In this episode of the Elevate Utah Disc Golf Podcast, I sit down with Dustin, Sean, Scott, and guest Colby Zimmerman to dive deep into Dragonfly—Lehi’s uniquely lush, water-table-fed disc golf course—and the wild bell saga at the Wonder Course. We kick off with Sean’s months-long quest for the perfect warning bell for shared-use trails: cast iron over brass or aluminum, lead clappers, farm-store field tests, and kid-proofing strategies so hikers can safely signal throws on new Holes 1 and 4. Then Colby takes us through Dragonfly’s journey from a community pitch to a challenging, par-4/5-rich layout, including the infamous, volunteer-built Hole 2, city partnerships, mowing logistics (becoming a city employee to run equipment!), winter swamp management, and long-term improvements for pathing, benches, bathrooms, and tee upgrades as Dragonfly is eyed for US Women’s. We also unpack smart course evolution: replacing invasive Russian olives over time, adding strategic tree plantings (willows and more), restoring “Old Hole 7” with a double mando tunnel, and repurposing 13’s basket to expand Hole 1 and add gold/red tees. We cover parking and shuttle planning for majors, future land expansion, and practical volunteer calls-to-action (with a nod to how good leadership makes work days run). We close with favorite-hole picks, a bench story that “made butts happy,” and a reminder that embracing change—done thoughtfully—builds better public spaces for years to come.
Favorite holes discussed: Hole 2 (shot-shaping gauntlet), Hole 18 (elite par 4), Hole 17 long (picture-perfect green), Hole 6 (mail-slot gap), Hole 8 long (blind finesse).
[00:00:26]
Nick Jennings:
Welcome into the Elevate Utah Disc Golf Podcast. I'm your host, Nick Jennings, joined by Dustin. Sean. And Scott. And we have a really kind of fun show for you guys today. But before we get into that, I understand there's some bell talk that we need that needs to happen. Yeah. Welcome to Elevate Utah Disc Golf podcast where we talk about bells. Fun facts about bells.
[00:00:48] Scott Belchak:
You know, it's funny because because, I was actually just reminded about this conversation, when we just had Rob on when he started talking about the bells, you know, the the bell the bell trophy. Yeah. The ropes. Uh-huh. And it it reminded me of this conversation that you and I had about about all the research that that that you have done on bells On bells. Because of disc golf. Yeah. So
[00:01:11] Sean Kelley:
first off, let's just backtrack a second because, we're so we're adding some some bells onto the Wonder Course because a few of the new holes cross some hiking trails that are already, like, in place, on the property. So me and Scott are walking around, and there's there's two little spots we're gonna have bells playing. So hikers that are coming through can ring a bell to let people know on the tee pad that, you know, hikers are walking through, so please don't throw. So I've been we've been talking about putting bells onto this course for, what, about three, four months or so? It's more than that. It's gotta be more than that. But, like, we were just trying to come up
[00:01:53] Sean Kelley:
with a solution. We came up with the idea of, like, these bells. So I started
[00:01:56] Sean Kelley:
just kinda like I figured this was like, no problem. I'll just go buy two bells. We'll put them up there. And
[00:02:03] Scott Belchak:
then little lo and behold, I get into the world of bells. A a bell rabbit hole. Bell rabbit hole. Just a super weird Google search history. Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, so And and while he's thinking about this, will you will you please because you have your phone out. Will you please look up what the technical term is for the thing that is inside the bell that makes the thing The the bell u vial at. Yeah. Exactly. We we looked that up last year. Call it a u vial. Yeah. I that's what I said.
[00:02:27] Sean Kelley:
So I started doing I started just going into, like, you know, trying to find a a couple bells that will will work for the course. Because on on Hole 1, there's gonna be one on hole 1, and there's gonna be one on new hole 4. And so I I basically just started I started going down this rabbit hole of bells. And and a lot of the times, I've just been doing my research online in bed, and then I'd be getting frustrated. And then I'm learning about, oh, there's aluminum bells. There's brass bells. There's cast iron bells. And, frankly, it was just like everything advertised online, you're like, that's a perfect bell. And then you, like, you go into a review about it and this and that. People come up, and they're just like, oh, this this bell's tiny. It's not doing anything.
And then it comes down to what the what do we call it? The uvula?
[00:03:15] Dustin Hanson:
Whatever whatever It's called a clapper. A clapper? A clapper pin. A clapper pin.
[00:03:20] Sean Kelley:
And then it and then it goes into play with what's that what that is made of? To actually get, like, a loud a loud, like, bell rings. Yeah. You need a lead clapper. Yeah. So I ended up, like, at one point, I was because I was, like, searching online probably. So I was I thought this was gonna be an easy one to purchase. See you later. Done with that project. Did you find any good, like, YouTubers
[00:03:41] Scott Belchak:
or, like Dude, I in-depth, like, like, the bell reviewers? I had to find reviews,
[00:03:47] Sean Kelley:
which actually had a video of them ringing the bell because that's where and then finally, like, I started I literally researched, like, stores in Downtown Salt Lake out in Hever. Like, I had to go to I had to go to, like, farm and feed stores. I went to there's there's a there's a place over on Highland that sells, like they literally all they do is sell bird feeders and, like, wind chimes, birds and bells. And they sell a bunch of bells. And so me and me and my wife go in there, and I'm just in the corner ringing bells.
And, like, the guy comes over. He's like, oh, can I help you? Yeah. Can I help you? And I'm like, oh, well, my pretty funny story we're building a disc golf course and I need a loud bell and all these bells are like just just the circumference of the bottom of the bell like everything's like four or five or six inches other than that you jump to like fourteen sixty like Liberty. Gigantic Liberty Bell. So so did he just be like come in the back room? Well, so he was he had he had a similar version of the bell that I was looking at because I was like, from what I've through my research, all the like, because all these were, like, little bells or, like, they're, like, little bells, like, a lot of farmhouses have. You just ring if that's their doorbell.
And it was you know, the reviews of aluminum bells are shit. Which would probably work. Don't go near aluminum bells. They're all the show that that they don't ring. They don't do anything. Brass bells are good, but there's, like, it's a whole idea of, like, it's a delicate sound you're looking for. You know, you see them in, like, Christmas orchestras, like the all that type of thing. But, again, I'm just like, I need a loud bell. Yeah. This is a 140 foot hole. So we need we need a really loud bell. Really loud bell. For a 140 feet. And so I ended up, I went to this farm and feed store, and they have, like, a version of the bell. It's a giant cast iron bell, and they call it, like, a it was a it was either the farmhouse or, like, a, like, a schoolyard bell. And but the thing is is you don't you don't hit the clapper.
It basically comes with an arm on the side, so it hangs on these these two arms. So you end up pulling it so that you you swing the bell into the clapper. I see. So so the clapper's inside. Right? The clapper's inside. And the bell swings. There's an arm that comes off the bell, and you end up pulling pulling on a string. It's like, blah blah blah blah blah. It's it's a it's a giant train bell. Yeah. But is is that what you got? Yeah. So I'm in the store and I was just like, I'm like, it's a 140 foot hole. But, like, we would probably would've been fine with it. Like, you know, look at me. No. No. You would not. You absolutely would not. Because with the I mean, I I've been there every day for the last, like, two and a half months. And it's one of those situations where, like, that the the road that goes up the pass, there's there's motorcycles, there's truck. Everyone is just in low gear. History. They're pumping it at the bottom to go up. And then everyone coming down the hill is the same thing. So and and Hole 1 is right next to that that road.
And it's it's a good distance, and so I'm just like, I need a loud bell. I I and so I ended up having this guy unbox this this bell. Yeah. Take it out of the box. I gotta I gotta need a I I'm honestly, I I need to hear it ring. And so he ends up, like, face it. And and but it is. It's so it comes with this, like, big you know, it looks like a horseshoe, and then the bell sits on top of it. And it's got these two swinging arms, and he had to, like, assemble it put it together. And so he's he's holding this thing up, and the thing's heavy. It's a heavy, like, cast iron. It's a big bell. And so he's holding it from, like, the part that actually gets bolted into a stand of some sort. And so he's up there, and I just I just grabbed a little knob, and I'm just like, clang clang clang clang, like, in this bar and feed store. And I'm doing it right in front of this guy's face because he's just holding it. And I'm just like, that's the bell right there. That's the bell. Okay. That's it. I just need one more time. Was It It was what? He's just like, what? And so, again, I had to explain to him, and I'm like, hey. Listen. I'm like, we're we're, you know, we're building this this this disc golf course, and there's a a hiker's path that comes comes through the middle of the hole.
And I just need where the hikers hit, we're gonna have a sign, and it says, like, hikers, like, you know, caution, flying disc. Ring bell for good luck. Please ring bell so, like, if anyone's teeing off from the t box, like, they hear you and they will pause throwing so that you can walk through. Yeah. We'll just say ring bell or say die. Ring bell if you hate Trump. But and so he was he was kinda confused because I don't think he really knew what disc golf was. And so it was basically just like, I just need an alarm to, like, do this whole thing. And then I started going into, like, the whole idea of because it's on the the disc golf course is on a current campsite, and we deal with, like it's funny because we leave on Friday, and we'll have, like, little piles of stuff, like, sitting around. We kinda leave things for the weekend or whatever, and we'll come back. And then campers and kids that just run through there, they just ransack everything we're doing. Like, everything we're, like, we're working on, all of our stuff is pushed off to the side. There's now a playground full of them, this whole thing. And so I've been now trying to think of, like, how can I childproof A bell is a list? Because these bells just randomly on paths where these kids just run around the whole time. It's just gonna be like, bling. It's gonna be a cacophony. So I have so I basically I have it now where I'm staging where I'm putting it up high where the the actual I guess, I have this rope, and then I'm gonna put these, like, wooden, like, wooden handles on it to, like, ring the bell.
But I'm like, I need a height to put these things up because these kids are just gonna be people are gonna be ready to tee off on Hole 1, and it's just for thirty minutes, it's just gonna be this bell ringing and, like, at least, the hikers coming and they were walking by. But,
[00:09:31] Scott Belchak:
I wonder we should have an over under on on how many days this bell is up before the state park is just like, yeah. No. But it's not even that. Like, it's the different styles of bells.
[00:09:40] Sean Kelley:
So we had talked about, like, there's those old, like, they kinda look like old cylinders, you know, the very phallic shape where you actually have the stick that you hit, and it looks almost like a similar to a gong. There's, ones you could take off, but it We need a two for two. Need to be a permanent situation where it's just a bell. We're not gonna lose a stick. We're not gonna lose anything, like, where it becomes obsolete. So it was. It was for the past two and a half months. There's a few nights of me just losing sleep because of that. I'm just like, I'm not gonna be able to find a correct bell that's gonna be able to or I'm gonna have, like, a a little bell tied to a string that people just have to, like, dangle the, you know, to to just get the attention of disc golfers to, like, hey, please don't throw. We're gonna we're finishing our hike, and we just wanna get back to our car.
Yeah. Don't throw. Don't throw. Please don't throw. Please don't throw. But, yeah, like, the just the materials that bells are made of, the acoustics of, the materials that actually make a bell sound the way it does, which for the most part, I do think the cast iron is the way to go. If you want if you want a loud bell, cast iron is the way to go. You're like a bell spurt. Oh, it it it's ridiculous. But, I mean, so many times I'd just be sitting in bed. Becky's on her phone or we're just watching TV, and next thing you know, it's just like, clang a wigg a wigg a wigg a wigg a wigg a wigg a wigg a wigg a wigg a. What are you doing? Watching bellies, like I'm just I'm searching off YouTube videos. We're like I just need to I just need to know, like, the sign of a bell, and then I need to find it and write it down just because I'm like because it is. There's a whole jump. There's no such thing as, like, a nine inch, 10 inch, 11 inch, or a 12 inch bell. It literally jumps from, like, eight inch to, like, 14 inches and bigger. And I'm just like, I just I just want a 10 inch bell. I just need a small bell. There's there's a whole there's a whole market here for you to start your own bell business to sell 10 inch bells. Yes. Eight, nine, and 10 inch bell. It's eight to 12 inch bells is what I need. Yeah. And that's what I because I was like, no. That was gonna be too big. So I ended up going off with the smallest of the cast iron, which is a 14 inch diameter bottom bell. I mean, these things are big. It's like it's like the whole contraption is about, like, 20 inches by 20 inches. So people are not not gonna see these things. But it is, yeah, it's been an interesting the many things I ever have to research for different projects, bells have been one of the more interesting. Just going to places and being like, I need to ring that. And they're like, who is this autistic kid in here who needs to, like, ring my bell? Yeah. They're like, what the hell is going on? But I will see. I apologize.
I believe his name was Dave. I'm I'm gonna I'm not gonna remember the name of his store, but he was a very nice guy. He he kinda told me where to go for, like, a few of the old bells, and he's like, you should check out, like, farming stores and farm and feed places. Like, they have these big bells out there to, like, call in cows and all this other stuff. So, but, yeah, I spent about a good, like, thirty minutes in the corner of the store ringing bells. And, he was patient with me, and he didn't really give me any grief. He just kinda walked over casually and asked me what I was doing, if I just wasn't being a jerk ringing every single bell that he had at at his store.
But, no. He led me in the right direction, and, I think the bells that we we got are, hopefully, like I said, it's gotta be it'll be a great little, you know, you had a good shot. You got a good birdie off with new hole one, which is gonna be a bomber down at the wonder. So I know there'll be a probably a lot of players who'll ring that bell Absolutely. After a good shot. I mean, if you get a birdie, ring the bell. Right? Yeah. Same thing after four. It's gonna be the same thing because four is gonna be a a nice little touchy, like, short hole where, it'll be a blind shot that basically, like, a lot people will probably end up, you know, acing for the most part. And it's, it's one of those situations where, like, as you walk out of that, it's gonna be a nice little bell feeder ring, ku clang.
[00:13:30] Nick Jennings:
So yeah, man. I just have to say, my favorite part about Sean talking about his bells is the fact that it's kinda like the song What Does the Fox Say,
[00:13:41] Dustin Hanson:
where every time he just cries,
[00:13:43] Nick Jennings:
the way the bell sounds, it's something completely different. It's true. It's I mean, we're up there on Friday with you, and, like, you were talking about the bells, like, three or four different times throughout our, like, the walk through. And every single time was a different sound than the bell.
[00:13:58] Scott Belchak:
So I'm I'm not sure what to expect. It, like, feel like the actual bell. Well, you'll find out. You'll find out soon enough. And and before we move on from this, I'm I'm very curious what the state park is gonna think about it because Oh, sure. Because we took a peaceful place and we and we're adding 14 inch bells to it. And again, it's not I don't believe the atrocity will come from disc golfers. It will be coming from From the public. From the little kids that run rampant around that campground,
[00:14:22] Sean Kelley:
and they will they will be ringing once they find those two things, they'll be ringing the hell out of them. Well, there is there is one course that that that doesn't require bells,
[00:14:31] Scott Belchak:
because it's in swampland,
[00:14:33] Nick Jennings:
that not a lot of of people play, and that's dragonfly. Yes. And that brings us to our guest for the evening. We have Colby is it Colby Zimmerman? Yes, sir. Awesome. Glad to have you on, Colby. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?
[00:14:45] Colby Zimmerman:
Oh, man. What is what is there to tell? I'm a COVID disc golfer. I picked it up during COVID when there was nothing else to do. I already had a few discs because I had been for work, like, two years before that. And so I just started messing around. I remember I bought a whole bunch of discs, used discs from Playdian Sports. I bought, like, 25 discs from a guy who was selling them for, like, $3 a piece just like his old bag, and they were all super understable discs. And and, I had a few friends who liked to do it, and I was way more athletic than them, but they were so much better than me, and it made me so angry. Oh, I'm sure. So Is it made the crotch? You you look like freaking Superman.
[00:15:24] Scott Belchak:
I wish.
[00:15:25] Colby Zimmerman:
Maybe maybe current Superman. Superman in his current state.
[00:15:29] Sean Kelley:
What does that mean?
[00:15:31] Scott Belchak:
Like, Chris Christopher Reeves.
[00:15:34] Sean Kelley:
Yes. His current state.
[00:15:36] Colby Zimmerman:
Yes. Okay. That that's what that means. It's it's not a a joke. But here we are. I'm that might not be the last one.
[00:15:44] Scott Belchak:
We are not a tasteful podcast. Well, I mean, you tune in tune in to our last episode. There was a lot of of tasteless moments. I did a lot of talking.
[00:15:53] Colby Zimmerman:
Yeah. So I just Correlation or causation? Yeah. A little bit. A little bit of both. Yep. Mhmm. Yeah. I I just had to get better so I could beat those idiots. And, somebody, like, a couple months in, one of them was like, why don't you ever throw forehand? I was like, what's that? And he showed me, and I and I tried it. And I I'm a baseball player. So Okay. Took me, like, took me, like, I don't know, three tries to get one that didn't come out and turn into a roller, and it went, like, 420 feet. And they're like, you should do that. Yep. So that's what I did for a long time. And I'm still I'm still paying the price for that, honestly, because my backhand is not great. You know, it's it's getting better. It's getting a lot better as my shoulder gets more sore from throwing forehands in my old age. Yeah. Well, so you're almost master's age. Right? Yep. Like, next next year? Twenty twenty seven. 2027, you enter the ranks of of masters player. Alright. We're getting closer to when we graduate from that. So it's gonna be good.
[00:16:48] Scott Belchak:
And then then you'll be able to get beaten by, like, old men. Yeah. Well, I already do. And that'll be Old men, little kids, you name it. That'll be fun. I I can always tell I can always tell when you're on the course because I can hear you from, like, all the way across the property. In fact, we were out playing the arena the other day. Was it I don't remember who I was playing with, but, I could tell that you were on the course somewhere because the arena is, like, this natural It's an amphitheater. Yeah. And you were probably just having a normal conversation, but I could hear you all the way across the course. But, yeah. It's it's great to have you on the podcast. Today, we're we're we're talking about Dragonfly, which which, which when when you guys started working on it, I I was like I was like, like, what's his name in Arrested Development with his with his son's daughter or with his daughter's his son's girlfriend, Anne Anne. Where he's just like, her? I've never met her.
[00:17:41] Dustin Hanson:
Her?
[00:17:42] Scott Belchak:
Because I because I was thinking about about how how much of a mess that was when it got started. In fact, when I saw the the the plans drawn and I saw Hole 2 where it was, and I had walked through where Hole 2 was. Well, I tried to walk through where Hole 2 was. I crawled through where where Hole 2 was and I thought, my god, these guys are insane that they're gonna be doing this. Like, what is going on? And and I had heard that there was a a group of volunteers that had volunteered specifically for Hole 2, and that was that was you and and and your
[00:18:17] Colby Zimmerman:
ilk. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. It mostly ended up being me, though.
[00:18:22] Scott Belchak:
So so I so I wanna take it I wanna take Dragonfly back to the very beginning. Dragonfly started as as just an idea. Right?
[00:18:33] Colby Zimmerman:
Yeah. I mean, I I wasn't even I wasn't even there for that part. But yeah. Like, somebody had an idea and they and, you know, Lehi is one of largest cities in Utah County, and it didn't have it had a 12 hole disc golf course, and that's it. So, and there's tons of open land. Just just tons of it. And so
[00:18:53] Scott Belchak:
I think it was Curtis. Curtis Hammond. Curtis Lewis. Had the idea to go to the city and and pitch him. Yeah. So he so he made a he he made a post on on Facebook saying, hey. I'm I'm pitching the idea of a disc golf course on this 80 acre parcel that they have on the North Side Of Utah Lake. If anybody wants to come, please come and show support. Bring a disc so that people know that you're there, in in support. So I showed up, and I didn't bring a disc because that's weird. You know, I don't want people to know that I'm here for the disc golf. I don't I don't wanna be associated with the disc golfers. Right? So so I I did show up though and and watched his his his plan. And, this was back when I was when I was thinking when I was starting to think I was starting to think about things a little bit differently when it came to disc golf courses. I was starting to think about about, presenting them more as playgrounds, and I was starting to think about, presenting them more as as places that require, investment and require, municipal oversight.
And I was really starting to get my brain focused around that, but I hadn't yet kind of it hadn't really congealed in my mind on how to pitch that just yet. And, so I was happy that someone else was pitching it. So I remember going to the meeting and, someone else was pitching it. So I remember going to the meeting, and, there was a few families there with discs. So I was easily able to pinpoint who was there for it. And then also, which is another funny thing is that whenever you go to these these meetings where, there's something fun on the agenda, and then as soon as that agenda item's over and then pretty much everybody gets up and leaves, it's pretty obvious to to city council, like, that that they've got something interesting here because literally everybody that was here is gone now that they're stopped talking about the thing that they were stopped talking about. But, I'd love to get my hands on on his on his slide deck, to look at it one more time because, I wanna refresh my memory on it. But, I I do remember it being one of those presentations that that is, you know, we need like, these are the these are the material things that we need. We need we need, 18 tee pads.
We need 18 baskets. We need 18 signs. And, and when a when a disc golf course is sold like that, it it becomes a very attainable thing for cities to say, yeah. Sure. You know? And and I actually remember this very distinctly because when when he got through the whole thing about, like, what is disc golf? What do we need? How how are we gonna do it? Which is basically community. The community is gonna do it all. And then, how much money do we need? They they got to a spot where they were just like, okay. So you're asking for $30,000? Is that right? Yes. That's what that's that's what we need. I think it was 60 or something. Yes. That's what that's what we need. And they were just like, okay.
