New disc golf course officially opens

By Melinda J. Overstreet / Glasgow News 1
An unknowing person might glance around the relatively level, open ground on the south end of a city park and think a disc golf course there would be a pretty easy one.
But the very first “hole” at Creekside at Gorin Disc Golf Course is at roughly a 90-degree angle from the tee pad, where the disc is thrown, diagonally on the other side of a baseball field. And if it goes across or into the field, it’s out of bounds and the player has to redo the shot. The course, which came about through a private-public partnership, officially opened for play Friday afternoon, with about 50 people on hand for a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Cousins/friends and co-developers Cord Glass and Brock Johnson teamed up with city officials to get the job done in less than 12 weeks.
Eddie Furlong, director of the Glasgow Parks and Recreation Department, said it’s something the department has wanted to do for a while in a couple more parks, in addition to the existing one at American Legion Park.
Glass and Johnson, whom he happened to already know, approached him in July and asked what it would take to get a course at Gorin Park, and he told them he was willing to work with them toward the goal.
“They already had a design and everything in their minds,” Furlong said. “They had a plan together, and we just started executing it. They raised [almost] all the donations and everything.”
The city contributed much of the labor as an in-kind contribution and spent about $130 to rent a post-hole digger, and of course the park land is owned by the city. All the other funds came through the foundation Glass and Johnson created, he said.
Glass pointed to the boards on each side of the map of the course that has the names of donors for the project and said the benches at the starting points for each hole have donor names as well, and both expressed gratitude for all those contributed in any way.
“We love Glasgow and we want to continue to give back to Glasgow, which is why we started the Cordell Jamison Foundation, which is the main bread and butter behind this,” he said.
That duo had lived in Bowling Green and got some discs and went to Paul Walker Golf Course there one day in early 2019 and just started throwing them in trash cans, at utility poles and whatever they could find to improvise, Glass said, and have progressed from there.
Johnson said that he was at Bully’s restaurant across the street from Gorin Park with his dad one day after they’d played regular golf, and as he looked across at the layout, he decided to go throw a few discs around there.
Then he sent Glass a text and said he wanted to design a course here in town, and the serious discussions began.
“It’s kind of a dream, become a reality,” Johnson said.
A person would only need about three discs to start, and basic ones can be purchased for around $10 apiece, Glass said.
“And then the better you get, the more discs you’ll want to get for certain shots, and obviously the cost goes up from there if you want to invest in it,” Glass said.
Johnson said it can get more technical, “but just to come out here and have fun with your friends, family or whatever, there’s no big cost. You could still come out here with two or three discs and have a good time.
The Creekside course, they estimated, would take two to three hours for beginners for all 18 holes.
“There is a disc golf community in Glasgow,” Johnson said. “I know a lot of them personally.”
The closest they can go for a more advanced course than the one at Legion is Bowling Green, which can be rather inconvenient, he said, and this provides more access.
This one has some easier stretches and some more difficult ones and overall is of intermediate difficulty, Johnson said.
Furlong acknowledged that flooding is not uncommon at that end of the park after heavy rainfall periods and said they were all mindful of that as they went along.
“It’s land that wasn’t being utilized to its full potential. I think now it will be. Obviously, there’s going to be a few times where we won’t be able to use it, but I think it’ll get plenty of use when we can,” he said.
Glass said the Creekside at Gorin is just the first step, as now they’ve received a green light to design one for Weldon Park.
Furlong said he hoped the next course, is anticipated to be a joint effort of the city, the Barren County Chamber of Commerce leadership class and the foundation, and he hopes it will be ready within the next 12 months.
Glass said that one could only fit nine holes, so it will be somewhat intermediate as well.
“With its having such tight lines, the holes are shorter, so it would be more beginner-friendly,” Johnson said, “but at the same time, it would give the advanced players a little bit of a challenge as well, with the technicality of the shots that would need to be played, so it kind of fits both.”