hall of Fame first installed the Flying Dragon Course in 2012. Wolfe, a Disc Golf Hall of Fame inductee, has designed or built more than 78 courses in the Southeast.
Brad Phillips, Decatur's director of Information Systems, is an avid disc golfer. He enjoys traveling to different disc golf courses in the area and spoke highly of Wolfe's work.
The disc golf community in north Alabama has been on the rise in recent years, Phillips said.
"With (these updates), I expect the playing on that course to go way up," Wolfe said.
Decatur has two other disc golf courses: the Outback, at Central Park, and Riverside, at Rhodes Ferry Park.
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