So what do you guys think? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Alright. Fine. Yep. You get your $60,000. And then the next agenda item was a $1,800,000 playground Yeah. That was on on the schedule that they were gonna talk about. And and that that really was the moment where where this congealed in my mind of, like, we need to stop selling ourselves so short as as as disc golf advocates. We need to we need to really approach this from the perspective of a playground. Like, 1,800,000 for a playground? Like, our kids need places to play, but we're working on, like, 60 acres for these properties. Fifty, forty fifty, sixty acres. A legitimate adult playground. Yeah. Exactly. Well, and a kid playground too. They should go enjoy it. Right? Oh, for sure. Like,
[00:22:41] Dustin Hanson:
but you think about the other adult playgrounds that we have around the country and, like, typical golf courses, how much money do they put into that? Not just once, one time to get it started, but yearly over over a number of years, decades.
[00:22:56] Scott Belchak:
Yeah. So so I didn't have a a lot to do with, the Dragonfly project because, the birthday of of Dragonfly lined up perfectly with the birthday of the wonder. And in in fact, we we had consistently for, like, an entire year overlapping workdays where where where I would call for a workday for the wonder, and then the dragonfly guys would be like, oh, yeah. We're having a workday that day too. And I was just like, come on. Like, just let's stagger them. Let's communicate. You know? But, so I was disconnected from from it from that from that perspective, from from that point up until, the point where where we really started working on it. So I kinda wanted Colby to come on and kinda bring us up to speed with the history of Dragonfly and and and and how it's gone and and the community behind it and how it's and how it's grown and and, what the future for it is.
[00:23:49] Colby Zimmerman:
Well, yeah. Let's, I mean, let's let's jump in right in. The biggest problem, like you said, not let's not let's not focus on the problems for sure. Right? Like like, if Curtis hadn't have done this, we wouldn't have this course. For sure. Fantastic. For sure. But when the community is the one doing the work, what that what I've learned that that means is on the first workday, you get a 100 people. Yep. And a lot of awesome stuff happens. Then on the second workday, you get, like, 25. And by the next time you need people out there, it's just, like, less than 10 people. And it's the and it's the main people that are that are really interested in really pushing it forward. So it ended up being that there were four or five of us making we we kinda made up the committee of Dragonfly. We kinda made all the major decisions, and we did a lot of the work. I was doing 75 hard at the time, so I was getting my two workouts outside cutting and dragging branches every day for months.
[00:24:47] Scott Belchak:
And that committee was was something that was that was
[00:24:51] Colby Zimmerman:
required by the city for some reason. Right? I don't know if it was required, but that's what was pitched. And that's and that's smart because because it wouldn't have made sense for one person to make all the decisions unless there was somebody being paid and, you know, overseen by the city. Okay. So so, yeah, that I mean, it it only took us maybe a month, two months to get to get nine holes in. And, those were the nine easy holes that didn't require as much clearing. Yeah. That was the inside of the course. Right? Yeah. It was like, hole one, hole three, four, five.
Yeah. Basically, one, not two. Two is like the last hole done. Mhmm. Hole one and then through Hole 10 minus Hole 8. That was, like, that was, like, the first iteration of the course. No tee pads, just dirt. Sometimes paint, sometimes not. And, and then it took another, like, two and a half years to finish the rest of it, before we got tee pads. So it was a it was a long journey. And I just remember walking up there, and I looked at the original plan, and I was like, there's this awesome section right here that's just not being used by anything. Like, maybe it's a maybe it's a tee pad in one green, but, like, this could make an awesome hole. And I brought my I brought my ilk out to, to walk it, and they're like, I don't see it, man. Yeah. You're crazy.
And and I brought and I brought Curtis out, and I showed him. He's like, dude, if you're willing to do the work, I think this will be a good hole. Go for it. And,
[00:26:27] Scott Belchak:
and, then about 200 trees later, we have hole two, and I think it's best hole on the course. I I think it's one of the best holes that it's a fun in all of of Utah County.
[00:26:37] Nick Jennings:
It's so challenging. It's about as hard as it gets. Yeah. Yeah. I got my first birdie on it the other day, actually. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That whole I've taken, like, a seven and an eight before. I had a lot of pars.
[00:26:49] Colby Zimmerman:
Yeah. If you're if you're willing to throw a 150 foot shot off the tee, it's birdies actually come easier when you have a when you have that 300 foot shot 300, 350 foot shot second. You try to get it on the first one, and that's when I run into problems. Problems. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. On the on the last, podcast, Rob Rob talked about how how Jade Sewell,
[00:27:11] Scott Belchak:
had the had the ability to go into a room and and determine if if a project was gonna go forward or not just by the the stakeholders. And and, back to your point about about, is this never happening, you know, happening if Curtis does doesn't doesn't pitch it the way he does. And I I think that he needed to pitch that exactly the way that he did. Because if if it wouldn't have been if if it would have been pitched the way that I would have pitched it, it never would have gotten done. You know? And Probably not. Yeah. And so I I think it's important to realize that. You know? And and, Dragonfly to me is a is such an amazing property because it has something that that none of our courses have, and that's grass without irrigation.
[00:27:57] Colby Zimmerman:
Beautiful grass. Always green. Always green. Always. Always growing. It's kind of obnoxious sometimes.
[00:28:04] Scott Belchak:
Yeah. It's tough. It it makes it it adds a dimension to the course that we don't see anywhere else. But but it's getting mowed this year. And why and why is that why why is this year different than last year?
[00:28:15] Colby Zimmerman:
That's a good question. So this first of all, the city people that we've worked with, so the the director in charge of new parks and the director in charge of parks maintenance have been a 100% on our side since day one. They've been great to work with. And within reason, when they can, they give us they give us what we what we ask for, what we need. And I just lost my train of thought. What what am I answering right now? You're you're answering why Dragonfly looks fucking amazing right now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So so they're on our side. Right? And we we have a cleanup day. I think it's a a year ago. Mhmm. Maybe a year maybe a year and a half ago. It was wintertime.
[00:29:01] Scott Belchak:
Yeah. That's, that's the one that that that that I I I didn't wanna go to because it's not our responsibility to do this. And so I got in the car, and I got my camera out, and I took a video of myself driving to the course complaining about having to go to Dragonfly to to to do work that the city should should do. And then we got, like, freaking 40 people out there to clean this place up. I got my drone up. I set some time lapse up, and and and I decided my only volunteerism for this is gonna be walking around with my camera and documenting it. And I'm gonna put together a really nice, like, edited video of this, and I'm gonna post it on social media. And And I'm gonna and I'm gonna at Lehi.
[00:29:39] Colby Zimmerman:
So we had tee pads and signs and baskets at this point. We had 18 holes, but the course was unkept. Right? It was it was almost impossible to play unless it was wintertime. The grass wasn't growing. So I'm this was the time when I when I was like, okay. We've gotta get this course into shape. We've gotta keep it in shape. And I was and I was running the committee by this point. So I called for the I called for the vault. I I made sure the city could come out, and they brought five mowers. So they brought five guys and mowers. And once I knew they were coming, I was relentless online. So I I made I made a couple of posts, and I started personally messaging people because it's a lot harder to say no if you if you're a person.
Especially especially if you're a top person. It's a powerful thing. So I messaged everyone I could think of. You were one of those people. I even asked I even asked you for your advice on on one situation because I asked one guy to come help, and he's like, no. I'm not gonna run a league. And and he ran, and he, you know, he took away, like, you know, 30 people that might have come to the course. And you told you told me that that was a good thing, and I and I event I ended up agreeing with you and didn't make a thing about it. But we had a great turnout. The city came.
They mowed everything. Everything the mowers could reach, they mowed. The only stuff that wasn't mowed was in the thick trees. They even mowed the they even mowed the swamp because it was frozen so they so they could drive on top of it and mow all those cattails.
[00:30:58] Scott Belchak:
Frank nineties.
[00:31:00] Colby Zimmerman:
Yeah. Sure. It's true. It's what they are. I I believe you. I just
[00:31:06] Scott Belchak:
don't care. You should. You should too. I mean, we can get free money for to to to destroy those things, and that's why you should care. Okay. Well, that's your job. That's true. You're supposed to know that stuff. I do know that stuff.
[00:31:17] Colby Zimmerman:
So after that, the community made it we made a big point to let the city know that we felt the love. And, shortly thereafter, I had a meeting with those guys that I mentioned and their boss, the, public works, I don't know what he is, VP or something. Yeah. Public works director probably is what he is what his title is. And we made and we made a I sat down with them, and I said, what is it gonna take for us to get something like that on a regular basis. And then that conversation kind of evolved into what do you want this to be long term. And, basically, what they said was, if you want this course maintained, you're gonna have to maintain it. Show us that it can be maintained because we hadn't maintained it for that summer. It was disgusting. And, I mean, it was so bad. You went there to play. The grass was almost as tall as you in places, maybe maybe as tall as you in places.
If you touched a a Russian olive or a piece of grass or anything, you you heard a swarm of mosquitoes around your head. Yeah. It was terrible. And so they said, you it needs to be maintained. And I said, well, we used funds we raised to buy a lawnmower, and it is it is no longer working. And and if you could give us a machine, if you give us some equipment, we'll keep it maintained. And they said, well, I think we can make that work. So
[00:32:38] Scott Belchak:
last year was kinda proving if we could do it. But but but how does that work? Because because the public can't drive their machines
[00:32:48] Colby Zimmerman:
with insurance. So so how does that work? Well, so they I had to I had to become an employee of the city. Oh, tricky. And and I I just I just don't turn any hours. So I became an employee of the city, so I'm insured if I'm using their equipment so I can use their equipment. And last year, I mowed that thing. I was the only one allowed to do it. That's what they told me. And they said something to the effect of of if it goes well and, and there's anybody you you trust, they can mow it, but you're the only one that can mow it. Wink. You know, it's kinda like that. But but I didn't wanna mess with anything, so I just I just mowed it. I mowed it about I mowed that whole thing about once a month last summer. And it was a lot, And but it but it's good. A lot of people came out and played.
And I would take pictures when I'd see a lot of cars in the parking lot. I'd take pictures and I'd send them to the city. Then this year rolls around, and I'm and I reached out to them and said, hey. What's the status on this being maintained? You know, we we talked about this last year, and they're like, well, what do you want? I was like, I well, I either want you guys to have a crew come out here every two weeks and mow the whole thing, or I want you to let me hire some more people. And you're probably gonna actually have to pay them when they when they come when they come work. And they said, we can do that. How many do you need? And I said, I need three. And no hesitation. They did it. So so that's why that's why it's being maintained so well. You know, we've got we've got me and three others that can use the equipment, and they're motivated to get out there and work. And who are these three others?
Aaron Presgard, Ken Oetker. Is that how you say it? Oetker. Oetker. Okay. And,
[00:34:24] Sean Kelley:
Austin Lott. Eric. Okay. That's really good. Ken, Kent was the one who I was playing down at Artai. Yeah. And he's like, oh, have you checked out Dragonfly? Yeah. And I was like, no. I haven't. I haven't. It was right when you guys had just put it in. And he was just like, yeah. You guys gotta go down and check out Dragonfly. And so that's when we drove down, and I was, yeah, walking down Hole 2, and I'm just like, why am I here? Like, this is like this is like this is like six, eight inch, like, little spikes of, like, little trees that I'm, like, stepping on. I'm like, oh, man. It was it's it was in rough shape. It was a beaut it was like, I'm like, this course is gonna be great. It's still well, I mean, it's one of my favorite courses in the valley, but it's just one of those, like yeah. Ken was Ken was the one who introduced me to, Dragonfly.
[00:35:06] Colby Zimmerman:
Yeah. I I just had to get involved because what we don't have a lot of in Utah County is any any, like, really challenging courses. Yeah. And we we have courses that are tricky. They have tricky shots. Our our diet is not an easy course by any means. No. You know, Jolly's Ranch is not an easy course by any means. I mean, some holes are, right, on both those courses, but we don't have we didn't really have anything that had par fours, tight tight hallways, and a mix of, like, short stuff and big stuff, like like like, big throws. And so I just I just knew that it was seven minutes from my house.
And if I didn't get involved, I'd I didn't know if it was gonna turn out to to be to be a great course. So I made sure to put a lot of work into it and and eventually ended up getting a lot of the things that I wanted because of that. Yeah. It definitely seems like, the path you took worked.
[00:35:59] Scott Belchak:
And it seems like what you've created now is something that is maintainable. You know, I think once because, I mean, Aaron seems it seems like Aaron's mowing that thing two two times a week, it seems like. He's getting out there twice a week. He's mowed about half the course. So so the whole thing's getting mowed about once a week. But just It's like every every time you can mow something once like, the first the first time you can mow something once, that's the beginning of a new future. Because if you can mow it once, you can mow it a second time, and you can mow it a third time. Like, we're seeing that at the Wonder. Like like, getting getting a fairway to the point where you can put a mower on it is hard.
It's not just like, oh, let's go mow that piece of land. It's it's it's nope. We we have to make sure that that all the stumps are gone. We have to make sure that all the rocks are gone. We have to make sure everything every single stick is picked up and and aggregated somewhere. You know, it's it's, like, that's that's the goal is getting a mower to it. Like, once you get a mower to it, the battle's over. It's just now it's just mowing it, which is, you know, at the wonder, you just have to do it one once or twice a year. You know? But at It gets pretty dry, but anything in the woods necessarily,
[00:37:14] Sean Kelley:
you cut back, it's all just gonna grow back in the next year. So you're almost just every single year, you're doing the the same exact work you did last year. So it's it's just a never ending battle. But it gets easier
[00:37:26] Scott Belchak:
every year, you know, because you're because because you're you're you're you're all the work you've done in the previous years to get it to mow is still available. I mean, at the Wonder, it's easier because because you don't have Russian alms popping out of literally everywhere. Sure. You know? Yeah. Which which is another thing that I wanna talk about because because I we've we've talked about this at length of of of getting because in my perfect world, we go scorched earth on dragonfly and remove every single Russian olive that we can and replace it with 3 or $400,000 worth of trees.
Like, that's that's that's my perfect world. I I mean, I understand that that you can't just remove remove every single Russian oil from that property right away because you'd ruin the challenge of it. But at the same time, it's like, look. What if we did? What if we just ruined the course for five years while all these beautiful pines that we you know, and and and all these awesome willows that we plant are maturing. You know? And what would that place look like fifteen years from now? Because there's there's very few places that we have that have access to the water table that Dragonfly does. It it it's like the the water is literally, like, two feet. You dig two feet, you find one foot. Ground. Well, sometimes it makes its way up to the fairways
[00:38:47] Colby Zimmerman:
as well. Yeah. Well, sometimes half year. Some of that is
[00:38:51] Scott Belchak:
natural, and some of that is the farmland surrounding us. Irrigation. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, next week, I'm having I'm having, an arborist up to the wonder. The beauty of being able to raise raise money, for a public space as a nonprofit, it allows you to, take some liberties with it. And so one of the liberties that that I'm taking is hiring an arborist to come up and examine the forest and understand where we can possibly put some saplings and spur some new growth in that forest that we've cut. And I think I and I think the dragonfly could could do this. And, you know, I've talked to, Tree Utah, a local nonprofit, and, you know, about it. And and I've showed them the property, and they said, oh, we we won't even we won't plant we won't plant any trees in a place that doesn't have a long term plan to remove every single Russian olive on the property.
And I was just like, okay. Well, that's, you know, like, what about what about right over here? There's no Russian here. Like, on Hole 18. And and that's what I essentially, convinced them of is, like, let's maybe do this in stages. Let's let's maybe think about, like, places that that aren't overrun by Russian olives, like Hole 18. Like, all along the the road up there is a perfect opportunity for us to plant a nice row of trees protecting the fence line, right, and that berm. And maybe slowly moving towards a more, like a like, those Russian olives, first of all, aren't supposed to be here. They're they're totally invasive. They're they're terrible trees.
So they're they're they're not supposed to be here. The the phragmites in the pond, they're not supposed to be here either. Basically, every single living thing that's on that property other than the grass is not supposed to be here. Other than that giant ass broken tree that's on, what is it, 10? 14? 14? There's two trees on the property that aren't Russian olives. Yeah. Right? Fourteen and ten. So so when we're talking about the long term vision of this place, there has to be a conversation about future tree planting because it's such a unique place that has access to water in the ground in the desert,
[00:40:59] Colby Zimmerman:
and we have to get new growth in there. Well, let me let me challenge that a little bit because I agree that a a fully wooded forest would be would be awesome. And if it's gonna take planting 3 or 400,000 worth of trees, every city around the lake has areas like this. And I think it'd be more interesting to go find a place that doesn't have a lot of trees and plant the trees there because we've got here the here's the cool thing about Dragonfly is if I want something new or cool to happen, those trees are gonna grow 25 feet in two years. Twenty twenty feet in two years. So the course doesn't have to be what the course is today, even next year. Mhmm. But you take away I mean, Russian olives are weeds. Like, we we all know they're not trees. You USU, you know, they're they're big on botany, and they're classified as weeds up there. They grow super fast. Yeah. And they suck up they suck up a lot of water. So that's why they that's why they grow so well out there. But I just look at this as as an opportunity. Like, I it's part of what Dragonfly is. And and, if I woke up tomorrow and all those trees were big giant mature trees, I'd be stoked. But to lose that course for five to ten years to for from what it is to make it that, I would rather see us keep this course keep this course the way it is and build another course. Yeah. And
[00:42:22] Scott Belchak:
and I think that I would I would I would counter that counter that with, we shouldn't be building things for ourselves. We should be building things for your children. You know? Because because this this isn't this isn't our world. It's it's everyone who's going to come behind us. And a twenty year investment in trees is nothing.
[00:42:43] Sean Kelley:
That's that's no time at all. Sure. So when I have give them two. Right. I mean, these are all learning lessons as we're going because I'm assuming prior to Dragonfly, you've never built the course before. Never. And I've never even considered to the wonder, you've never built the course before. So in general, like like, I I agree with Colby in the sense that, like, Dragonfly is great. Like, yeah, if we could if we could switch every Russian olive to a pine tree or an oak tree, absolutely. It's great. But these are just the learning lessons as we, you know not pioneers of it, but just people jumping into the idea of designing courses, not playing not playing disc golf and going in and trying to, like, actually build disc golf courses. Yeah. I'd rather have another course also. I'd rather yeah. Just building another course. I'm like, horrible at Dragonfly. Yeah. I mean, if you could go, like, over to it's very it's out here in the, like, in the desert necessarily, like, where river bottoms I wish I wish river bottoms had water in the right area.
They had a piece of property that's just, like, lush. Like, there's there's water, like, literally, like Everywhere. Everywhere. Where anything will grow and everything will just, like, you know it's it's it's got it's got all the amenities to to allow growth to to to to spawn there. But, I also think, like, as many as Russian olives that I've cut down in my lifetime just being out here in Utah, like, it's not a bad, like because you says you have, like, all those different shots where, like, you know if you go in the weeds. It's a good bunker. It's It's a good bunker. It's that, like so it's almost like it's almost that training facility where it's just, like, don't you know, it just it just kinda makes you almost like a better disc golfer because you don't wanna go into the weeds because you know the those long ass thorns off the, the the Russian They suck. But at the same point, like, you go into, like, Bruce Bruce's, they're gonna suck. Go into pines, they suck.
There's sap everywhere with all the pine trees. For sure. Then you go into oaks, and now we're dealing with acorns and all the animals that live in there and fry it off. And so, like, not every there's nothing there's no greater solution to the next one. But I do agree, like, the idea of scorched earth on the dragonfly, like, no. Like I love that. Yeah. Go to a whole new go to a go to a whole new area and build a new course, like, with that theory that you could actually, like But where? We could design this. No. I'm not saying I I don't know where. The irrigation would be so hard. Like, Dragonfly is our best bet, you
[00:45:17] Scott Belchak:
know. Well, and and I'm to be clear, I'm not I said scorched earth, but but I think you do it one hole at a time. I think You do. You you add the trees first where it makes sense. I think you would you would purposefully because the thing about Russian olives is that is that they they drop they drop hundreds of thousands of of berries and seeds, and so they grow from seed, but then also they they they send shoots underneath. So they grow from the top and they grow from the bottom. Of their their root system, it goes super shallow and wide and up. Nothing else can grow,
[00:45:54] Colby Zimmerman:
it within its root system. Yeah. It kinda suffocates it. You you wanna you have to mechanically remove these things. You know something interesting about that? I looked this up because I thought to myself, yeah, they're dropping all these seeds. I should just plant some in exactly where I want trees to be. So I looked up to see if I could do that. And you can't you can't those Those those seeds are are all pointless. How they how they end up doing something, this is information you never need to know. A bird will come down and eat it, and the innermost part of it, the bird can't digest. And when it poops it out, then it now it's ready to plant. Oh, okay. Now it's ready to grow. Isn't that interesting? So that so it gets taken But but drop somewhere. But the shoots I mean I mean, you touch if we touch nothing on there for the next few years, the entire place would be covered in. Yeah. Exactly. Just from the shoots. So I think I think that's what I'm trying to get at is, like, is, like, if we can if we can year over year
[00:46:47] Scott Belchak:
replace pivotal trees out there with willows or with something that's going to have a longer, term life and something that's going to be, easier to manage because because these these Russian olives, they grow shoots down at down at down at the base. They have to be trimmed up every single year. If you if if you stop looking at them for a year, like Colby said, it's it's it's, you know, it's like Yeah. It's hairy.
[00:47:15] Nick Jennings:
It seems kinda similar to the battle that we're dealing with at River Bottoms with the thistle
[00:47:19] Scott Belchak:
as well. Yeah. And and the baby Bottoms with with all their Russian olives. Yeah. So it's like it's like you you gotta you gotta look at these things for what they are, and they're invasive. And they're not supposed to be there. And if if if we had a ten year plan to replace most of those with really good trees that are established and, already mature like, maybe not mature, but, you know, the the four inch calipers. I mean, it it the wind knocked over. It broke and fell down. What was that? Two years ago? Yeah. If that and it's already I mean, some of those new branches have grown, like, 20 feet taller. Exactly. Right? It's like it's like if you get if you get some cottonwoods in there, if you get some elms in there, you know, you get some honeysuckle in there. Not honeysuckle, the honey. Is it honey? Honeylocust. Honeylocust. Get the honeylocust in there. Or just any tree that that works in that in that wet, loamy soil, like the willows. I think the will the willows would do really good. There there aren't very many, actually.
