Aaron Quisenberry thought it was a good idea.
So did Corinth’s parks officials.
And so did a host of Lake Cities residents and businesses who chipped in for gas and meals and supplies — about $8,000 in all, Quisenberry estimates — to bring disc golf to Corinth.
The tree-covered, hilly terrain rocketed Corinth’s short-lived course to the top of the list among those who enjoy the game, Quisenberry said.
“The Frisbee golf course in Irving is considered to be the best,” Quisenberry said. “Ours was second, only because it’s a 9-hole.”
The parks board pulled the plug on the course this week, after complaints from volunteers who maintain the multiuse trail through Pacman Hill and Corinth Community Park neighbors reached fever pitch.
Quisenberry was at the meeting, but did not speak out, even though he was upset that he was characterized during the meeting as a rogue volunteer.
He had a broad base of community support, he said. Several scouts planned their Eagle Scout projects to support it.
A 2000 graduate of Lake Dallas High School and longtime resident of Corinth, Quisenberry, 28, approached the city in November 2008 with a proposal for the course.
Growing up in the area, he knew that young people sometimes pulled around to that side of the park, with its tree cover, for drugs and other illicit activities. He said he presented evidence to the city that the disc golf course could help reduce crime.
He and other volunteers got the go-ahead to start work in February 2009.
By the end of October, they felt the course was clean and safe enough to start play and put out 10 baskets.
“We were substantially complete and just cleaning up the edges,” Quisenberry said. “We’d hadn’t done any of the nice, aesthetic touches.”
Denton resident Mike Doran, who has played disc golf for 15 years and competed nationally, was to be the “pro” at Corinth’s course and help people learn the game. He agreed that the course, even though it was just nine holes, was one of the best he’d ever played in Texas.
“I was out there pretty much every day after we got the baskets up,” Doran said.
Enthusiasm for Corinth’s course was high, Doran said, and he saw players there even on cold days when the rest of the park was quiet.
Doran said he’s also seen this kind of conflict between disc golf and multiuse trail users before. In Dallas, volunteers helped bring a disc golf course to Crawford Memorial Park. But trail users brought bolt cutters and tossed the disc baskets in the creek, Doran said. The city would make repairs, but eventually gave up.
“That course is gone now,” Doran said. “That park also has a gang problem.”
Corinth neighbors didn’t get upset until the volunteers were more than six months into the project, Quisenberry said.
While he was surprised by the park board’s vote, he has been preparing for the worst-case scenario for a while. He said he’s already in talks with Hickory Creek about building a course in Westlake Park.
The Corinth parks department returned the disc golf baskets to him, and he plans to ask the Corinth City Council to refund the community donations if council members don’t overturn the parks board’s recommendations.
But he’s still hopeful that they will overturn the vote.
He said disc golf courses and multiuse trails have intersected in other communities without a problem.
“Everyone’s got their needs, but everyone should play nice,” Quisenberry said.