[00:48:20] Colby Zimmerman:
You told me, that you had met with somebody about it, so I kinda started looking. And a lot of those ones a lot of those trees won't grow there. But the willows will and I think you've looked up quite a few, and there are some of the fast growing trees will grow there. So so it's it's not just get hallways. It's not out of the question. I mean, willows are huge. You know? Like, I and and, honestly, I'd love to try some because the the best time to to plant a tree was yesterday is what everybody says.
[00:48:45] Scott Belchak:
And so I think that I'd like to try to plant some trees. I think I think the best place to start is right along Hole Six's left side fairway in that swampy spot. Yep. Plant a bunch of willows that just are in the freaking swamp back out there. And there's no Russian olives over there that we have to worry about. And and To see if something grows, you know, to see Yeah. Because we we tried this at river bottoms with the with the swamp white oak that's out there, and they didn't fare very well. Mhmm. But it's like, we don't we don't know that until you try it, and it is gonna cost some money.
[00:49:23] Colby Zimmerman:
We wouldn't even need to put that many out there. There's, I mean, there's the whole section that you throw out of on the tee shot and then then then those trees right there. But then from there to the basket, it's pretty sparse. And and those trees aren't really doing much for the fairway, so we could certainly I don't think anybody would complain about the ones after the bunker out of the gap if if those ones on the left disappeared. No. All those ones on the left disappear, and then it's just a row of willows, like, all the way to the basket. Like and those willows get big. Like, they get they get 60 feet tall. You probably wouldn't even need to plant as many like, that many. No. You would want, like 50 feet maybe? Four of them, five of them.
[00:50:00] Scott Belchak:
Because they're gonna be small right away, but you give them five or six years, and they'll grow. Mhmm. So it's like those are the things that I want us to start thinking about because because dragonfly is an opportunity that we don't have elsewhere where you can just dig a hole, put a tree in, and then watch it grow if you get the right if you get the right tree. Well, when you get a chance, pull up Google Earth
[00:50:22] Colby Zimmerman:
and look up all these places around Utah Lake. They can't build on them. So the the reason we got this land is because the houses can't be built. The water's too high. My house is, like I said, seven minutes away. It's probably like it's it's, in between Lehigh, Maine and 2100 North. And when I was digging the hole for my trampoline, I found the water. So it's it's really it's it's maybe seven feet underground where my house is. So my my point is, as you get closer to the lake, that water table gets closer to the land, you know, closer to the surface. And there's a whole bunch of places. I once once dragonfly started, I I went through I went through this, and I, like, looked at all these areas around the lake. I was like, oh my gosh. It could be a disc golf course there, one there, one there, one there. Yeah. It sounds like it's a pretty hot tip in Saratoga that that would work pretty good. There's there's an awesome spot in Saratoga that I saw. There's an awesome spot in Vineyard that I saw right right by out there by the softball fields where they're where they're doing all that development. And, yeah, man. Man. I just I I actually think there's a lot of that that we just haven't tapped into because it's kind of a garbage sectional land. And so I actually think it'd be great to go to cities and say, hey.
This land that you have that's useless, let's make it useful. Right.
[00:51:33] Scott Belchak:
So let's let's talk about, a little bit about US women's. We had we had Rob on the podcast, last week, and, he mentioned that Dragonfly is a is a venue that's that's that's, strongly being considered for this thing. One of the things that we are running into with Dragonfly and hosting a major championship is parking. I just kinda wanna talk about our thought processes going forward when we look at these these venues to make sure that we're thinking about that because, with when we built Dragonfly, we didn't think about parking, and we didn't think about access to the property. Like, we had a small a small section of that.
So with Dragonfly being used for for US women's, we're we're we're actually in the process of having conversations with the UTA to to use the the park and ride to create a shuttle back and forth, at the train station, which is a whole different thing. Like, we have to have different assurances and stuff like that. But, yeah, I just kinda wanna talk about about Dragonfly. Dragonfly is great for for for disc golf, but not necessarily
[00:52:53] Colby Zimmerman:
city about this, and I think this might have come up when we were meeting with them. But that road, since it's a dead end, can be used as parking. So we can actually we don't have even have to parallel park on it. We can park as if as if it's a parking lot on both sides and in the middle if there's room. So for this particular tournament, you know, this you know, any anything happening before that road goes through, that's a solution. But as soon as that road goes through, they I I don't I don't know what they're gonna do. And one one of the things that we've talked about is the property to the east, the little skinny property that runs the whole length of the course. Uh-huh.
That guy is most likely gonna be developing that in the next few years. He's waiting on something, and it's gonna be a couple years. But once he develops that, he's only gonna be able to develop the front half. The back half won't be they won't be able to make it suitable for us. It's too it's too wet. It's too it's too close to the water table. Mhmm. And they they have told us that that will become part of Dragonfly when that happens. That will give us the par five or two
[00:54:06] Scott Belchak:
two good holes. Or yeah. And then and then it'll allow us maybe Hole 1 to turn into a parking lot. Yeah. And then we can expand the parking lot. Obviously obviously,
[00:54:15] Colby Zimmerman:
if if people are hearing this and they're panicking because Hole One's their favorite hole or Hole Eighteen's their favorite hole, like like, understood. And and if if we can replace them with equal or better holes, then then I think everybody would welcome more parking. Okay. So so so the future of of Dragonfly has
[00:54:33] Scott Belchak:
potentially additional land usage. And then let's talk about, some of the improvements that will be required, to have a major championship there.
[00:54:45] Colby Zimmerman:
A a lot. I mean, I guess I guess not too much, but but it's got a ways to go. And the city the city is on board with this. We told them we told them we need benches for every hole. We need pathing for every hole. We need garbage cans, and we need bathrooms for sure. And then there are a whole bunch of other things that would also be great to have, like, you know, mandatories, different trees, built built up greens, built up tee pads, just, multiple tee pads. We're gonna put in turf to do reds and golds for now. But The heaviest turf on Earth, by the way. It's big. It's long. It's, like, two inches long.
[00:55:32] Scott Belchak:
Probably won't be that for the first rubber. Yeah. It's it's it's the exact same stuff that that you're dealing with. Once once It's like carrying two dead bodies at once. At least.
[00:55:43] Colby Zimmerman:
Well, it took when when we unloaded it, it took two mini x's. Two two to get one roll off, and we have two two of those rolls. The city is supposed to be bringing that down, by the way, before Saturday. Oh, interesting. So we can so we can start using it for the volunteer days. Yeah. Well, good luck getting volunteers to unroll that stuff and drag it through the course. Listen. Another thing with volunteers or people with courses,
[00:56:05] Sean Kelley:
I I understand majority of disc golfers work full time jobs. But and then, usually, like, weekends, they're allowed to, like, work out because trying to find volunteers, these are your courses you play all the time. Take a day off. Don't throw the disc. Come down. Improve your local course. Get involved. It's you know? By the time it's by the time it passes, your course is better than it was before, and now you have a better course to go play. So please volunteer
[00:56:37] Scott Belchak:
legitimately a good time. Yeah. It it's always a good time. Yeah. It is. Well, and speaking of which, I think I actually have to call, a wonder, volunteer work day that will will coincide with
[00:56:49] Sean Kelley:
with dragonfly.
[00:56:51] Nick Jennings:
Wonderfall this year coincides with Hey. Listen. That just means that this board They wanna cancel
[00:56:56] Scott Belchak:
the the beauty of event and come to WonderFall. Like like like like Aaron Presgaard loves playing WonderFall. And what? He's gonna be working his ass off out of out of Dragonfly during WonderFall? No. He's not gonna do that. He's gonna be at WonderFall. I know Aaron. Will remind me remember the date. The twenty seventh and twenty eighth. Yeah. So if I just make so I have to now cancel my registration. Cancel your registration For Wonderful. Yeah. You just did it on the last episode. I know. God. Cancel your registration and RSVP to like, seriously, why does Dragonfly and the Wonder always step on each other's toes? Well, why is that? It's because they were consummated at the very exact same level. It's true. It's all it's all it is. They're competing
[00:57:35] Sean Kelley:
They're in that they're in that same, like, you know, every time it's like, whose birthday party are you gonna come to? You're gonna come to dragonflies? You're gonna come to wonders? You know? Yeah. But it's true. I mean, it it is one of those situations where, like, I I get it. Like, you know, a lot of people wanna, like, you know, they wanna go play disc golf on their weekends, but it takes you can there's all everyone always plays a round at the end. And you still get to play around, but, like, you just get a day out with all your with all your buddies in general. You know? It it's it's gratifying. It's absolutely gratifying to go out, work on a couple holes, get things done, dial it in. Put your stamp on it. Every now yeah. Exactly. Every now and then, like, you always thought this was this is how you kinda wanted to do. You always wanted to, like, either cut down this or shape this bush back. It it go it goes so far in helping improve your local course because I I say it all the time, and it's like, disc golfers love to complain about courses.
They don't wanna do anything to make it better. And so it's like, just you don't have to do it all the time. Just get involved once. You'll you'll you'll you'll find out, like they said, the grad the the self gratification you get from, like, helping out and then just, like and then coming back the next weekend playing it, and you know that, like, the whole course has been just kinda, like, manicured and revamped. It it goes it goes a long way. But it is. It's true. I I'll say it again. It's just, like, disc golfers, they all all they wanna do is play disc golf, but they never wanna get in and just kinda help out. There are there are a bunch of people out there that do get involved. But for the most part, there's so many disc golfers in the valley. Imagine if, like, one weekend, everyone just pulled their baskets. They were like, nope. No one's playing disc golf this weekend. This is the annual Utah clean up your course weekend. Get everyone out there. Pull the baskets. No one can play. Come down. And then, you know Let people park Yeah. And don't let them out. Yeah. Exactly. One of those things. Or just like, hey, man. We're gonna put the baskets in at 4PM.
Boom. We can all play, like, the new course because it would take no time at all. If if we had, like, 40 to 50 people, like, a day just to one day, one Saturday a month, or, like, one Saturday, like, at beginning of every season just to go down and, like, manicure their course,
[00:59:47] Scott Belchak:
every course would be phenomenal. Yeah. But that takes strong leadership, and it takes it it it takes it takes you like someone being like, okay, I I know how to, like, manage 40 people within the next three hours. Right? And Sure. Chaz is really good at this. Chaz, I mean, if if you go show up at one of Chaz's Brighton work days, you show up and he gives you your job, He tells you who to go who who to go with, and he gives you, like, an estimated time of completion. And then when you're done with it, you got your discs with you. Go have fun. You know? It's like, there's there's certain people who are very good at running, running, volunteer cleanup days.
And I I tried to I tried to be like Chaz out out at the arena, and I think for the most part, I succeeded. But, he's more organized and better at it than I am, and I and I have a lot to learn from him.
[01:00:38] Sean Kelley:
I'm sorry. You just keep hiding discs and and and batches. That did not work. And then they find the disc and then it goes home, and then, like, god. Game's over. That did that You're making a game. That That that was a that was a that was an experiment. I thought it was a great idea, and it's and it's not that surprising
[01:00:53] Colby Zimmerman:
now in hindsight that it didn't work.
[01:00:55] Scott Belchak:
Yeah. Yeah. I've I've is it Easter icon? You know what? I was playing with with, with somebody, last year. And so we're we're we're talking about when I when I had 20 mulch piles out of the river bottoms, and I hit a disc under each one. And and I said to the community, go spread the chips and find yourself an Easter egg. Right? And all that ended there was a few people who went out there and spread the chips good. But at the same time, it's like the public, when they come to do something like that, doesn't know exactly what I want them to do. So they spread the chips in a in a in a way that I'm just like, really? You spread them this way? I thought you'd pull them more towards Into the fairway on the green or or or on the path, like, walking paths. Yes. Exactly. Like, put them here. But, no, there was some people who just obviously went looking for the disc, and there was just chips everywhere, which means you wasted my chips.
Right? And you wasted your time for what? A $12 disc, you idiot. You know? It's like, come on. Like, the reason I put it there was so that you could get dollar discs? Did you go high end? No? They were actually free discs from MVP. They were MVP lab seconds. Baseline. But I I thought this was gonna be fun. This is gonna be something the community can rally behind. And a few people did, but we actually found a disc, that was just sitting there because I knew I knew this was gonna happen. I knew there's gonna be some piles that the disc wasn't ever found and and that we'd find it later.
And, but I was playing with Bob Bumgardner And Love Bob. We're just playing and he's like, what's what's this? And he reached down, found this dirty ass disc, pulled it out of the ground, shook it off, and was like, oh, that's one of the discs I hid under the mulch. It was like eight months later, he found it, like, after a whole winter. Gross. But yeah. So, pathing. Pathing out of dragonfly is a big thing, especially for a major. When when when people play majors, they don't want to walk from a basket to the front of the tee pad.
And Mhmm. So you've got some plans for that. And then also, I wanted to talk about, that that there's a missing tee pad. Yeah. And that we'll actually only have we have 18 tea pads out there. Not a lot of people know that because they just think there's 17. There's one just like An erroneous one. In the in the swamp somewhere. So I wanna like, before we end the podcast, I wanna talk about how we're gonna get 18 tee pads, and why is there one out in the swamp. Let's talk about it right now.
[01:03:25] Colby Zimmerman:
Because this is one of the things I'm most excited about for this course. And to be fair, Hole 13, the hole that doesn't have a tee pad or has a broken up piece of turf is a fantastic hole, and it's gonna be it's gonna be sad to see it go. It's kinda like what we talked about earlier. You know? If if you had to give up Hole 1 to get, you know, or at least Hole 1 as it is today to get a bigger parking lot and a better course, but trade that for two other really good holes, you know, great holes even, then then you'd probably you'd probably do it. You'd probably be happy to do it. So this is kinda what's happening with Hole 13. Hole 13 was never intended to be a permanent hole.
We put it in because once once we put the initial course in, the original Hole 7 was out there all the way on the west side by the pasture. And that's where the farm when the farmer irrigates, he floods his field. And it doesn't all stay on his field. And, I mean, it didn't used to matter because he he had the cattle where where we now have a disc golf course. But that whole area is sometimes under six inches of water. Mhmm. There's nothing we can do about it. So, so we we put that hole in the back burner until we got some more city support, then we made hole 13. Well, you talked about Aaron's cleanup day on the twenty seventh. That hole's going back in, hopefully, on the twenty seventh. If and and, frankly, it's it's probably not gonna be a huge cleanup day. We don't expect to have more than, you know,
[01:04:49] Scott Belchak:
10 to 15 people. But that's all gonna be wonderful.
[01:04:53] Colby Zimmerman:
I mean yeah. And and we have a cleanup day this weekend. It's the it's the city's cleanup day. So they're gonna send us a group of people. We're gonna do we're gonna do all the brainless labor that day. So we're gonna do we're gonna cut branches. We're gonna haul branches. We're gonna we're gonna spread,
[01:05:07] Scott Belchak:
millings. How many people do you expect to have off of that? We had
[01:05:11] Colby Zimmerman:
50 last year. They most of them stayed for about an hour. So so we don't we don't have a ton of time with them, but but we'll get we'll get some good stuff done, and that's this Saturday. So because of that, Aaron Aaron couldn't come to that. So so the cleanup day on the twenty seventh is all Aaron taking the initiative and making it happen, which I which I appreciate. And instantly regretting because he was actually posting on the wonderful disc golf scene,
[01:05:36] Scott Belchak:
asking about the when is the schedule being posted. So I think that he he double booked himself and then realized, oh, shit.
[01:05:45] Colby Zimmerman:
Yeah. Well, that may have that may have come from a conversation
[01:05:48] Nick Jennings:
Eric the other day at at Dragonfly. I saw him out there working with his brother, I think.
[01:05:54] Colby Zimmerman:
Yep. He and Eric work out there quite a bit. Yeah. And we had a conversation,
[01:05:59] Nick Jennings:
and I was talking to him about WonderFall. And he's like, wait. What is that? So we we talked about it. And he's man. I've got this other thing. I was like, yeah. I'm not gonna be able to be there. Sorry, man. I wish I could. Sorry, bud. For the record, I'm not opposed to changing the those dates. And so
[01:06:12] Colby Zimmerman:
I'll I'll chat with him and see what he thinks because I I told him I I can't run it. I don't even know if I can be there. Like, honestly, like like, Dragonfly can be worked on into, like, November and December. Like,
[01:06:19] Scott Belchak:
can be worked on into, like, November and December. So you might as well All year. Right. You might as well call the cleanup day, like, when everything's done. You know? Like, don't waste tournament weekend on a cleanup day for a course that doesn't actually need a cleanup until, like, you know?
[01:06:40] Colby Zimmerman:
It it could happen anytime. Yeah. And I and like I said, I appreciate him taking the initiative. Aaron Aaron, if you're listening to this right now, and I know you are,
[01:06:47] Scott Belchak:
just take the weekend off. Come up to come up to the wonder. Come camp. Just enjoy your weekend. Reschedule reschedule for November.
[01:06:56] Colby Zimmerman:
Well, okay. Let's go back to let's go back to Old Hole 7 Okay. Which will which will eventually be Hole 7. It's a it's a short shot. It's like 250, 260 feet, and you have to throw through a tunnel. You have if you're a right handed backhand thrower, you have to throw a shot that with an overstable disc that flexes gently through that and then finishes you throw it from time to time if you decide to, but it's not forced on you in a lot of places. And you're thinking triple mando on that one. Right? We'll probably do a double mando. Triple mando I mean, technically just a mando. Well, because Even even just a right mando would do it. Right. But what we don't want is people going over the top on the left and ending up in the pasture Right. And on somebody else's property. Going over current whole sevens tee pad? Well well, both. Right? We don't we don't want people going that way. We don't want people going the other way over the pasture. So it'll probably be a double mando to force you through the tunnel. I mean, because that's the intended line anyway. And we could get into mandos later. I used I've my stance has changed wildly on mandos through this process.
And then once we get hole seven back in, so you'll play Hole 6. Instead of going through the trees to your right, you'll actually just cross the ditch to your left and the tee pads right there. And you'll throw the trees and then you'll walk back to current hole 7, that'll be Hole 8. And then what that does is that allows us to take hole 13 out. That basket becomes a position for hole one, and the far and the harder position by the creek becomes a position for hole one. I like that. Yeah. Uh-huh. It it it just lets that whole inside breathe. Yeah. Well, I was just saying I I was trying to wrap my head around where you were at spatially, and that's I was like, by one? Is that where Yeah. Yeah. 13 is the hole that kinda feels like it's off by itself with no holes near it. It and you kinda have to walk a long way to get to it, and it's it's just a little bit awkward. So so imagine Hole 1, now you get to have a basket right next to the creek, but it's like a 400 foot shot, and it's and it's not open. It's not easy. It's open most of the way. Mhmm. Yeah. And then right at the very end. Yep. And then Hole 4 gets an XL tee pad another 100 feet away, and that's and that's your and that's your 450 foot par three that doesn't exist on that course. Hole 14 gets a par four location, and that would require some mandos as well. But, basically, where Hole Thirteen's pad is now, move it back a little bit. And, if you're looking down the hole, move it back into the right a little bit.
Put a tee pad kinda in some trees. You'll have a gap to throw out of, and then you'll throw down Fourteenth's fairway, and that'll be and that'll a par four location. So it'll open up a couple really cool options for us for other holes. It also gives us options for hole three, putting that pin in farther, where right now it's just it's kinda stuck where it is. 300 feet, maybe? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. May maybe even less, actually. It's gonna be 300 feet to the right and, like, two eighty to the left or something like that. Yeah. It's not very far. It's a fun shot, though. Alright.
So, yeah, that's the plan with Old Hole 7.
[01:10:07] Sean Kelley:
That's good. That answers the questions because every time you walk by that random tee pad floating out there, you feel like, what's going on with that thing? Well and and and I've I've I've brought this I've brought this idea up to
[01:10:18] Scott Belchak:
a number of people, and they hate it. They they they don't they don't like the idea of of that hole going away because, a lot of people really appreciate that hole and and and like it. I'm one of them. I think I think that that that green right there, the way that the way that that the elevation, we're talking about Hole 13. Right? The way that that basket is shaped with the downslope, and it's got like kind of a moat around it is a perfect is a perfect awesome little little spot for a basket, but
[01:10:56] Sean Kelley:
it can be a basket for a whole one. Well, the the trees are well placed there. Mhmm. So where it forces you to throw a specific shot. Yeah. Whatever that You can't just throw that type of tree. Is, like, straight out. It's either, yeah,
[01:11:08] Scott Belchak:
left or right. But You gotta throw something That tree is that line. You gotta flip it up a little bit, but not all the way. No. You don't want it to turn because then it's gonna go in the creek. So I think I think a lot of people really like Hole 13 are and and they're gonna be really sad to see it go. But also what I've noticed is that is that people can't see through the weeds. They they can't they don't know what they what they want because they they can't see what they want, because all they can see is the disc golf course they're playing. You know? And and it's case in point, basically every time I play a new course, like, you you see a tee pad, you see a basket, you see a fairway, There is like, outside of that, you can't see anything. Disc golfers don't see anything outside of that because they're so hyper focused on what they're looking at and the space that they're containing.
And once once a space takes shape in the public's mind, it's it's very hard to have a conversation with them about changing it because it's it's it's their course and they have history with it. I mean, we're all same way. I mean, I birdied it. You know? Yeah. We're we're that way about everything. I mean, you you become habitual.
[01:12:20] Colby Zimmerman:
Right?
[01:12:21] Sean Kelley:
Well, I always I almost wanted did they not like it moving, or are they are they just used to the flow of the course? Well, I think it's just such a good hole. It's yeah. No. But it's it's also like a good hole. Because there are, like there's certain there's certain holes on certain courses where, like, I use the term taming. Like, I I I tamed that hole. Like, I know how to throw it. I've mastered, like, how to throw this hole. Like, so you wanna taint the hole. So some of those some of those holes that, like, you play on different courses where, like, maybe it's it's one you haven't gotten yet. So that's this is the hole that, like, it's either gonna drop your score or, you know, it's gonna it's I I can birdie this one. It it's perfect.
So is it a matter of, like like, what you were saying is, like, as far as habits? Like, is it something just in the idea of once you change the flow of the course, like, it kinda changes how you play the course? Or because I I don't I don't think, like, removing 13 because we always have to embrace change as time goes on necessarily. But if you to remove a whole to take, like, one whole out of a course and, like, move it, I think it's just more the idea that, like, as people play these, like, local courses and they and most of the time, we're playing, like, you know, a handful of or less than a handful of courses all the time because it's the courses we like.
But if you had to play, like, Dragonfly every day and then you took out this one whole this one whole, and then all of a sudden, like, you added this new one, they're obviously gonna not like the new one because
[01:13:59] Scott Belchak:
of just the normal flow of of of of, like, the course itself. Or or or they might love it. I mean, we're gonna see this thing with the wonder because we're changing the wonder. That's what I'm saying. Like, you so it's like
[01:14:09] Sean Kelley:
I'm so pumped to see that, by the way. But it it but it's also the same thing as, like, think about it. You get the
[01:14:16] Scott Belchak:
You are. You are. Hey. Don't lump me into what people that I throw with have said. No. I mean, we're gonna we're we're making it we're we're we're making the course a little easier and less. We're making it more amateur friendly. We're embracing the amateur up there because you know what? You look at the play counts between the the pro layout and the amateur layout that we have. The amateur layout at the Wondery gets played at at at more than double the pro layout. So we're embracing what what the public want, which is a more amateur friendly course. And that's just what it is. But, I mean, back to back to your point about about how does this change. Right? It's like, I think I think as soon as as soon as people play the new hole and they understand that, oh, okay. After after hole six, which is a very demanding shot, instead of going from there to a hole that is arguably one of the easier ones on the course Seven.
Seven, They're gonna go to a hole that is going to play very, very difficult. Yeah. And then they get to go have a reprieve. So they they have they have two hard holes in a row, and then they get another par four in the mix. I would I would look at it like step like stepping down. You go from one of the hardest gaps on the course to
[01:15:33] Colby Zimmerman:
another tough gap that it's that's bigger and and shorter. Well, I guess it's not really shorter and, you know, the throw off of six is not a long throw. And then you go to seven. And seven seven is basically if you throw a shot that didn't shank into one of the one of the trees left or right of you, you're probably at least getting a par. Right? Like like, it's not an easy birdie, but it's an it's a it's a very easy par. And I think that, you know, the the one going in will be it won't be, you know, it'll be middle of pack on on the course for for getting a par, but it'll be a very, very tough birdie as well. Yeah. Well and I think I think the point that I'm trying to make is that is that as soon as soon as if
[01:16:17] Scott Belchak:
if the new hole that goes in, if new hole seven goes in and it's executed well, and it's obvious that the benefit of the new hole outweighs the fact that we just lost an awesome hole, if it's obvious that that it was the right decision because it was executed well, the public will just be like they'll be like, thank you. Yeah. You know? So I think I think it's it's all about execution, and it's all about making sure that that it's it's dredged. To get to to get that thing ready, you have to do a lot of work. Can you can you talk a little bit about Yeah. Yeah. So
[01:16:54] Colby Zimmerman:
the the biggest thing that needs to happen on that course, personal opinion, is the berm on Hole 18. That's it's gotta go. Because that's all that's all, basement dirt, you know, that were dug were dug out of homes, you know, and they're gonna put in their basement. So it's full of it's full of clay. And you're talking about the dirt that's that's, along the fence line? Mhmm. On 18 and also behind Hummert and weeds. Behind Hole 7, or sorry, behind Hole 10 and, 8. 8 And 10. It just doesn't grow. Like, it it only grows weeds. So it's gotta go, and we're gonna take that to Hole 7. We're gonna we're gonna build that area up, and then we're gonna cover it with topsoil and plant grass there. So this initial this initial project that we're doing may or may not include moving dirt, but it will certainly include cleaning it up and making it playable. And then at some point this winter,
[01:17:46] Scott Belchak:
the city will drop off a front loader, and I'll go and I'll move that dirt. Yeah. Because because because there's there's times when when you go out there in the winter and in the spring and you play Hole 7, current Hole 7, of course, and, the entire fairway's wet. Oh oh, yes. So the the main plan for that before Old Hole 7 was,
[01:18:08] Colby Zimmerman:
the city has agreed, and we just need to we just need to get it scheduled. I need to I need to push them to get it scheduled, but they've agreed to dig a trench along that fence from about where Hole 9 comes out all the way down past the tee pad of Old Hole 7. And then the dirt so we'll dig that about five feet on our side of the fence, and then all the dirt that we dig out will be burned up on the fence side so that that water will will be forced to stay on the farmer's side. So so it only it so Hole 7 only becomes wet when the farmer floods his his land. I think I think there are times in the spring where where Utah Lake is higher and, and we get some water there. But it's but it's for it's for, like, maybe maybe a month max. And every other time like, it was there was six inches of water on it a couple weeks ago. There's there's no natural water in that area like that this time of year. So so, yeah, he water he doesn't he doesn't want his water coming on on the course either. Like, I I actually met him today.
He's apparently, he owns, like, a quarter of Lehigh, like, all all the land. He's he's he's he's an old guy, and he was like he was like, well, let's walk out and look at it, but I'm gonna I'm driving my side by side back there. I'm not walking.
[01:19:23] Sean Kelley:
I mean, is it is it is this a a solution where, like, a bridge or something could be put in? It'd be have to be huge. Well, it's So I'm just wondering, like The problem is the green becomes unplayable if it's flat. Okay. So it's not the tee pad necessarily.
[01:19:37] Colby Zimmerman:
No. No. It's it's the green and then the Fairway Of 7. Current seven. Also, like, up until you get to the green, when it's flooded, you're sloshing in water up until about halfway halfway through Circle 2. Like, 6 is just deep. Yeah. It's about two acres of of of land that just gets flooded by this guy. Mhmm. And it's and and, again, it's not intentional. He doesn't want it to happen, but he's he's gotta water his field and the water's moving. Let's plant some willows.
[01:20:01] Dustin Hanson:
He's got some right there. Phragmites back on his side of the land. Yeah. Let's just Instead of grass, suck up the water. Instead of grass, you should should, consider clover.
[01:20:09] Colby Zimmerman:
That's a that's a really good point. You don't have to mow it. Yes. Yeah. I actually I was looking up grasses for this, and that came up. But I didn't know how how long it would get. But actually, like, they they make micro clover also that, like, it stays six inches or lower. But six inches might be good for that green. You might you might want it you might want lawn darts on that green. Something grippy. Yeah. That that could be that could just be a completely interesting different new challenge, and maybe we wanna put it somewhere else too. I think I think clover is the way of, like, all this golf courses going forward. You don't have to maintain it. You don't have to water it. Yeah. Super low water consumption. Yeah. I I think every course should have it. That's what I think, but Interesting. I wonder if it grows there. That's that's the tricky part of the everywhere. Does it? Yeah. Dustin's passion about clover. It's growing it's growing in my grass right now, not far away. So Yeah. It's good for bees, man. Okay. Bees love clover.
[01:20:56] Scott Belchak:
That that that's interesting. So it sounds like you've thought of pretty much everything. It's all it all just comes down to sequencing and, making sure that the municipality is on your side, which it seems like they are. Mhmm. And and, meeting with them, it's obvious that they care Yep. Which is a which is a great thing. So, I think I think Dragonfly has, some of the brightest just one of the brightest futures of of courses that we that we have, because it's got everything. It's got municipal support. It's got water. It's got grass. There's more. So Oh, but wait. There's more. So the property is 40 acres.
[01:21:36] Colby Zimmerman:
We're only using about 20 of it because the farther back you go, the wetter it gets. It gets more and more swampy. You get close to the lake. That makes sense. Mhmm. However, again, other than that, you know, four to six weeks in the spring, it's all like, not all, but a lot of it is dry. And there was gonna be a big road going across back there. That's why we didn't go back any further. But I just barely found out. Were you there? Was it in that meeting with you, or was it was a different time? I found out that that road is either not going in or not going in for a long time. So
[01:22:11] Scott Belchak:
we have that area as well to talk about. You're talking about
[01:22:15] Colby Zimmerman:
South Of Of Hole 6. Behind the tee pad of Hole 3. And, yes, South Of Hole 6. Yeah. So, ideally, what would happen is you'd play Hole 2, and then you'd play a hole out out there, and then you'd play back. And then the course would kind of resume the same, flow. And then there's also a spot. If next time you play, when you're when you're playing hole six, when you get close to the green, look look straight south, look back, and you'll see, probably 400 feet away, there's a hill with a couple big trees on it. Okay.
[01:22:50] Scott Belchak:
Well and and a lot of phragmites over there.
[01:22:54] Colby Zimmerman:
I think there's one one, like, yes, those little sections right off the fairway, but there aren't very many beyond that. So so that's some that's something we can take care of. This is this is long term. Right? Long term pipe dream. But imagine a tee pad over there, and it's a par five to Old Hole Seven's basket through the double mando on on your probably your third shot. Sure. Yeah. Lots of stuff going on out there. Yeah. So that that that opens up a ton of possibilities.
[01:23:23] Sean Kelley:
Sounds like fun. Yeah. We'll
[01:23:26] Colby Zimmerman:
we'll see. Right?
[01:23:30] Sean Kelley:
I mean, that's the beauty of a disc golf course. It's forever changing. It is forever changing. You know? And If you care about it. Yeah. If you care about it. Like well, it's totally true. Like, I mean, mean, it's it's the only way it progresses is sooner or later, you have to keep updating, making making making slight changes to just improve the course, making it better. Some people might not agree about it. But Yeah. You're never gonna make everybody happy. You never you're never gonna make anybody happy, especially disc golfers. No matter what, it's gonna be one of those situations, like, some of the best players are gonna hate it, some of the best players are gonna love it. And it's it's all opinion based. Right? Majority of the time. So, again, it's just one of those, like, you know but I I think in general, like, it'd be it'd be great. Like, if if we just had courses where, like, sooner or later, like, you know, every every ten years or so, like, it just kinda got, like, a revamp where, like, alright. Sweet. Here's a whole new course. Yeah. Let's just fuck it up. Yeah. Let's switch it up.
Let's switch tee pads, turn them around. Scott's in charge with nuking it, taking all the trees out. We're just scorching earth, and here it is. River bottoms all over the place. No trees whatsoever.
[01:24:36] Scott Belchak:
Just out of bounds all over the place. Well, we got we got, like, six years left because I think it's four years old. Right?
[01:24:43] Colby Zimmerman:
Three years. Play. Yeah. Yeah. Four years. Almost exactly four years old. But it it's it's
[01:24:48] Sean Kelley:
it it it it's a testament to, like, Colby in general where it's like he's he didn't just build the course and then he's like, bap. See you later. Like, he's it's now, like, he's married to it. Like, he he's passionate about it. Like, it's one of those situations where he's constantly thinking about how can I make it better? How can I make it better? And it's going back to the volunteer, like, aspect of it. It's like it's it's one of those situations where it's him and another handful of people. It's the only person pulling people that are thinking about it. Yeah. Other people other people will give him opinions like, I hate that hole. I love this hole. I hate this hole. I love this hole. Well, you should do this. You should do that. But at the same point, him and, like, the the other four people he's mentioned are the only people who are gonna be doing it. Right. You know? So it's it's that it's the as much as he wants to, like, you know, make everyone happy, you you're not gonna make every disc golfer happy. But if you, like, it's just the idea that, like, it's it it should be. It's progressing. It's it's like any, like it's a business, but it's not a business, but you have to keep growing. Right. You have to keep expanding because if you if you just stay stagnant, it's just gonna, you know, flutter and go away.
[01:25:54] Scott Belchak:
But, I mean, it's a testament, and and thank you. Because like I said, Dragonfly is one of my favorite courses. Yeah. Yeah. We should we should go play it. So It's one of those situations, like I'd love to play it with you guys. Talk talk through the future plans, talk through where we're gonna put the gold pads, talk through where we're gonna put the red pads, or at least or at least do that ideas. I like to do that while not playing, by the way. Mhmm. I like I like to go out there and and focus on what I'm thinking about rather than than playing and think. Because I like to play, but I also like to work.
And I like to work, but I don't like to work while I'm playing. I don't like to play while I'm working. Don't shit where you That's funny. That's that's funny because,
[01:26:35] Colby Zimmerman:
obviously, doing it, executing it, that's that feels like work to me. But but planning it and thinking about it and strategizing around it, that's that's play to me. No. I gotta go out there and and and explicitly
[01:26:47] Nick Jennings:
just, like, be on the land and think about it without thinking about my next shot. I gotta go out there and just really think about it. K. So here's what we do. Fair enough. Because I'm I'm in your boat. I would rather play and, like, talk about it and, like, look at different things and maybe throw different shots through wherever, like, we're thinking about. Yeah. So what we do is the three of us should go out there and
[01:27:09] Sean Kelley:
or and all of us. Well well well Dustin, what are you doing that day? You wanna go do something else? Absolutely. I could throw it forehand. Hey. We'll go play the wonder. Alright?
[01:27:17] Sean Kelley:
I wanna play the wonder too. Okay. Okay. You're you're twisting a wonder. Stay here. Go play the wonder.
[01:27:23] Sean Kelley:
Well, what what I was saying though is Shawna needs to make a new course for me. We can play without these motherfuckers.
[01:27:30] Nick Jennings:
I was not trying to be exclusive here. I was just saying that I gotcha. I gotcha. That like, well, specifically preparing for USWDGC, because currently, I'm I'm slated to be the the TD for the Dragonfly Oh, awesome. Show. Awesome. And so it wasn't anything any slights against you guys. I promise. Yeah. Yeah. Except you guys aren't even on you guys aren't even on the committee. That's what I'm twisting my word. Part of the LOC.
[01:27:53] Sean Kelley:
You guys you guys aren't even invited. We'll play chase. You guys are missing the entire joke I was trying to say.
[01:27:58] Scott Belchak:
Maybe you should just start over.
[01:28:02] Colby Zimmerman:
The three of us. What I was saying, though, is that we could go play, and Scott
[01:28:07] Nick Jennings:
can come and caddy for all of us. And not all of us. Be be laden with all of our bags. And I was thinking the three of us because he can't carry more than, like, two bags. Like, he can have one on the front line. Come on. What? You call me a pussy? Cart. Cart. Cart. Front. Not very bad. Front back. Cart. Cart. There you go. That's four. There you go. So there we go. We can all go play, and it's not gonna be our bitch, our bag bitch. Nice. You know? I'm
[01:28:29] Colby Zimmerman:
but It sounds like it breaks Scott's rule though of of working. You know? Yeah. I gotta I gotta That's that's a completely different job. Yeah. Exactly. That's true. Exactly. I gotta focus. Shut up, bag bitch.
[01:28:43] Nick Jennings:
I I do have just kind of a couple of thoughts as we kinda wind down here. We've been talking a lot about change just in in our public spaces and change just kind of in general. It makes me think of, well, in my professional life, I've I've been a sales trainer for most of the last decade. And you have people come in, and they're like, oh, yeah. I'm the greatest thing to ever happen ever. And then they come they get on the phones and they absolutely suck, and they refuse to embrace the change. Right? And there's a a quote that I would always share with them, from Socrates that says, the secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.
And I think that if more people because I feel like you kind of embody that, based on the conversation we've had tonight, Colby. And if more people in the community could do that and then embrace not fighting what the old is gonna be, because quite frankly, the old is gonna go by the wayside eventually. No matter what way you slice it, what whatever happens, the old is always gonna go away. But instead of fighting that, if you focus all of that energy on building something new, think about how much better our public spaces would be.
[01:30:00] Dustin Hanson:
You know? Mhmm. Sounds like we need to get this, Socrates guy on the podcast.
[01:30:06] Sean Kelley:
I'll I'll I'll make a phone call. Okay.
[01:30:09] Dustin Hanson:
I feel like I gotta contact my medium. Over 40 or how old is he?
[01:30:13] Nick Jennings:
I think he'd be in the m p six hundred and eighty division. Damn.
[01:30:19] Colby Zimmerman:
Probably older than that, actually. I have no idea. Honest honestly, I'd probably kick his ass.
[01:30:26] Scott Belchak:
No. It's a great quote. Very, very inspiring on that. I I I think it's great.
[01:30:31] Sean Kelley:
Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. That's good. I mean, it's not everyone embraces change. It's hard to it's hard to accept change. But I think in general, like, it's there's always a positive that kinda comes out of it. You know? And sooner or later, like, all that all the negativity towards that change just kinda seems to, like, fade away. But yeah. But how much wasted energy is wasted on that negativity? You know what? Sure. You know what? I'll I'll share about Cracker Barrel right now, dude. They hate their new logo. They already went back.
[01:31:01] Dustin Hanson:
They already went back. Yeah. Universal.
[01:31:04] Sean Kelley:
But I'll get a wider name for for a restaurant. But no. Those are the those are the little things that and it's tough it's tough to be the face of change, like, where Yeah. Hey, man. If you don't like this change, like, I'm gonna go to you or for any of the other curves, I'm going I'm going to Scott or who wherever you're going because those are the people who are in charge of that change. You know what? I'll I'll I'll share this anecdote about change. And and it's it's about the it's about the wonder, and it's about the new whole one. Because I went up there, and the
[01:31:41] Scott Belchak:
with the current hole one being hole one? Because right now, it's new hole one is, with the current hole one being hole one? Because right now, it's new hole one is is over there, and you finish on current hole one being 18, then you walk back to your car. And, our our great friend Chip up there caught wind that I had changed my mind about new hole 1 and that I had reverted back to hole current hole one being hole one and then walking to new hole one. And he reached out to me and said, man, it's a mistake, bro. Chip's passionate about that. It's a mistake, bro. You can't do that. Like, I've I gotta I I feel like I gotta bring this up, but it's the wrong move, man.
Like, the new whole one is is a bold statement, and you gotta you gotta do it. Change is good. I think it's great. And, you know, like, he's he's one of the ones that, as a local up there, and you change things around, like, you think you have a whole new hole one, a whole new starting hole. You know? Like, in my mind, it's like, okay. The local crew is the ones that are gonna be most upset about this. Like, oh, you changed you moved my cheese. Right? But he reached out and was just like, it's the wrong move, man. You know? And and and that solidified in my mind exactly what what what what Nick was saying, where, you know, if if you take the energy from resisting change and take that energy into into making the change like Chip did, you will Have a hole named after you. You'll have a hole named after you. So we're naming that we're naming that hole Chip's conviction.
Nice. Sorry, Chip. Sorry, Chip. He doesn't want it, but it's it's happening. And you know what? The only reason it it's really gonna happen is because he said, no. Don't do that. I don't want it named after me. Sorry, Chip.
[01:33:34] Sean Kelley:
He slides under the radar.
[01:33:36] Scott Belchak:
Yeah. Should should we do Dragonfly a favorite hole? We should. We should. Colby as a guest, you wanna kick us off? It's gotta be Hole 2. Right? Maybe.
[01:33:45] Colby Zimmerman:
Yeah. I mean, Hole Hole 2 is my baby. That that's my favorite hole in terms of, in terms of how it plays. Like like, as as a as as somebody who's helped design the course and as a tournament director, I like Hole 2 for the separation, for the difficulty, for the fairness. Right out of the gate too. Yeah. For for the fact that if you get up there and you hit do anything other than your intended shot, you're you're screwed. Mhmm. But if you hit your intended shot, you feel like a million bucks. And you're a king. And and and guess what? It's fair. Like, it's there for you. The hallway's there. And then once you hit that shot, your second shot's a little easier. It's not easy to get to to get in the circle or get parked, but it's easier. Like, you you've got you've got more options. So I get for that reason. My favorite hole to throw is hole 18 or hole 1 in the XL position.
[01:34:38] Nick Jennings:
Mhmm. Is hole one in the XL position, is that thirteen's basket? No. Hole one in the XL position is,
[01:34:44] Sean Kelley:
a turf tee pad up on the hill back behind it as a par four. Yeah. You throw Oh. You gotta throw all around in through, like, the gap of the trees. Yeah.
[01:34:54] Nick Jennings:
Mhmm. So, like, there's that little there's that, obviously. And then there's, like, that little gap at the fence. It's to the right of that up on the hill there. Yeah. Yeah. When it's not covered in weeds, you can actually tell that it looks really nice. Yeah.
[01:35:06] Colby Zimmerman:
But it's never not covered in weeds.
[01:35:09] Scott Belchak:
Yeah. That's fair. I think I think my favorite hole is is is 18. I'm a sucker for awesome par fours, and 18 is one of the best par fours we have in the state of Utah, I think. It's just it's just perfect. You just get this bomber off the tee that you want. You wanna finish long and left, and your upshot's tricky. You know, I'd love to see some OB back there. I'd love to see some some OB separating 16. 15. 15. Fifteen's
[01:35:38] Dustin Hanson:
like, I'd love to see some some OB long on that. Like a weird backdoor spot there. If you,
[01:35:43] Scott Belchak:
yeah, go out. I'd I'd I'd I'd love to see OB all along by Hole 17. Like, I'd love to see that. I think that that would make it feel really strong. But I I I would also say that I would love to see that berm gone, just gone, because right now, it's it's really it's really awkward because you'll throw you'll throw a shot out of bounds, and then you're double penalized because you have to take your your next lie on, like, the side of a of that berm.
[01:36:13] Colby Zimmerman:
So, like Yeah. It should be common knowledge you get, like
[01:36:16] Scott Belchak:
if you go OB, you get five meters off that fence. Yeah. Well, or just put some OB line right right along the berm for now. And and Yeah. And there's a tournament coming up, out there. Oh, and shout out to Jeff Jeffrey Kronch. Kronch? Conch? Kronch? Kronch. Kronch. Jeffrey Kronch for running his first his first event out there. That's that's exciting. He's part of the he's part of the PDGA TD training program. So he's learning how to be a TD straight from Scott Withers of the PDGA. He's teaching him everything he needs to do. Is that what Scott Withers do now? Yep. Yep. He's he's an employee of the PDGA. That's cool. Yep. Yeah.
I know that. So, play his play his event. It's the only it's the only action in town that weekend, and it's the only tournament at Dragonfly this year, essentially. Wow. My bad. So make sure you make sure you register for Geoffrey Crotch's tournament.
[01:37:08] Colby Zimmerman:
When is that?
[01:37:09] Scott Belchak:
I think it's when is it? It's it's I don't remember exactly. It's it's October. I mean, it's not far away. We don't have a lot of season left. Yeah. It's it's it's early October. It'll be a good time. You know what? I will stand on the fact that that some of the best tournaments you'll ever go play is a rookie's
[01:37:29] Sean Kelley:
first tournament. Oh, there's a work day at the river Bottoms that day.
[01:37:34] Scott Belchak:
So it is. That guy just hosted his first turn. Draper open it. It was fantastic. It was great. You know? Because they because it's it's the same reason why why why the band's debut album is the best. Because they're coming from nothing, they're putting their heart and soul in it, and then their sophomore album sucks. Yep. So
[01:37:52] Sean Kelley:
go go go to his tournament because it's gonna be a great time because he's gonna try really hard. Jeff, we don't think your second tournament's gonna suck, though. It might. It might. But your first term is not gonna suck because you're gonna try really hard. We believe in you. Sean, what's your favorite hole? Well, I'd like to say one is is, it's not my favorite hole, but hole two just because you brought it up when you we were speaking earlier. It was because Hole 2 forever was like my I hated that hole. Your nemesis. But then I learned how to tame it where you were talking where it's like, yeah. Shoot your 150 shot up and then shoot your long three fifty, like, up there. And once I learned how to play that hole, that became, like, one of my favorite holes. Okay. So So once you became a bitch No. Once you learn how to play it. But it was funny when he said it, I was just like, it's exactly how I learned how to play that hole.
I was like, because I used to just try to bomb it up there. That's what I do. I would just go and crash crash, like, in trees, and then I was just like, light. Like, take it take it off, get it up into position, and then play up in the thing. But so I will say that I'll do. But I hate honestly, I think 17 I like 17 just because it's a beautiful hole. I love the green. I love shooting out of those trees, shoot shooting up into it. I think it's just like a it's it's not the hardest hole. It's not the easiest hole, but it's it's just one of those, like, just beautiful holes shooting up into that green. I like I like like 17. You know what 17 needs is a Sean Kelly boardwalk from the basket, like, around to the Sure. Tee pad I mean in the swamp. That's what I'm saying. Sometimes it's it's muddy walking back to the to the tee box. It needs like a a a 300 foot boardwalk. Another
[01:39:31] Scott Belchak:
gear? It needs a it does. It needs a boardwalk through the swamp.
[01:39:35] Sean Kelley:
But I like I I do like I I I like 17. I I love I love the green of 17.
[01:39:41] Colby Zimmerman:
I just like What's short or long or both? Long.
[01:39:44] Sean Kelley:
Oh, where it is now? Yeah. It's in the long position now. It's so much fun. It's so much fun. I I I like I like 17. It completely changes that hole. Yeah. For me, it's a forehand in the short position. It's a backhand flip up in the long position. That's what I Yeah. I just think it's Yeah. Me shooting out of the shooting out of the trees,
[01:39:59] Colby Zimmerman:
and you getting up there. Yeah. That's what I It feels it feels like you're in a tunnel, but it doesn't also feel that tight. Exactly. What about you, Dusty?
[01:40:06] Dustin Hanson:
Six. I'm a predominant four hand player. And, hitting that gap and just being able to punch one through, I've parked it a few times, taken, like, a distance driver and let it flip up and drag all the way there. On on your drive? Yeah. It was kinda cool, especially a tournament play to get one there and be like, alright. I got a 50 footer. Is that is that still in play with how tall the trees are outside the gap? Currently, I don't know. It it's been a minute since I've been there. I bet. I I would be it's probably there, but it's probably the size of a mail slot. Like, it's it's small. Yeah. It's small. You gotta gotta get it over. Well, first, you gotta get through the gap. Like, you know And I say field goal, but it's it's like a seven foot wide gap. It's a VCR slot is what I like. It is. And then you gotta get it over the next set of trees and under the set of trees that, you know, made the initial gap. Mhmm. And so it's really small. If you get it just right, yeah, you can you can get it there. You gotta get lucky. That's awesome. And so doing that once, I was like, cool. I got a 50 footer that I can make bar from. So Yeah. I shoot it once with the back hand. It was it felt amazing. Yeah. No. That's a good feeling to get that shot. Oh, yeah. It was awesome. Forehand or backhand. It doesn't matter. Yeah. It's amazing. Nick?
[01:41:13] Nick Jennings:
Probably 13. No. I'm just kidding.
[01:41:17] Scott Belchak:
Too soon. Too soon. Too soon.
[01:41:21] Nick Jennings:
No. I I probably have to say my favorite hole is Hole 8 in the long position.
[01:41:27] Colby Zimmerman:
The left. The yeah. The left position. The right the right position shouldn't be a thing. That was that was meant to be for Hole 10. It's too close. Yeah. It's too close.
[01:41:35] Nick Jennings:
But that that shot, it's that again, it's like a six or seven and maybe eight foot wide gap off the tee for about 50 or 60 feet. You know? Like, it's pretty sporadic. Like, there's trees up there. And then it's blind all the way up and to the left. Yeah. And it's one of those it's one of those holes that when you when you actually, like, get it there within twenty, twenty five feet, you're like, fuck. Yeah. I just did that. You know? Yep. No. That's one of my most feared holes on the course when I'm having a good round. When get to eight, I'm like, this will this will tell a lot for the rest of the round. It's nine for me. It's 12. Like that little tiny gap. Well, there's, like, three or four in a row there. So there's a lot of them. Yeah. 12 too. Yeah. 12 Sitting there waiting for you. I haven't tamed 12 yet. That that's that's a tough one. But That's nice.
Yeah. It is looking so good right now at Dragonfly.
[01:42:27] Colby Zimmerman:
Thank thanks everybody who's who's putting in that work. Seriously, though. Just rocking it. Yeah, Sean. We should go play. You should you should try that out.
[01:42:35] Scott Belchak:
Sean's too busy working.
[01:42:37] Sean Kelley:
Although He can't play. I have to We do have a funny story about Dragonfly. We do? About the bench we brought out to Oh, we do. We do.
[01:42:46] Scott Belchak:
We do. Yeah. I went I went He brings up brings up Bob. Yeah. I went up again. I I went and Bob Bob Bumgardner, the guy who's basically responsible for the Tetons and the arena, contacted me because he works up at the u and said and said, hey. I've got I've there's this awesome bench here at at at the University of Utah surplus store. Yeah. So I went I I went and this is this is the the the the bench that's on Current Hope. It's 99. Right? It's on 9. 9. Yeah. It's on 9. 9. The the only bench on the property. Mhmm. And so I went and bought that thing for the nonprofit went and bought that thing for $10. $10. And and we loaded it in Sean's in Sean's van.
And, we drove we drove it out there during a during Nice. Yeah. We drove it out there during, a workday because we're just like, hey. We got an awesome bench. Let's put it somewhere. And we took it to, like, eight holes. And We carried that bench all over that course. Carried it all over the place. It was the heaviest ungodly bench ever. And and and every every time we we thought we had a good place for it, we got told we got told, no. You can't put it there because the gold pad's gonna be right. The gold like, the gold pad's gonna be over there. So you can't you can't put that there because because the gold pad. Yeah. It's like, well, what gold pad? There's no gold pad. Let's just put a bench. Like, we're just gonna put a bench here. Right? So we could just, like, put it if we would just put it here, then there's there's a bench here. Oh, no. We can't put it there. There's a there's a gold pad there. So we just went, like, all over the property for this thing and eventually found a bench there because there's no gold pad. I was like, okay. Thank you. So we we just carried this bench all over this course.
What day? Finally finally got the bench there, but,
[01:44:31] Sean Kelley:
that bench will go down in history as the best $10 ever spent. Best $10. It's a big stretch. You're just so glad to see a bench when you get there. Oh. You're so glad. It's a good spot. It's such a perfect spot with trees. It's whole night. It's like, alright. Halfway through your round, you could sit down, take a break. Yeah. It's a good spot. You can contact the existence as you're about to throw down the gap, you know, and all the choices. It was a workday. We ended up when we settled on whole nine, me and Scott just, like, sat on the bench.
[01:45:00] Scott Belchak:
That was our thing. That was our whole work. We were just working, and we're just like, yep. This is all we're doing. We just carried this bench all over this course. Yep. We're not doing anything else. Yep. I mean, we had a giant impact that day. You know? We made butts happy. Yeah. For the next years or years, we made butts happy. Wooden wheels out of the way. We're like, yeah. Put it right there. Let's put your bag there. Sit right here. It was great. It was great. Yeah. So Yeah. Yep. So when you when you when you sit on that bench or when you put your bag on that bench on on Hole 9, just remember that that you can sign up for leagues, and we take we'll we'll take your $10, and we'll buy benches. Yeah. Elevate Utah. Making butts happy since 2022.
Here we go. That's right. See? And benches are for butts, not for bags. That's right. Yeah. You know? Like like, we could have a whole podcast just about about that. Like, if you're playing with a four top and you put your bag on a bench, you you just go to hell already. Already, you know? Seriously. Cardinal's like You should just be able to dump that bag. No. You just knock it off the bench. Well, you know what Sean's doing up at the wonder is he's building benches for bags is what he's doing. He's building benches for butts, but then in addition to benches for butts, he's building benches for bags. Every like, bags lives matter. So he's gonna put he's he's he's he's gonna put We need you need to make shirts now. You can't just say it. It's gotta be a black shirt, white text. You can just buy them. It just says BLM anyway. It doesn't matter. Yeah. Exactly. They yeah. So he's got he's got he's got he's got benches for bags, and he's positioning them in a spot where you can put them up and you can rummage through them at eye level. That's
[01:46:43] Colby Zimmerman:
that's awesome. Yeah. I love that.
[01:46:46] Nick Jennings:
It looks so good. Come you put them up.
[01:46:48] Sean Kelley:
The bags the bags sit at, like, 42 inches high. Put it down there. Your disc your discs are working high right in front of you. Jesus Christ.
[01:46:57] Scott Belchak:
Fucking old armor. See? But you know what, though? If if if if our poor man place 20 year olds on building courses. Alright? So the 40 year old's gonna take care of it.
[01:47:07] Colby Zimmerman:
That's true. We we said calm down. We appreciate we appreciate you. You're doing great work. You are. Keep it up. I'm just saying. Keep it up. No. You're the right person to build a course because you have experience on the blue pads and the gold pads, and now you're experiencing the red pads. Yeah. It's perfect. Yeah. Red pads.
[01:47:26] Nick Jennings:
Yeah. With his one found full wait
[01:47:29] Sean Kelley:
list. Which which which he he didn't even keep because he because he gave it back to distracted. Honestly. This is a return disk. I aced with it. I aced with it. We all signed it, and then I just was like, here you go. You can take this back. That's a pretty overstable disc too. You know? It's not like one that you're used to. First of all, we're gonna have to have a whole podcast about that because the one disc he found so we were playing I have a what was it? It was a destroyer. It was like a Barely newer. No. It was, I feel like I need to defend myself on the on the lightweight disc. So I had a I had a lightweight disc, and it was one of those things that I I chucked. And I was playing around with Scott, and I was just like, yeah. You can pick that up, whatever. And he picks it up. For some reason, he just, like, turns it over, and he's just like, what was it? Like, one? I I turned it over. I turned it over because it felt like a freaking feather. It was sounds like but it was just like a lightweight dish. It's like $1.37.
All he does was not a one thirty seven. I will defend that to the line. But he turns it over. He's like, ah, this is, what is this? And so at every every single point that I pull out a disc, he's like, ah, what is that? Like, a one fifteen? So I just keep getting shit about a lightweight disc, which is great. I accept it. It's fine. It's a it's a it's a lifelong choice I want to live with. They fly far. They fly far. Distance. Discraft. I'm 47. Alright? I need all the help I can get at distance. I ain't gonna lie to you.
[01:49:00] Dustin Hanson:
I'm not gonna criticize you. Flying disc is a one fifty five model. That's what I'm saying. Alright?
[01:49:08] Scott Belchak:
Oh, that got off the rails quick. This whole last ten minutes might just be a Patreon
[01:49:12] Dustin Hanson:
subscriber special. It's not bad. We're fighting a shot.
[01:49:18] Nick Jennings:
Well, again, Colby, thank you very much for all of your hard work at Dragonfly and kinda spearheading things Yeah. Good transition. And taking it into your own hands, and making something happen out there. It's a great property, and it's It's a beautiful, man. Scott's point, it's got so much upside
[01:49:33] Colby Zimmerman:
Yeah. As well. Absolutely. And and, again, I'd be remiss without thanking everybody who who also helped. You know? Curtis Curtis gave a year and a half of his life to that course. So
[01:49:44] Scott Belchak:
I mean The the the hardest year and a half because everyone was criticizing him every step of the way. You know? Like, woah. Why are you putting a disc golf course in Russian olive filled filled land? This sucks. Well yeah. And and at that time, everything was changing all the time, you know, know, like we're talking about. So but, anyway, I I digress.
[01:50:00] Colby Zimmerman:
I I huge appreciation to everybody everybody who's who's helped and and Sean Bagley. Ton of work. Sean Bagley's put in a ton of work. A a a bunch of people have a list too long to name names. So so huge appreciation to everybody who's helped and and the community for coming out to several volunteer days.
[01:50:17] Nick Jennings:
Yeah. And you can play in one of the Elevate Utah leagues down there. Yeah. It's ending this week, and then I'm sure we'll start
[01:50:25] Sean Kelley:
another one. Yeah. Probably be probably be be
[01:50:27] Scott Belchak:
unicorns and rainbows. I don't know. I just I just scheduled one up at the observatory that's all about, spaghetti monsters from outer space who want to come and, destroy all the disc golf courses and replace them with meatball
[01:50:39] Sean Kelley:
ball golf courses. Nice. So thanks, Chad, GPT. What you doing today, dude? Spare time. Alright. It's not spare time.
[01:50:47] Scott Belchak:
This is what I do.
[01:50:49] Sean Kelley:
This is my life. Shut up. He's working.
[01:50:51] Dustin Hanson:
He's working. Working.
[01:50:56] Nick Jennings:
Okay. Well, I think that'll wrap us up here for this episode of the Elevate Utah Disc Golf Podcast. Thanks as always for joining us, and we'll see you out there. Cheers.
Welcome into the Elevate Utah Disc Golf Podcast. I'm your host, Nick Jennings, joined by Dustin. Sean. And Scott. And we have a really kind of fun show for you guys today. But before we get into that, I understand there's some bell talk that we need that needs to happen. Yeah. Welcome to Elevate Utah Disc Golf podcast where we talk about bells. Fun facts about bells.
[00:00:48] Scott Belchak:
You know, it's funny because because, I was actually just reminded about this conversation, when we just had Rob on when he started talking about the bells, you know, the the bell the bell trophy. Yeah. The ropes. Uh-huh. And it it reminded me of this conversation that you and I had about about all the research that that that you have done on bells On bells. Because of disc golf. Yeah. So
[00:01:11] Sean Kelley:
first off, let's just backtrack a second because, we're so we're adding some some bells onto the Wonder Course because a few of the new holes cross some hiking trails that are already, like, in place, on the property. So me and Scott are walking around, and there's there's two little spots we're gonna have bells playing. So hikers that are coming through can ring a bell to let people know on the tee pad that, you know, hikers are walking through, so please don't throw. So I've been we've been talking about putting bells onto this course for, what, about three, four months or so? It's more than that. It's gotta be more than that. But, like, we were just trying to come up
[00:01:53] Sean Kelley:
with a solution. We came up with the idea of, like, these bells. So I started
[00:01:56] Sean Kelley:
just kinda like I figured this was like, no problem. I'll just go buy two bells. We'll put them up there. And
[00:02:03] Scott Belchak:
then little lo and behold, I get into the world of bells. A a bell rabbit hole. Bell rabbit hole. Just a super weird Google search history. Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, so And and while he's thinking about this, will you will you please because you have your phone out. Will you please look up what the technical term is for the thing that is inside the bell that makes the thing The the bell u vial at. Yeah. Exactly. We we looked that up last year. Call it a u vial. Yeah. I that's what I said.
[00:02:27] Sean Kelley:
So I started doing I started just going into, like, you know, trying to find a a couple bells that will will work for the course. Because on on Hole 1, there's gonna be one on hole 1, and there's gonna be one on new hole 4. And so I I basically just started I started going down this rabbit hole of bells. And and a lot of the times, I've just been doing my research online in bed, and then I'd be getting frustrated. And then I'm learning about, oh, there's aluminum bells. There's brass bells. There's cast iron bells. And, frankly, it was just like everything advertised online, you're like, that's a perfect bell. And then you, like, you go into a review about it and this and that. People come up, and they're just like, oh, this this bell's tiny. It's not doing anything.
And then it comes down to what the what do we call it? The uvula?
[00:03:15] Dustin Hanson:
Whatever whatever It's called a clapper. A clapper? A clapper pin. A clapper pin.
[00:03:20] Sean Kelley:
And then it and then it goes into play with what's that what that is made of? To actually get, like, a loud a loud, like, bell rings. Yeah. You need a lead clapper. Yeah. So I ended up, like, at one point, I was because I was, like, searching online probably. So I was I thought this was gonna be an easy one to purchase. See you later. Done with that project. Did you find any good, like, YouTubers
[00:03:41] Scott Belchak:
or, like Dude, I in-depth, like, like, the bell reviewers? I had to find reviews,
[00:03:47] Sean Kelley:
which actually had a video of them ringing the bell because that's where and then finally, like, I started I literally researched, like, stores in Downtown Salt Lake out in Hever. Like, I had to go to I had to go to, like, farm and feed stores. I went to there's there's a there's a place over on Highland that sells, like they literally all they do is sell bird feeders and, like, wind chimes, birds and bells. And they sell a bunch of bells. And so me and me and my wife go in there, and I'm just in the corner ringing bells.
And, like, the guy comes over. He's like, oh, can I help you? Yeah. Can I help you? And I'm like, oh, well, my pretty funny story we're building a disc golf course and I need a loud bell and all these bells are like just just the circumference of the bottom of the bell like everything's like four or five or six inches other than that you jump to like fourteen sixty like Liberty. Gigantic Liberty Bell. So so did he just be like come in the back room? Well, so he was he had he had a similar version of the bell that I was looking at because I was like, from what I've through my research, all the like, because all these were, like, little bells or, like, they're, like, little bells, like, a lot of farmhouses have. You just ring if that's their doorbell.
And it was you know, the reviews of aluminum bells are shit. Which would probably work. Don't go near aluminum bells. They're all the show that that they don't ring. They don't do anything. Brass bells are good, but there's, like, it's a whole idea of, like, it's a delicate sound you're looking for. You know, you see them in, like, Christmas orchestras, like the all that type of thing. But, again, I'm just like, I need a loud bell. Yeah. This is a 140 foot hole. So we need we need a really loud bell. Really loud bell. For a 140 feet. And so I ended up, I went to this farm and feed store, and they have, like, a version of the bell. It's a giant cast iron bell, and they call it, like, a it was a it was either the farmhouse or, like, a, like, a schoolyard bell. And but the thing is is you don't you don't hit the clapper.
It basically comes with an arm on the side, so it hangs on these these two arms. So you end up pulling it so that you you swing the bell into the clapper. I see. So so the clapper's inside. Right? The clapper's inside. And the bell swings. There's an arm that comes off the bell, and you end up pulling pulling on a string. It's like, blah blah blah blah blah. It's it's a it's a giant train bell. Yeah. But is is that what you got? Yeah. So I'm in the store and I was just like, I'm like, it's a 140 foot hole. But, like, we would probably would've been fine with it. Like, you know, look at me. No. No. You would not. You absolutely would not. Because with the I mean, I I've been there every day for the last, like, two and a half months. And it's one of those situations where, like, that the the road that goes up the pass, there's there's motorcycles, there's truck. Everyone is just in low gear. History. They're pumping it at the bottom to go up. And then everyone coming down the hill is the same thing. So and and Hole 1 is right next to that that road.
And it's it's a good distance, and so I'm just like, I need a loud bell. I I and so I ended up having this guy unbox this this bell. Yeah. Take it out of the box. I gotta I gotta need a I I'm honestly, I I need to hear it ring. And so he ends up, like, face it. And and but it is. It's so it comes with this, like, big you know, it looks like a horseshoe, and then the bell sits on top of it. And it's got these two swinging arms, and he had to, like, assemble it put it together. And so he's he's holding this thing up, and the thing's heavy. It's a heavy, like, cast iron. It's a big bell. And so he's holding it from, like, the part that actually gets bolted into a stand of some sort. And so he's up there, and I just I just grabbed a little knob, and I'm just like, clang clang clang clang, like, in this bar and feed store. And I'm doing it right in front of this guy's face because he's just holding it. And I'm just like, that's the bell right there. That's the bell. Okay. That's it. I just need one more time. Was It It was what? He's just like, what? And so, again, I had to explain to him, and I'm like, hey. Listen. I'm like, we're we're, you know, we're building this this this disc golf course, and there's a a hiker's path that comes comes through the middle of the hole.
And I just need where the hikers hit, we're gonna have a sign, and it says, like, hikers, like, you know, caution, flying disc. Ring bell for good luck. Please ring bell so, like, if anyone's teeing off from the t box, like, they hear you and they will pause throwing so that you can walk through. Yeah. We'll just say ring bell or say die. Ring bell if you hate Trump. But and so he was he was kinda confused because I don't think he really knew what disc golf was. And so it was basically just like, I just need an alarm to, like, do this whole thing. And then I started going into, like, the whole idea of because it's on the the disc golf course is on a current campsite, and we deal with, like it's funny because we leave on Friday, and we'll have, like, little piles of stuff, like, sitting around. We kinda leave things for the weekend or whatever, and we'll come back. And then campers and kids that just run through there, they just ransack everything we're doing. Like, everything we're, like, we're working on, all of our stuff is pushed off to the side. There's now a playground full of them, this whole thing. And so I've been now trying to think of, like, how can I childproof A bell is a list? Because these bells just randomly on paths where these kids just run around the whole time. It's just gonna be like, bling. It's gonna be a cacophony. So I have so I basically I have it now where I'm staging where I'm putting it up high where the the actual I guess, I have this rope, and then I'm gonna put these, like, wooden, like, wooden handles on it to, like, ring the bell.
But I'm like, I need a height to put these things up because these kids are just gonna be people are gonna be ready to tee off on Hole 1, and it's just for thirty minutes, it's just gonna be this bell ringing and, like, at least, the hikers coming and they were walking by. But,
[00:09:31] Scott Belchak:
I wonder we should have an over under on on how many days this bell is up before the state park is just like, yeah. No. But it's not even that. Like, it's the different styles of bells.
[00:09:40] Sean Kelley:
So we had talked about, like, there's those old, like, they kinda look like old cylinders, you know, the very phallic shape where you actually have the stick that you hit, and it looks almost like a similar to a gong. There's, ones you could take off, but it We need a two for two. Need to be a permanent situation where it's just a bell. We're not gonna lose a stick. We're not gonna lose anything, like, where it becomes obsolete. So it was. It was for the past two and a half months. There's a few nights of me just losing sleep because of that. I'm just like, I'm not gonna be able to find a correct bell that's gonna be able to or I'm gonna have, like, a a little bell tied to a string that people just have to, like, dangle the, you know, to to just get the attention of disc golfers to, like, hey, please don't throw. We're gonna we're finishing our hike, and we just wanna get back to our car.
Yeah. Don't throw. Don't throw. Please don't throw. Please don't throw. But, yeah, like, the just the materials that bells are made of, the acoustics of, the materials that actually make a bell sound the way it does, which for the most part, I do think the cast iron is the way to go. If you want if you want a loud bell, cast iron is the way to go. You're like a bell spurt. Oh, it it it's ridiculous. But, I mean, so many times I'd just be sitting in bed. Becky's on her phone or we're just watching TV, and next thing you know, it's just like, clang a wigg a wigg a wigg a wigg a wigg a wigg a wigg a wigg a wigg a. What are you doing? Watching bellies, like I'm just I'm searching off YouTube videos. We're like I just need to I just need to know, like, the sign of a bell, and then I need to find it and write it down just because I'm like because it is. There's a whole jump. There's no such thing as, like, a nine inch, 10 inch, 11 inch, or a 12 inch bell. It literally jumps from, like, eight inch to, like, 14 inches and bigger. And I'm just like, I just I just want a 10 inch bell. I just need a small bell. There's there's a whole there's a whole market here for you to start your own bell business to sell 10 inch bells. Yes. Eight, nine, and 10 inch bell. It's eight to 12 inch bells is what I need. Yeah. And that's what I because I was like, no. That was gonna be too big. So I ended up going off with the smallest of the cast iron, which is a 14 inch diameter bottom bell. I mean, these things are big. It's like it's like the whole contraption is about, like, 20 inches by 20 inches. So people are not not gonna see these things. But it is, yeah, it's been an interesting the many things I ever have to research for different projects, bells have been one of the more interesting. Just going to places and being like, I need to ring that. And they're like, who is this autistic kid in here who needs to, like, ring my bell? Yeah. They're like, what the hell is going on? But I will see. I apologize.
I believe his name was Dave. I'm I'm gonna I'm not gonna remember the name of his store, but he was a very nice guy. He he kinda told me where to go for, like, a few of the old bells, and he's like, you should check out, like, farming stores and farm and feed places. Like, they have these big bells out there to, like, call in cows and all this other stuff. So, but, yeah, I spent about a good, like, thirty minutes in the corner of the store ringing bells. And, he was patient with me, and he didn't really give me any grief. He just kinda walked over casually and asked me what I was doing, if I just wasn't being a jerk ringing every single bell that he had at at his store.
But, no. He led me in the right direction, and, I think the bells that we we got are, hopefully, like I said, it's gotta be it'll be a great little, you know, you had a good shot. You got a good birdie off with new hole one, which is gonna be a bomber down at the wonder. So I know there'll be a probably a lot of players who'll ring that bell Absolutely. After a good shot. I mean, if you get a birdie, ring the bell. Right? Yeah. Same thing after four. It's gonna be the same thing because four is gonna be a a nice little touchy, like, short hole where, it'll be a blind shot that basically, like, a lot people will probably end up, you know, acing for the most part. And it's, it's one of those situations where, like, as you walk out of that, it's gonna be a nice little bell feeder ring, ku clang.
[00:13:30] Nick Jennings:
So yeah, man. I just have to say, my favorite part about Sean talking about his bells is the fact that it's kinda like the song What Does the Fox Say,
[00:13:41] Dustin Hanson:
where every time he just cries,
[00:13:43] Nick Jennings:
the way the bell sounds, it's something completely different. It's true. It's I mean, we're up there on Friday with you, and, like, you were talking about the bells, like, three or four different times throughout our, like, the walk through. And every single time was a different sound than the bell.
[00:13:58] Scott Belchak:
So I'm I'm not sure what to expect. It, like, feel like the actual bell. Well, you'll find out. You'll find out soon enough. And and before we move on from this, I'm I'm very curious what the state park is gonna think about it because Oh, sure. Because we took a peaceful place and we and we're adding 14 inch bells to it. And again, it's not I don't believe the atrocity will come from disc golfers. It will be coming from From the public. From the little kids that run rampant around that campground,
[00:14:22] Sean Kelley:
and they will they will be ringing once they find those two things, they'll be ringing the hell out of them. Well, there is there is one course that that that doesn't require bells,
[00:14:31] Scott Belchak:
because it's in swampland,
[00:14:33] Nick Jennings:
that not a lot of of people play, and that's dragonfly. Yes. And that brings us to our guest for the evening. We have Colby is it Colby Zimmerman? Yes, sir. Awesome. Glad to have you on, Colby. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?
[00:14:45] Colby Zimmerman:
Oh, man. What is what is there to tell? I'm a COVID disc golfer. I picked it up during COVID when there was nothing else to do. I already had a few discs because I had been for work, like, two years before that. And so I just started messing around. I remember I bought a whole bunch of discs, used discs from Playdian Sports. I bought, like, 25 discs from a guy who was selling them for, like, $3 a piece just like his old bag, and they were all super understable discs. And and, I had a few friends who liked to do it, and I was way more athletic than them, but they were so much better than me, and it made me so angry. Oh, I'm sure. So Is it made the crotch? You you look like freaking Superman.
[00:15:24] Scott Belchak:
I wish.
[00:15:25] Colby Zimmerman:
Maybe maybe current Superman. Superman in his current state.
[00:15:29] Sean Kelley:
What does that mean?
[00:15:31] Scott Belchak:
Like, Chris Christopher Reeves.
[00:15:34] Sean Kelley:
Yes. His current state.
[00:15:36] Colby Zimmerman:
Yes. Okay. That that's what that means. It's it's not a a joke. But here we are. I'm that might not be the last one.
[00:15:44] Scott Belchak:
We are not a tasteful podcast. Well, I mean, you tune in tune in to our last episode. There was a lot of of tasteless moments. I did a lot of talking.
[00:15:53] Colby Zimmerman:
Yeah. So I just Correlation or causation? Yeah. A little bit. A little bit of both. Yep. Mhmm. Yeah. I I just had to get better so I could beat those idiots. And, somebody, like, a couple months in, one of them was like, why don't you ever throw forehand? I was like, what's that? And he showed me, and I and I tried it. And I I'm a baseball player. So Okay. Took me, like, took me, like, I don't know, three tries to get one that didn't come out and turn into a roller, and it went, like, 420 feet. And they're like, you should do that. Yep. So that's what I did for a long time. And I'm still I'm still paying the price for that, honestly, because my backhand is not great. You know, it's it's getting better. It's getting a lot better as my shoulder gets more sore from throwing forehands in my old age. Yeah. Well, so you're almost master's age. Right? Yep. Like, next next year? Twenty twenty seven. 2027, you enter the ranks of of masters player. Alright. We're getting closer to when we graduate from that. So it's gonna be good.
[00:16:48] Scott Belchak:
And then then you'll be able to get beaten by, like, old men. Yeah. Well, I already do. And that'll be Old men, little kids, you name it. That'll be fun. I I can always tell I can always tell when you're on the course because I can hear you from, like, all the way across the property. In fact, we were out playing the arena the other day. Was it I don't remember who I was playing with, but, I could tell that you were on the course somewhere because the arena is, like, this natural It's an amphitheater. Yeah. And you were probably just having a normal conversation, but I could hear you all the way across the course. But, yeah. It's it's great to have you on the podcast. Today, we're we're we're talking about Dragonfly, which which, which when when you guys started working on it, I I was like I was like, like, what's his name in Arrested Development with his with his son's daughter or with his daughter's his son's girlfriend, Anne Anne. Where he's just like, her? I've never met her.
[00:17:41] Dustin Hanson:
Her?
[00:17:42] Scott Belchak:
Because I because I was thinking about about how how much of a mess that was when it got started. In fact, when I saw the the the plans drawn and I saw Hole 2 where it was, and I had walked through where Hole 2 was. Well, I tried to walk through where Hole 2 was. I crawled through where where Hole 2 was and I thought, my god, these guys are insane that they're gonna be doing this. Like, what is going on? And and I had heard that there was a a group of volunteers that had volunteered specifically for Hole 2, and that was that was you and and and your
[00:18:17] Colby Zimmerman:
ilk. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. It mostly ended up being me, though.
[00:18:22] Scott Belchak:
So so I so I wanna take it I wanna take Dragonfly back to the very beginning. Dragonfly started as as just an idea. Right?
[00:18:33] Colby Zimmerman:
Yeah. I mean, I I wasn't even I wasn't even there for that part. But yeah. Like, somebody had an idea and they and, you know, Lehi is one of largest cities in Utah County, and it didn't have it had a 12 hole disc golf course, and that's it. So, and there's tons of open land. Just just tons of it. And so
[00:18:53] Scott Belchak:
I think it was Curtis. Curtis Hammond. Curtis Lewis. Had the idea to go to the city and and pitch him. Yeah. So he so he made a he he made a post on on Facebook saying, hey. I'm I'm pitching the idea of a disc golf course on this 80 acre parcel that they have on the North Side Of Utah Lake. If anybody wants to come, please come and show support. Bring a disc so that people know that you're there, in in support. So I showed up, and I didn't bring a disc because that's weird. You know, I don't want people to know that I'm here for the disc golf. I don't I don't wanna be associated with the disc golfers. Right? So so I I did show up though and and watched his his his plan. And, this was back when I was when I was thinking when I was starting to think I was starting to think about things a little bit differently when it came to disc golf courses. I was starting to think about about, presenting them more as playgrounds, and I was starting to think about, presenting them more as as places that require, investment and require, municipal oversight.
And I was really starting to get my brain focused around that, but I hadn't yet kind of it hadn't really congealed in my mind on how to pitch that just yet. And, so I was happy that someone else was pitching it. So I remember going to the meeting and, someone else was pitching it. So I remember going to the meeting, and, there was a few families there with discs. So I was easily able to pinpoint who was there for it. And then also, which is another funny thing is that whenever you go to these these meetings where, there's something fun on the agenda, and then as soon as that agenda item's over and then pretty much everybody gets up and leaves, it's pretty obvious to to city council, like, that that they've got something interesting here because literally everybody that was here is gone now that they're stopped talking about the thing that they were stopped talking about. But, I'd love to get my hands on on his on his slide deck, to look at it one more time because, I wanna refresh my memory on it. But, I I do remember it being one of those presentations that that is, you know, we need like, these are the these are the material things that we need. We need we need, 18 tee pads.
We need 18 baskets. We need 18 signs. And, and when a when a disc golf course is sold like that, it it becomes a very attainable thing for cities to say, yeah. Sure. You know? And and I actually remember this very distinctly because when when he got through the whole thing about, like, what is disc golf? What do we need? How how are we gonna do it? Which is basically community. The community is gonna do it all. And then, how much money do we need? They they got to a spot where they were just like, okay. So you're asking for $30,000? Is that right? Yes. That's what that's that's what we need. I think it was 60 or something. Yes. That's what that's what we need. And they were just like, okay.
So what do you guys think? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Alright. Fine. Yep. You get your $60,000. And then the next agenda item was a $1,800,000 playground Yeah. That was on on the schedule that they were gonna talk about. And and that that really was the moment where where this congealed in my mind of, like, we need to stop selling ourselves so short as as as disc golf advocates. We need to we need to really approach this from the perspective of a playground. Like, 1,800,000 for a playground? Like, our kids need places to play, but we're working on, like, 60 acres for these properties. Fifty, forty fifty, sixty acres. A legitimate adult playground. Yeah. Exactly. Well, and a kid playground too. They should go enjoy it. Right? Oh, for sure. Like,
[00:22:41] Dustin Hanson:
but you think about the other adult playgrounds that we have around the country and, like, typical golf courses, how much money do they put into that? Not just once, one time to get it started, but yearly over over a number of years, decades.
[00:22:56] Scott Belchak:
Yeah. So so I didn't have a a lot to do with, the Dragonfly project because, the birthday of of Dragonfly lined up perfectly with the birthday of the wonder. And in in fact, we we had consistently for, like, an entire year overlapping workdays where where where I would call for a workday for the wonder, and then the dragonfly guys would be like, oh, yeah. We're having a workday that day too. And I was just like, come on. Like, just let's stagger them. Let's communicate. You know? But, so I was disconnected from from it from that from that perspective, from from that point up until, the point where where we really started working on it. So I kinda wanted Colby to come on and kinda bring us up to speed with the history of Dragonfly and and and and how it's gone and and the community behind it and how it's and how it's grown and and, what the future for it is.
[00:23:49] Colby Zimmerman:
Well, yeah. Let's, I mean, let's let's jump in right in. The biggest problem, like you said, not let's not let's not focus on the problems for sure. Right? Like like, if Curtis hadn't have done this, we wouldn't have this course. For sure. Fantastic. For sure. But when the community is the one doing the work, what that what I've learned that that means is on the first workday, you get a 100 people. Yep. And a lot of awesome stuff happens. Then on the second workday, you get, like, 25. And by the next time you need people out there, it's just, like, less than 10 people. And it's the and it's the main people that are that are really interested in really pushing it forward. So it ended up being that there were four or five of us making we we kinda made up the committee of Dragonfly. We kinda made all the major decisions, and we did a lot of the work. I was doing 75 hard at the time, so I was getting my two workouts outside cutting and dragging branches every day for months.
[00:24:47] Scott Belchak:
And that committee was was something that was that was
[00:24:51] Colby Zimmerman:
required by the city for some reason. Right? I don't know if it was required, but that's what was pitched. And that's and that's smart because because it wouldn't have made sense for one person to make all the decisions unless there was somebody being paid and, you know, overseen by the city. Okay. So so, yeah, that I mean, it it only took us maybe a month, two months to get to get nine holes in. And, those were the nine easy holes that didn't require as much clearing. Yeah. That was the inside of the course. Right? Yeah. It was like, hole one, hole three, four, five.
Yeah. Basically, one, not two. Two is like the last hole done. Mhmm. Hole one and then through Hole 10 minus Hole 8. That was, like, that was, like, the first iteration of the course. No tee pads, just dirt. Sometimes paint, sometimes not. And, and then it took another, like, two and a half years to finish the rest of it, before we got tee pads. So it was a it was a long journey. And I just remember walking up there, and I looked at the original plan, and I was like, there's this awesome section right here that's just not being used by anything. Like, maybe it's a maybe it's a tee pad in one green, but, like, this could make an awesome hole. And I brought my I brought my ilk out to, to walk it, and they're like, I don't see it, man. Yeah. You're crazy.
And and I brought and I brought Curtis out, and I showed him. He's like, dude, if you're willing to do the work, I think this will be a good hole. Go for it. And,
[00:26:27] Scott Belchak:
and, then about 200 trees later, we have hole two, and I think it's best hole on the course. I I think it's one of the best holes that it's a fun in all of of Utah County.
[00:26:37] Nick Jennings:
It's so challenging. It's about as hard as it gets. Yeah. Yeah. I got my first birdie on it the other day, actually. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That whole I've taken, like, a seven and an eight before. I had a lot of pars.
[00:26:49] Colby Zimmerman:
Yeah. If you're if you're willing to throw a 150 foot shot off the tee, it's birdies actually come easier when you have a when you have that 300 foot shot 300, 350 foot shot second. You try to get it on the first one, and that's when I run into problems. Problems. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. On the on the last, podcast, Rob Rob talked about how how Jade Sewell,
[00:27:11] Scott Belchak:
had the had the ability to go into a room and and determine if if a project was gonna go forward or not just by the the stakeholders. And and, back to your point about about, is this never happening, you know, happening if Curtis does doesn't doesn't pitch it the way he does. And I I think that he needed to pitch that exactly the way that he did. Because if if it wouldn't have been if if it would have been pitched the way that I would have pitched it, it never would have gotten done. You know? And Probably not. Yeah. And so I I think it's important to realize that. You know? And and, Dragonfly to me is a is such an amazing property because it has something that that none of our courses have, and that's grass without irrigation.
[00:27:57] Colby Zimmerman:
Beautiful grass. Always green. Always green. Always. Always growing. It's kind of obnoxious sometimes.
[00:28:04] Scott Belchak:
Yeah. It's tough. It it makes it it adds a dimension to the course that we don't see anywhere else. But but it's getting mowed this year. And why and why is that why why is this year different than last year?
[00:28:15] Colby Zimmerman:
That's a good question. So this first of all, the city people that we've worked with, so the the director in charge of new parks and the director in charge of parks maintenance have been a 100% on our side since day one. They've been great to work with. And within reason, when they can, they give us they give us what we what we ask for, what we need. And I just lost my train of thought. What what am I answering right now? You're you're answering why Dragonfly looks fucking amazing right now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So so they're on our side. Right? And we we have a cleanup day. I think it's a a year ago. Mhmm. Maybe a year maybe a year and a half ago. It was wintertime.
[00:29:01] Scott Belchak:
Yeah. That's, that's the one that that that that I I I didn't wanna go to because it's not our responsibility to do this. And so I got in the car, and I got my camera out, and I took a video of myself driving to the course complaining about having to go to Dragonfly to to to do work that the city should should do. And then we got, like, freaking 40 people out there to clean this place up. I got my drone up. I set some time lapse up, and and and I decided my only volunteerism for this is gonna be walking around with my camera and documenting it. And I'm gonna put together a really nice, like, edited video of this, and I'm gonna post it on social media. And And I'm gonna and I'm gonna at Lehi.
[00:29:39] Colby Zimmerman:
So we had tee pads and signs and baskets at this point. We had 18 holes, but the course was unkept. Right? It was it was almost impossible to play unless it was wintertime. The grass wasn't growing. So I'm this was the time when I when I was like, okay. We've gotta get this course into shape. We've gotta keep it in shape. And I was and I was running the committee by this point. So I called for the I called for the vault. I I made sure the city could come out, and they brought five mowers. So they brought five guys and mowers. And once I knew they were coming, I was relentless online. So I I made I made a couple of posts, and I started personally messaging people because it's a lot harder to say no if you if you're a person.
Especially especially if you're a top person. It's a powerful thing. So I messaged everyone I could think of. You were one of those people. I even asked I even asked you for your advice on on one situation because I asked one guy to come help, and he's like, no. I'm not gonna run a league. And and he ran, and he, you know, he took away, like, you know, 30 people that might have come to the course. And you told you told me that that was a good thing, and I and I event I ended up agreeing with you and didn't make a thing about it. But we had a great turnout. The city came.
They mowed everything. Everything the mowers could reach, they mowed. The only stuff that wasn't mowed was in the thick trees. They even mowed the they even mowed the swamp because it was frozen so they so they could drive on top of it and mow all those cattails.
[00:30:58] Scott Belchak:
Frank nineties.
[00:31:00] Colby Zimmerman:
Yeah. Sure. It's true. It's what they are. I I believe you. I just
[00:31:06] Scott Belchak:
don't care. You should. You should too. I mean, we can get free money for to to to destroy those things, and that's why you should care. Okay. Well, that's your job. That's true. You're supposed to know that stuff. I do know that stuff.
[00:31:17] Colby Zimmerman:
So after that, the community made it we made a big point to let the city know that we felt the love. And, shortly thereafter, I had a meeting with those guys that I mentioned and their boss, the, public works, I don't know what he is, VP or something. Yeah. Public works director probably is what he is what his title is. And we made and we made a I sat down with them, and I said, what is it gonna take for us to get something like that on a regular basis. And then that conversation kind of evolved into what do you want this to be long term. And, basically, what they said was, if you want this course maintained, you're gonna have to maintain it. Show us that it can be maintained because we hadn't maintained it for that summer. It was disgusting. And, I mean, it was so bad. You went there to play. The grass was almost as tall as you in places, maybe maybe as tall as you in places.
If you touched a a Russian olive or a piece of grass or anything, you you heard a swarm of mosquitoes around your head. Yeah. It was terrible. And so they said, you it needs to be maintained. And I said, well, we used funds we raised to buy a lawnmower, and it is it is no longer working. And and if you could give us a machine, if you give us some equipment, we'll keep it maintained. And they said, well, I think we can make that work. So
[00:32:38] Scott Belchak:
last year was kinda proving if we could do it. But but but how does that work? Because because the public can't drive their machines
[00:32:48] Colby Zimmerman:
with insurance. So so how does that work? Well, so they I had to I had to become an employee of the city. Oh, tricky. And and I I just I just don't turn any hours. So I became an employee of the city, so I'm insured if I'm using their equipment so I can use their equipment. And last year, I mowed that thing. I was the only one allowed to do it. That's what they told me. And they said something to the effect of of if it goes well and, and there's anybody you you trust, they can mow it, but you're the only one that can mow it. Wink. You know, it's kinda like that. But but I didn't wanna mess with anything, so I just I just mowed it. I mowed it about I mowed that whole thing about once a month last summer. And it was a lot, And but it but it's good. A lot of people came out and played.
And I would take pictures when I'd see a lot of cars in the parking lot. I'd take pictures and I'd send them to the city. Then this year rolls around, and I'm and I reached out to them and said, hey. What's the status on this being maintained? You know, we we talked about this last year, and they're like, well, what do you want? I was like, I well, I either want you guys to have a crew come out here every two weeks and mow the whole thing, or I want you to let me hire some more people. And you're probably gonna actually have to pay them when they when they come when they come work. And they said, we can do that. How many do you need? And I said, I need three. And no hesitation. They did it. So so that's why that's why it's being maintained so well. You know, we've got we've got me and three others that can use the equipment, and they're motivated to get out there and work. And who are these three others?
Aaron Presgard, Ken Oetker. Is that how you say it? Oetker. Oetker. Okay. And,
[00:34:24] Sean Kelley:
Austin Lott. Eric. Okay. That's really good. Ken, Kent was the one who I was playing down at Artai. Yeah. And he's like, oh, have you checked out Dragonfly? Yeah. And I was like, no. I haven't. I haven't. It was right when you guys had just put it in. And he was just like, yeah. You guys gotta go down and check out Dragonfly. And so that's when we drove down, and I was, yeah, walking down Hole 2, and I'm just like, why am I here? Like, this is like this is like this is like six, eight inch, like, little spikes of, like, little trees that I'm, like, stepping on. I'm like, oh, man. It was it's it was in rough shape. It was a beaut it was like, I'm like, this course is gonna be great. It's still well, I mean, it's one of my favorite courses in the valley, but it's just one of those, like yeah. Ken was Ken was the one who introduced me to, Dragonfly.
[00:35:06] Colby Zimmerman:
Yeah. I I just had to get involved because what we don't have a lot of in Utah County is any any, like, really challenging courses. Yeah. And we we have courses that are tricky. They have tricky shots. Our our diet is not an easy course by any means. No. You know, Jolly's Ranch is not an easy course by any means. I mean, some holes are, right, on both those courses, but we don't have we didn't really have anything that had par fours, tight tight hallways, and a mix of, like, short stuff and big stuff, like like like, big throws. And so I just I just knew that it was seven minutes from my house.
And if I didn't get involved, I'd I didn't know if it was gonna turn out to to be to be a great course. So I made sure to put a lot of work into it and and eventually ended up getting a lot of the things that I wanted because of that. Yeah. It definitely seems like, the path you took worked.
[00:35:59] Scott Belchak:
And it seems like what you've created now is something that is maintainable. You know, I think once because, I mean, Aaron seems it seems like Aaron's mowing that thing two two times a week, it seems like. He's getting out there twice a week. He's mowed about half the course. So so the whole thing's getting mowed about once a week. But just It's like every every time you can mow something once like, the first the first time you can mow something once, that's the beginning of a new future. Because if you can mow it once, you can mow it a second time, and you can mow it a third time. Like, we're seeing that at the Wonder. Like like, getting getting a fairway to the point where you can put a mower on it is hard.
It's not just like, oh, let's go mow that piece of land. It's it's it's nope. We we have to make sure that that all the stumps are gone. We have to make sure that all the rocks are gone. We have to make sure everything every single stick is picked up and and aggregated somewhere. You know, it's it's, like, that's that's the goal is getting a mower to it. Like, once you get a mower to it, the battle's over. It's just now it's just mowing it, which is, you know, at the wonder, you just have to do it one once or twice a year. You know? But at It gets pretty dry, but anything in the woods necessarily,
[00:37:14] Sean Kelley:
you cut back, it's all just gonna grow back in the next year. So you're almost just every single year, you're doing the the same exact work you did last year. So it's it's just a never ending battle. But it gets easier
[00:37:26] Scott Belchak:
every year, you know, because you're because because you're you're you're you're all the work you've done in the previous years to get it to mow is still available. I mean, at the Wonder, it's easier because because you don't have Russian alms popping out of literally everywhere. Sure. You know? Yeah. Which which is another thing that I wanna talk about because because I we've we've talked about this at length of of of getting because in my perfect world, we go scorched earth on dragonfly and remove every single Russian olive that we can and replace it with 3 or $400,000 worth of trees.
Like, that's that's that's my perfect world. I I mean, I understand that that you can't just remove remove every single Russian oil from that property right away because you'd ruin the challenge of it. But at the same time, it's like, look. What if we did? What if we just ruined the course for five years while all these beautiful pines that we you know, and and and all these awesome willows that we plant are maturing. You know? And what would that place look like fifteen years from now? Because there's there's very few places that we have that have access to the water table that Dragonfly does. It it it's like the the water is literally, like, two feet. You dig two feet, you find one foot. Ground. Well, sometimes it makes its way up to the fairways
[00:38:47] Colby Zimmerman:
as well. Yeah. Well, sometimes half year. Some of that is
[00:38:51] Scott Belchak:
natural, and some of that is the farmland surrounding us. Irrigation. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, next week, I'm having I'm having, an arborist up to the wonder. The beauty of being able to raise raise money, for a public space as a nonprofit, it allows you to, take some liberties with it. And so one of the liberties that that I'm taking is hiring an arborist to come up and examine the forest and understand where we can possibly put some saplings and spur some new growth in that forest that we've cut. And I think I and I think the dragonfly could could do this. And, you know, I've talked to, Tree Utah, a local nonprofit, and, you know, about it. And and I've showed them the property, and they said, oh, we we won't even we won't plant we won't plant any trees in a place that doesn't have a long term plan to remove every single Russian olive on the property.
And I was just like, okay. Well, that's, you know, like, what about what about right over here? There's no Russian here. Like, on Hole 18. And and that's what I essentially, convinced them of is, like, let's maybe do this in stages. Let's let's maybe think about, like, places that that aren't overrun by Russian olives, like Hole 18. Like, all along the the road up there is a perfect opportunity for us to plant a nice row of trees protecting the fence line, right, and that berm. And maybe slowly moving towards a more, like a like, those Russian olives, first of all, aren't supposed to be here. They're they're totally invasive. They're they're terrible trees.
So they're they're they're not supposed to be here. The the phragmites in the pond, they're not supposed to be here either. Basically, every single living thing that's on that property other than the grass is not supposed to be here. Other than that giant ass broken tree that's on, what is it, 10? 14? 14? There's two trees on the property that aren't Russian olives. Yeah. Right? Fourteen and ten. So so when we're talking about the long term vision of this place, there has to be a conversation about future tree planting because it's such a unique place that has access to water in the ground in the desert,
[00:40:59] Colby Zimmerman:
and we have to get new growth in there. Well, let me let me challenge that a little bit because I agree that a a fully wooded forest would be would be awesome. And if it's gonna take planting 3 or 400,000 worth of trees, every city around the lake has areas like this. And I think it'd be more interesting to go find a place that doesn't have a lot of trees and plant the trees there because we've got here the here's the cool thing about Dragonfly is if I want something new or cool to happen, those trees are gonna grow 25 feet in two years. Twenty twenty feet in two years. So the course doesn't have to be what the course is today, even next year. Mhmm. But you take away I mean, Russian olives are weeds. Like, we we all know they're not trees. You USU, you know, they're they're big on botany, and they're classified as weeds up there. They grow super fast. Yeah. And they suck up they suck up a lot of water. So that's why they that's why they grow so well out there. But I just look at this as as an opportunity. Like, I it's part of what Dragonfly is. And and, if I woke up tomorrow and all those trees were big giant mature trees, I'd be stoked. But to lose that course for five to ten years to for from what it is to make it that, I would rather see us keep this course keep this course the way it is and build another course. Yeah. And
[00:42:22] Scott Belchak:
and I think that I would I would I would counter that counter that with, we shouldn't be building things for ourselves. We should be building things for your children. You know? Because because this this isn't this isn't our world. It's it's everyone who's going to come behind us. And a twenty year investment in trees is nothing.
[00:42:43] Sean Kelley:
That's that's no time at all. Sure. So when I have give them two. Right. I mean, these are all learning lessons as we're going because I'm assuming prior to Dragonfly, you've never built the course before. Never. And I've never even considered to the wonder, you've never built the course before. So in general, like like, I I agree with Colby in the sense that, like, Dragonfly is great. Like, yeah, if we could if we could switch every Russian olive to a pine tree or an oak tree, absolutely. It's great. But these are just the learning lessons as we, you know not pioneers of it, but just people jumping into the idea of designing courses, not playing not playing disc golf and going in and trying to, like, actually build disc golf courses. Yeah. I'd rather have another course also. I'd rather yeah. Just building another course. I'm like, horrible at Dragonfly. Yeah. I mean, if you could go, like, over to it's very it's out here in the, like, in the desert necessarily, like, where river bottoms I wish I wish river bottoms had water in the right area.
They had a piece of property that's just, like, lush. Like, there's there's water, like, literally, like Everywhere. Everywhere. Where anything will grow and everything will just, like, you know it's it's it's got it's got all the amenities to to allow growth to to to to spawn there. But, I also think, like, as many as Russian olives that I've cut down in my lifetime just being out here in Utah, like, it's not a bad, like because you says you have, like, all those different shots where, like, you know if you go in the weeds. It's a good bunker. It's It's a good bunker. It's that, like so it's almost like it's almost that training facility where it's just, like, don't you know, it just it just kinda makes you almost like a better disc golfer because you don't wanna go into the weeds because you know the those long ass thorns off the, the the Russian They suck. But at the same point, like, you go into, like, Bruce Bruce's, they're gonna suck. Go into pines, they suck.
There's sap everywhere with all the pine trees. For sure. Then you go into oaks, and now we're dealing with acorns and all the animals that live in there and fry it off. And so, like, not every there's nothing there's no greater solution to the next one. But I do agree, like, the idea of scorched earth on the dragonfly, like, no. Like I love that. Yeah. Go to a whole new go to a go to a whole new area and build a new course, like, with that theory that you could actually, like But where? We could design this. No. I'm not saying I I don't know where. The irrigation would be so hard. Like, Dragonfly is our best bet, you
[00:45:17] Scott Belchak:
know. Well, and and I'm to be clear, I'm not I said scorched earth, but but I think you do it one hole at a time. I think You do. You you add the trees first where it makes sense. I think you would you would purposefully because the thing about Russian olives is that is that they they drop they drop hundreds of thousands of of berries and seeds, and so they grow from seed, but then also they they they send shoots underneath. So they grow from the top and they grow from the bottom. Of their their root system, it goes super shallow and wide and up. Nothing else can grow,
[00:45:54] Colby Zimmerman:
it within its root system. Yeah. It kinda suffocates it. You you wanna you have to mechanically remove these things. You know something interesting about that? I looked this up because I thought to myself, yeah, they're dropping all these seeds. I should just plant some in exactly where I want trees to be. So I looked up to see if I could do that. And you can't you can't those Those those seeds are are all pointless. How they how they end up doing something, this is information you never need to know. A bird will come down and eat it, and the innermost part of it, the bird can't digest. And when it poops it out, then it now it's ready to plant. Oh, okay. Now it's ready to grow. Isn't that interesting? So that so it gets taken But but drop somewhere. But the shoots I mean I mean, you touch if we touch nothing on there for the next few years, the entire place would be covered in. Yeah. Exactly. Just from the shoots. So I think I think that's what I'm trying to get at is, like, is, like, if we can if we can year over year
[00:46:47] Scott Belchak:
replace pivotal trees out there with willows or with something that's going to have a longer, term life and something that's going to be, easier to manage because because these these Russian olives, they grow shoots down at down at down at the base. They have to be trimmed up every single year. If you if if you stop looking at them for a year, like Colby said, it's it's it's, you know, it's like Yeah. It's hairy.
[00:47:15] Nick Jennings:
It seems kinda similar to the battle that we're dealing with at River Bottoms with the thistle
[00:47:19] Scott Belchak:
as well. Yeah. And and the baby Bottoms with with all their Russian olives. Yeah. So it's like it's like you you gotta you gotta look at these things for what they are, and they're invasive. And they're not supposed to be there. And if if if we had a ten year plan to replace most of those with really good trees that are established and, already mature like, maybe not mature, but, you know, the the four inch calipers. I mean, it it the wind knocked over. It broke and fell down. What was that? Two years ago? Yeah. If that and it's already I mean, some of those new branches have grown, like, 20 feet taller. Exactly. Right? It's like it's like if you get if you get some cottonwoods in there, if you get some elms in there, you know, you get some honeysuckle in there. Not honeysuckle, the honey. Is it honey? Honeylocust. Honeylocust. Get the honeylocust in there. Or just any tree that that works in that in that wet, loamy soil, like the willows. I think the will the willows would do really good. There there aren't very many, actually.
[00:48:20] Colby Zimmerman:
You told me, that you had met with somebody about it, so I kinda started looking. And a lot of those ones a lot of those trees won't grow there. But the willows will and I think you've looked up quite a few, and there are some of the fast growing trees will grow there. So so it's it's not just get hallways. It's not out of the question. I mean, willows are huge. You know? Like, I and and, honestly, I'd love to try some because the the best time to to plant a tree was yesterday is what everybody says.
[00:48:45] Scott Belchak:
And so I think that I'd like to try to plant some trees. I think I think the best place to start is right along Hole Six's left side fairway in that swampy spot. Yep. Plant a bunch of willows that just are in the freaking swamp back out there. And there's no Russian olives over there that we have to worry about. And and To see if something grows, you know, to see Yeah. Because we we tried this at river bottoms with the with the swamp white oak that's out there, and they didn't fare very well. Mhmm. But it's like, we don't we don't know that until you try it, and it is gonna cost some money.
[00:49:23] Colby Zimmerman:
We wouldn't even need to put that many out there. There's, I mean, there's the whole section that you throw out of on the tee shot and then then then those trees right there. But then from there to the basket, it's pretty sparse. And and those trees aren't really doing much for the fairway, so we could certainly I don't think anybody would complain about the ones after the bunker out of the gap if if those ones on the left disappeared. No. All those ones on the left disappear, and then it's just a row of willows, like, all the way to the basket. Like and those willows get big. Like, they get they get 60 feet tall. You probably wouldn't even need to plant as many like, that many. No. You would want, like 50 feet maybe? Four of them, five of them.
[00:50:00] Scott Belchak:
Because they're gonna be small right away, but you give them five or six years, and they'll grow. Mhmm. So it's like those are the things that I want us to start thinking about because because dragonfly is an opportunity that we don't have elsewhere where you can just dig a hole, put a tree in, and then watch it grow if you get the right if you get the right tree. Well, when you get a chance, pull up Google Earth
[00:50:22] Colby Zimmerman:
and look up all these places around Utah Lake. They can't build on them. So the the reason we got this land is because the houses can't be built. The water's too high. My house is, like I said, seven minutes away. It's probably like it's it's, in between Lehigh, Maine and 2100 North. And when I was digging the hole for my trampoline, I found the water. So it's it's really it's it's maybe seven feet underground where my house is. So my my point is, as you get closer to the lake, that water table gets closer to the land, you know, closer to the surface. And there's a whole bunch of places. I once once dragonfly started, I I went through I went through this, and I, like, looked at all these areas around the lake. I was like, oh my gosh. It could be a disc golf course there, one there, one there, one there. Yeah. It sounds like it's a pretty hot tip in Saratoga that that would work pretty good. There's there's an awesome spot in Saratoga that I saw. There's an awesome spot in Vineyard that I saw right right by out there by the softball fields where they're where they're doing all that development. And, yeah, man. Man. I just I I actually think there's a lot of that that we just haven't tapped into because it's kind of a garbage sectional land. And so I actually think it'd be great to go to cities and say, hey.
This land that you have that's useless, let's make it useful. Right.
[00:51:33] Scott Belchak:
So let's let's talk about, a little bit about US women's. We had we had Rob on the podcast, last week, and, he mentioned that Dragonfly is a is a venue that's that's that's, strongly being considered for this thing. One of the things that we are running into with Dragonfly and hosting a major championship is parking. I just kinda wanna talk about our thought processes going forward when we look at these these venues to make sure that we're thinking about that because, with when we built Dragonfly, we didn't think about parking, and we didn't think about access to the property. Like, we had a small a small section of that.
So with Dragonfly being used for for US women's, we're we're we're actually in the process of having conversations with the UTA to to use the the park and ride to create a shuttle back and forth, at the train station, which is a whole different thing. Like, we have to have different assurances and stuff like that. But, yeah, I just kinda wanna talk about about Dragonfly. Dragonfly is great for for for disc golf, but not necessarily
[00:52:53] Colby Zimmerman:
city about this, and I think this might have come up when we were meeting with them. But that road, since it's a dead end, can be used as parking. So we can actually we don't have even have to parallel park on it. We can park as if as if it's a parking lot on both sides and in the middle if there's room. So for this particular tournament, you know, this you know, any anything happening before that road goes through, that's a solution. But as soon as that road goes through, they I I don't I don't know what they're gonna do. And one one of the things that we've talked about is the property to the east, the little skinny property that runs the whole length of the course. Uh-huh.
That guy is most likely gonna be developing that in the next few years. He's waiting on something, and it's gonna be a couple years. But once he develops that, he's only gonna be able to develop the front half. The back half won't be they won't be able to make it suitable for us. It's too it's too wet. It's too it's too close to the water table. Mhmm. And they they have told us that that will become part of Dragonfly when that happens. That will give us the par five or two
[00:54:06] Scott Belchak:
two good holes. Or yeah. And then and then it'll allow us maybe Hole 1 to turn into a parking lot. Yeah. And then we can expand the parking lot. Obviously obviously,
[00:54:15] Colby Zimmerman:
if if people are hearing this and they're panicking because Hole One's their favorite hole or Hole Eighteen's their favorite hole, like like, understood. And and if if we can replace them with equal or better holes, then then I think everybody would welcome more parking. Okay. So so so the future of of Dragonfly has
[00:54:33] Scott Belchak:
potentially additional land usage. And then let's talk about, some of the improvements that will be required, to have a major championship there.
[00:54:45] Colby Zimmerman:
A a lot. I mean, I guess I guess not too much, but but it's got a ways to go. And the city the city is on board with this. We told them we told them we need benches for every hole. We need pathing for every hole. We need garbage cans, and we need bathrooms for sure. And then there are a whole bunch of other things that would also be great to have, like, you know, mandatories, different trees, built built up greens, built up tee pads, just, multiple tee pads. We're gonna put in turf to do reds and golds for now. But The heaviest turf on Earth, by the way. It's big. It's long. It's, like, two inches long.
[00:55:32] Scott Belchak:
Probably won't be that for the first rubber. Yeah. It's it's it's the exact same stuff that that you're dealing with. Once once It's like carrying two dead bodies at once. At least.
[00:55:43] Colby Zimmerman:
Well, it took when when we unloaded it, it took two mini x's. Two two to get one roll off, and we have two two of those rolls. The city is supposed to be bringing that down, by the way, before Saturday. Oh, interesting. So we can so we can start using it for the volunteer days. Yeah. Well, good luck getting volunteers to unroll that stuff and drag it through the course. Listen. Another thing with volunteers or people with courses,
[00:56:05] Sean Kelley:
I I understand majority of disc golfers work full time jobs. But and then, usually, like, weekends, they're allowed to, like, work out because trying to find volunteers, these are your courses you play all the time. Take a day off. Don't throw the disc. Come down. Improve your local course. Get involved. It's you know? By the time it's by the time it passes, your course is better than it was before, and now you have a better course to go play. So please volunteer
[00:56:37] Scott Belchak:
legitimately a good time. Yeah. It it's always a good time. Yeah. It is. Well, and speaking of which, I think I actually have to call, a wonder, volunteer work day that will will coincide with
[00:56:49] Sean Kelley:
with dragonfly.
[00:56:51] Nick Jennings:
Wonderfall this year coincides with Hey. Listen. That just means that this board They wanna cancel
[00:56:56] Scott Belchak:
the the beauty of event and come to WonderFall. Like like like like Aaron Presgaard loves playing WonderFall. And what? He's gonna be working his ass off out of out of Dragonfly during WonderFall? No. He's not gonna do that. He's gonna be at WonderFall. I know Aaron. Will remind me remember the date. The twenty seventh and twenty eighth. Yeah. So if I just make so I have to now cancel my registration. Cancel your registration For Wonderful. Yeah. You just did it on the last episode. I know. God. Cancel your registration and RSVP to like, seriously, why does Dragonfly and the Wonder always step on each other's toes? Well, why is that? It's because they were consummated at the very exact same level. It's true. It's all it's all it is. They're competing
[00:57:35] Sean Kelley:
They're in that they're in that same, like, you know, every time it's like, whose birthday party are you gonna come to? You're gonna come to dragonflies? You're gonna come to wonders? You know? Yeah. But it's true. I mean, it it is one of those situations where, like, I I get it. Like, you know, a lot of people wanna, like, you know, they wanna go play disc golf on their weekends, but it takes you can there's all everyone always plays a round at the end. And you still get to play around, but, like, you just get a day out with all your with all your buddies in general. You know? It it's it's gratifying. It's absolutely gratifying to go out, work on a couple holes, get things done, dial it in. Put your stamp on it. Every now yeah. Exactly. Every now and then, like, you always thought this was this is how you kinda wanted to do. You always wanted to, like, either cut down this or shape this bush back. It it go it goes so far in helping improve your local course because I I say it all the time, and it's like, disc golfers love to complain about courses.
They don't wanna do anything to make it better. And so it's like, just you don't have to do it all the time. Just get involved once. You'll you'll you'll you'll find out, like they said, the grad the the self gratification you get from, like, helping out and then just, like and then coming back the next weekend playing it, and you know that, like, the whole course has been just kinda, like, manicured and revamped. It it goes it goes a long way. But it is. It's true. I I'll say it again. It's just, like, disc golfers, they all all they wanna do is play disc golf, but they never wanna get in and just kinda help out. There are there are a bunch of people out there that do get involved. But for the most part, there's so many disc golfers in the valley. Imagine if, like, one weekend, everyone just pulled their baskets. They were like, nope. No one's playing disc golf this weekend. This is the annual Utah clean up your course weekend. Get everyone out there. Pull the baskets. No one can play. Come down. And then, you know Let people park Yeah. And don't let them out. Yeah. Exactly. One of those things. Or just like, hey, man. We're gonna put the baskets in at 4PM.
Boom. We can all play, like, the new course because it would take no time at all. If if we had, like, 40 to 50 people, like, a day just to one day, one Saturday a month, or, like, one Saturday, like, at beginning of every season just to go down and, like, manicure their course,
[00:59:47] Scott Belchak:
every course would be phenomenal. Yeah. But that takes strong leadership, and it takes it it it takes it takes you like someone being like, okay, I I know how to, like, manage 40 people within the next three hours. Right? And Sure. Chaz is really good at this. Chaz, I mean, if if you go show up at one of Chaz's Brighton work days, you show up and he gives you your job, He tells you who to go who who to go with, and he gives you, like, an estimated time of completion. And then when you're done with it, you got your discs with you. Go have fun. You know? It's like, there's there's certain people who are very good at running, running, volunteer cleanup days.
And I I tried to I tried to be like Chaz out out at the arena, and I think for the most part, I succeeded. But, he's more organized and better at it than I am, and I and I have a lot to learn from him.
[01:00:38] Sean Kelley:
I'm sorry. You just keep hiding discs and and and batches. That did not work. And then they find the disc and then it goes home, and then, like, god. Game's over. That did that You're making a game. That That that was a that was a that was an experiment. I thought it was a great idea, and it's and it's not that surprising
[01:00:53] Colby Zimmerman:
now in hindsight that it didn't work.
[01:00:55] Scott Belchak:
Yeah. Yeah. I've I've is it Easter icon? You know what? I was playing with with, with somebody, last year. And so we're we're we're talking about when I when I had 20 mulch piles out of the river bottoms, and I hit a disc under each one. And and I said to the community, go spread the chips and find yourself an Easter egg. Right? And all that ended there was a few people who went out there and spread the chips good. But at the same time, it's like the public, when they come to do something like that, doesn't know exactly what I want them to do. So they spread the chips in a in a in a way that I'm just like, really? You spread them this way? I thought you'd pull them more towards Into the fairway on the green or or or on the path, like, walking paths. Yes. Exactly. Like, put them here. But, no, there was some people who just obviously went looking for the disc, and there was just chips everywhere, which means you wasted my chips.
Right? And you wasted your time for what? A $12 disc, you idiot. You know? It's like, come on. Like, the reason I put it there was so that you could get dollar discs? Did you go high end? No? They were actually free discs from MVP. They were MVP lab seconds. Baseline. But I I thought this was gonna be fun. This is gonna be something the community can rally behind. And a few people did, but we actually found a disc, that was just sitting there because I knew I knew this was gonna happen. I knew there's gonna be some piles that the disc wasn't ever found and and that we'd find it later.
And, but I was playing with Bob Bumgardner And Love Bob. We're just playing and he's like, what's what's this? And he reached down, found this dirty ass disc, pulled it out of the ground, shook it off, and was like, oh, that's one of the discs I hid under the mulch. It was like eight months later, he found it, like, after a whole winter. Gross. But yeah. So, pathing. Pathing out of dragonfly is a big thing, especially for a major. When when when people play majors, they don't want to walk from a basket to the front of the tee pad.
And Mhmm. So you've got some plans for that. And then also, I wanted to talk about, that that there's a missing tee pad. Yeah. And that we'll actually only have we have 18 tea pads out there. Not a lot of people know that because they just think there's 17. There's one just like An erroneous one. In the in the swamp somewhere. So I wanna like, before we end the podcast, I wanna talk about how we're gonna get 18 tee pads, and why is there one out in the swamp. Let's talk about it right now.
[01:03:25] Colby Zimmerman:
Because this is one of the things I'm most excited about for this course. And to be fair, Hole 13, the hole that doesn't have a tee pad or has a broken up piece of turf is a fantastic hole, and it's gonna be it's gonna be sad to see it go. It's kinda like what we talked about earlier. You know? If if you had to give up Hole 1 to get, you know, or at least Hole 1 as it is today to get a bigger parking lot and a better course, but trade that for two other really good holes, you know, great holes even, then then you'd probably you'd probably do it. You'd probably be happy to do it. So this is kinda what's happening with Hole 13. Hole 13 was never intended to be a permanent hole.
We put it in because once once we put the initial course in, the original Hole 7 was out there all the way on the west side by the pasture. And that's where the farm when the farmer irrigates, he floods his field. And it doesn't all stay on his field. And, I mean, it didn't used to matter because he he had the cattle where where we now have a disc golf course. But that whole area is sometimes under six inches of water. Mhmm. There's nothing we can do about it. So, so we we put that hole in the back burner until we got some more city support, then we made hole 13. Well, you talked about Aaron's cleanup day on the twenty seventh. That hole's going back in, hopefully, on the twenty seventh. If and and, frankly, it's it's probably not gonna be a huge cleanup day. We don't expect to have more than, you know,
[01:04:49] Scott Belchak:
10 to 15 people. But that's all gonna be wonderful.
[01:04:53] Colby Zimmerman:
I mean yeah. And and we have a cleanup day this weekend. It's the it's the city's cleanup day. So they're gonna send us a group of people. We're gonna do we're gonna do all the brainless labor that day. So we're gonna do we're gonna cut branches. We're gonna haul branches. We're gonna we're gonna spread,
[01:05:07] Scott Belchak:
millings. How many people do you expect to have off of that? We had
[01:05:11] Colby Zimmerman:
50 last year. They most of them stayed for about an hour. So so we don't we don't have a ton of time with them, but but we'll get we'll get some good stuff done, and that's this Saturday. So because of that, Aaron Aaron couldn't come to that. So so the cleanup day on the twenty seventh is all Aaron taking the initiative and making it happen, which I which I appreciate. And instantly regretting because he was actually posting on the wonderful disc golf scene,
[01:05:36] Scott Belchak:
asking about the when is the schedule being posted. So I think that he he double booked himself and then realized, oh, shit.
[01:05:45] Colby Zimmerman:
Yeah. Well, that may have that may have come from a conversation
[01:05:48] Nick Jennings:
Eric the other day at at Dragonfly. I saw him out there working with his brother, I think.
[01:05:54] Colby Zimmerman:
Yep. He and Eric work out there quite a bit. Yeah. And we had a conversation,
[01:05:59] Nick Jennings:
and I was talking to him about WonderFall. And he's like, wait. What is that? So we we talked about it. And he's man. I've got this other thing. I was like, yeah. I'm not gonna be able to be there. Sorry, man. I wish I could. Sorry, bud. For the record, I'm not opposed to changing the those dates. And so
[01:06:12] Colby Zimmerman:
I'll I'll chat with him and see what he thinks because I I told him I I can't run it. I don't even know if I can be there. Like, honestly, like like, Dragonfly can be worked on into, like, November and December. Like,
[01:06:19] Scott Belchak:
can be worked on into, like, November and December. So you might as well All year. Right. You might as well call the cleanup day, like, when everything's done. You know? Like, don't waste tournament weekend on a cleanup day for a course that doesn't actually need a cleanup until, like, you know?
[01:06:40] Colby Zimmerman:
It it could happen anytime. Yeah. And I and like I said, I appreciate him taking the initiative. Aaron Aaron, if you're listening to this right now, and I know you are,
[01:06:47] Scott Belchak:
just take the weekend off. Come up to come up to the wonder. Come camp. Just enjoy your weekend. Reschedule reschedule for November.
[01:06:56] Colby Zimmerman:
Well, okay. Let's go back to let's go back to Old Hole 7 Okay. Which will which will eventually be Hole 7. It's a it's a short shot. It's like 250, 260 feet, and you have to throw through a tunnel. You have if you're a right handed backhand thrower, you have to throw a shot that with an overstable disc that flexes gently through that and then finishes you throw it from time to time if you decide to, but it's not forced on you in a lot of places. And you're thinking triple mando on that one. Right? We'll probably do a double mando. Triple mando I mean, technically just a mando. Well, because Even even just a right mando would do it. Right. But what we don't want is people going over the top on the left and ending up in the pasture Right. And on somebody else's property. Going over current whole sevens tee pad? Well well, both. Right? We don't we don't want people going that way. We don't want people going the other way over the pasture. So it'll probably be a double mando to force you through the tunnel. I mean, because that's the intended line anyway. And we could get into mandos later. I used I've my stance has changed wildly on mandos through this process.
And then once we get hole seven back in, so you'll play Hole 6. Instead of going through the trees to your right, you'll actually just cross the ditch to your left and the tee pads right there. And you'll throw the trees and then you'll walk back to current hole 7, that'll be Hole 8. And then what that does is that allows us to take hole 13 out. That basket becomes a position for hole one, and the far and the harder position by the creek becomes a position for hole one. I like that. Yeah. Uh-huh. It it it just lets that whole inside breathe. Yeah. Well, I was just saying I I was trying to wrap my head around where you were at spatially, and that's I was like, by one? Is that where Yeah. Yeah. 13 is the hole that kinda feels like it's off by itself with no holes near it. It and you kinda have to walk a long way to get to it, and it's it's just a little bit awkward. So so imagine Hole 1, now you get to have a basket right next to the creek, but it's like a 400 foot shot, and it's and it's not open. It's not easy. It's open most of the way. Mhmm. Yeah. And then right at the very end. Yep. And then Hole 4 gets an XL tee pad another 100 feet away, and that's and that's your and that's your 450 foot par three that doesn't exist on that course. Hole 14 gets a par four location, and that would require some mandos as well. But, basically, where Hole Thirteen's pad is now, move it back a little bit. And, if you're looking down the hole, move it back into the right a little bit.
Put a tee pad kinda in some trees. You'll have a gap to throw out of, and then you'll throw down Fourteenth's fairway, and that'll be and that'll a par four location. So it'll open up a couple really cool options for us for other holes. It also gives us options for hole three, putting that pin in farther, where right now it's just it's kinda stuck where it is. 300 feet, maybe? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. May maybe even less, actually. It's gonna be 300 feet to the right and, like, two eighty to the left or something like that. Yeah. It's not very far. It's a fun shot, though. Alright.
So, yeah, that's the plan with Old Hole 7.
[01:10:07] Sean Kelley:
That's good. That answers the questions because every time you walk by that random tee pad floating out there, you feel like, what's going on with that thing? Well and and and I've I've I've brought this I've brought this idea up to
[01:10:18] Scott Belchak:
a number of people, and they hate it. They they they don't they don't like the idea of of that hole going away because, a lot of people really appreciate that hole and and and like it. I'm one of them. I think I think that that that green right there, the way that the way that that the elevation, we're talking about Hole 13. Right? The way that that basket is shaped with the downslope, and it's got like kind of a moat around it is a perfect is a perfect awesome little little spot for a basket, but
[01:10:56] Sean Kelley:
it can be a basket for a whole one. Well, the the trees are well placed there. Mhmm. So where it forces you to throw a specific shot. Yeah. Whatever that You can't just throw that type of tree. Is, like, straight out. It's either, yeah,
[01:11:08] Scott Belchak:
left or right. But You gotta throw something That tree is that line. You gotta flip it up a little bit, but not all the way. No. You don't want it to turn because then it's gonna go in the creek. So I think I think a lot of people really like Hole 13 are and and they're gonna be really sad to see it go. But also what I've noticed is that is that people can't see through the weeds. They they can't they don't know what they what they want because they they can't see what they want, because all they can see is the disc golf course they're playing. You know? And and it's case in point, basically every time I play a new course, like, you you see a tee pad, you see a basket, you see a fairway, There is like, outside of that, you can't see anything. Disc golfers don't see anything outside of that because they're so hyper focused on what they're looking at and the space that they're containing.
And once once a space takes shape in the public's mind, it's it's very hard to have a conversation with them about changing it because it's it's it's their course and they have history with it. I mean, we're all same way. I mean, I birdied it. You know? Yeah. We're we're that way about everything. I mean, you you become habitual.
[01:12:20] Colby Zimmerman:
Right?
[01:12:21] Sean Kelley:
Well, I always I almost wanted did they not like it moving, or are they are they just used to the flow of the course? Well, I think it's just such a good hole. It's yeah. No. But it's it's also like a good hole. Because there are, like there's certain there's certain holes on certain courses where, like, I use the term taming. Like, I I I tamed that hole. Like, I know how to throw it. I've mastered, like, how to throw this hole. Like, so you wanna taint the hole. So some of those some of those holes that, like, you play on different courses where, like, maybe it's it's one you haven't gotten yet. So that's this is the hole that, like, it's either gonna drop your score or, you know, it's gonna it's I I can birdie this one. It it's perfect.
So is it a matter of, like like, what you were saying is, like, as far as habits? Like, is it something just in the idea of once you change the flow of the course, like, it kinda changes how you play the course? Or because I I don't I don't think, like, removing 13 because we always have to embrace change as time goes on necessarily. But if you to remove a whole to take, like, one whole out of a course and, like, move it, I think it's just more the idea that, like, as people play these, like, local courses and they and most of the time, we're playing, like, you know, a handful of or less than a handful of courses all the time because it's the courses we like.
But if you had to play, like, Dragonfly every day and then you took out this one whole this one whole, and then all of a sudden, like, you added this new one, they're obviously gonna not like the new one because
[01:13:59] Scott Belchak:
of just the normal flow of of of of, like, the course itself. Or or or they might love it. I mean, we're gonna see this thing with the wonder because we're changing the wonder. That's what I'm saying. Like, you so it's like
[01:14:09] Sean Kelley:
I'm so pumped to see that, by the way. But it it but it's also the same thing as, like, think about it. You get the
[01:14:16] Scott Belchak:
You are. You are. Hey. Don't lump me into what people that I throw with have said. No. I mean, we're gonna we're we're making it we're we're we're making the course a little easier and less. We're making it more amateur friendly. We're embracing the amateur up there because you know what? You look at the play counts between the the pro layout and the amateur layout that we have. The amateur layout at the Wondery gets played at at at more than double the pro layout. So we're embracing what what the public want, which is a more amateur friendly course. And that's just what it is. But, I mean, back to back to your point about about how does this change. Right? It's like, I think I think as soon as as soon as people play the new hole and they understand that, oh, okay. After after hole six, which is a very demanding shot, instead of going from there to a hole that is arguably one of the easier ones on the course Seven.
Seven, They're gonna go to a hole that is going to play very, very difficult. Yeah. And then they get to go have a reprieve. So they they have they have two hard holes in a row, and then they get another par four in the mix. I would I would look at it like step like stepping down. You go from one of the hardest gaps on the course to
[01:15:33] Colby Zimmerman:
another tough gap that it's that's bigger and and shorter. Well, I guess it's not really shorter and, you know, the throw off of six is not a long throw. And then you go to seven. And seven seven is basically if you throw a shot that didn't shank into one of the one of the trees left or right of you, you're probably at least getting a par. Right? Like like, it's not an easy birdie, but it's an it's a it's a very easy par. And I think that, you know, the the one going in will be it won't be, you know, it'll be middle of pack on on the course for for getting a par, but it'll be a very, very tough birdie as well. Yeah. Well and I think I think the point that I'm trying to make is that is that as soon as soon as if
[01:16:17] Scott Belchak:
if the new hole that goes in, if new hole seven goes in and it's executed well, and it's obvious that the benefit of the new hole outweighs the fact that we just lost an awesome hole, if it's obvious that that it was the right decision because it was executed well, the public will just be like they'll be like, thank you. Yeah. You know? So I think I think it's it's all about execution, and it's all about making sure that that it's it's dredged. To get to to get that thing ready, you have to do a lot of work. Can you can you talk a little bit about Yeah. Yeah. So
[01:16:54] Colby Zimmerman:
the the biggest thing that needs to happen on that course, personal opinion, is the berm on Hole 18. That's it's gotta go. Because that's all that's all, basement dirt, you know, that were dug were dug out of homes, you know, and they're gonna put in their basement. So it's full of it's full of clay. And you're talking about the dirt that's that's, along the fence line? Mhmm. On 18 and also behind Hummert and weeds. Behind Hole 7, or sorry, behind Hole 10 and, 8. 8 And 10. It just doesn't grow. Like, it it only grows weeds. So it's gotta go, and we're gonna take that to Hole 7. We're gonna we're gonna build that area up, and then we're gonna cover it with topsoil and plant grass there. So this initial this initial project that we're doing may or may not include moving dirt, but it will certainly include cleaning it up and making it playable. And then at some point this winter,
[01:17:46] Scott Belchak:
the city will drop off a front loader, and I'll go and I'll move that dirt. Yeah. Because because because there's there's times when when you go out there in the winter and in the spring and you play Hole 7, current Hole 7, of course, and, the entire fairway's wet. Oh oh, yes. So the the main plan for that before Old Hole 7 was,
[01:18:08] Colby Zimmerman:
the city has agreed, and we just need to we just need to get it scheduled. I need to I need to push them to get it scheduled, but they've agreed to dig a trench along that fence from about where Hole 9 comes out all the way down past the tee pad of Old Hole 7. And then the dirt so we'll dig that about five feet on our side of the fence, and then all the dirt that we dig out will be burned up on the fence side so that that water will will be forced to stay on the farmer's side. So so it only it so Hole 7 only becomes wet when the farmer floods his his land. I think I think there are times in the spring where where Utah Lake is higher and, and we get some water there. But it's but it's for it's for, like, maybe maybe a month max. And every other time like, it was there was six inches of water on it a couple weeks ago. There's there's no natural water in that area like that this time of year. So so, yeah, he water he doesn't he doesn't want his water coming on on the course either. Like, I I actually met him today.
He's apparently, he owns, like, a quarter of Lehigh, like, all all the land. He's he's he's he's an old guy, and he was like he was like, well, let's walk out and look at it, but I'm gonna I'm driving my side by side back there. I'm not walking.
[01:19:23] Sean Kelley:
I mean, is it is it is this a a solution where, like, a bridge or something could be put in? It'd be have to be huge. Well, it's So I'm just wondering, like The problem is the green becomes unplayable if it's flat. Okay. So it's not the tee pad necessarily.
[01:19:37] Colby Zimmerman:
No. No. It's it's the green and then the Fairway Of 7. Current seven. Also, like, up until you get to the green, when it's flooded, you're sloshing in water up until about halfway halfway through Circle 2. Like, 6 is just deep. Yeah. It's about two acres of of of land that just gets flooded by this guy. Mhmm. And it's and and, again, it's not intentional. He doesn't want it to happen, but he's he's gotta water his field and the water's moving. Let's plant some willows.
[01:20:01] Dustin Hanson:
He's got some right there. Phragmites back on his side of the land. Yeah. Let's just Instead of grass, suck up the water. Instead of grass, you should should, consider clover.
[01:20:09] Colby Zimmerman:
That's a that's a really good point. You don't have to mow it. Yes. Yeah. I actually I was looking up grasses for this, and that came up. But I didn't know how how long it would get. But actually, like, they they make micro clover also that, like, it stays six inches or lower. But six inches might be good for that green. You might you might want it you might want lawn darts on that green. Something grippy. Yeah. That that could be that could just be a completely interesting different new challenge, and maybe we wanna put it somewhere else too. I think I think clover is the way of, like, all this golf courses going forward. You don't have to maintain it. You don't have to water it. Yeah. Super low water consumption. Yeah. I I think every course should have it. That's what I think, but Interesting. I wonder if it grows there. That's that's the tricky part of the everywhere. Does it? Yeah. Dustin's passion about clover. It's growing it's growing in my grass right now, not far away. So Yeah. It's good for bees, man. Okay. Bees love clover.
[01:20:56] Scott Belchak:
That that that's interesting. So it sounds like you've thought of pretty much everything. It's all it all just comes down to sequencing and, making sure that the municipality is on your side, which it seems like they are. Mhmm. And and, meeting with them, it's obvious that they care Yep. Which is a which is a great thing. So, I think I think Dragonfly has, some of the brightest just one of the brightest futures of of courses that we that we have, because it's got everything. It's got municipal support. It's got water. It's got grass. There's more. So Oh, but wait. There's more. So the property is 40 acres.
[01:21:36] Colby Zimmerman:
We're only using about 20 of it because the farther back you go, the wetter it gets. It gets more and more swampy. You get close to the lake. That makes sense. Mhmm. However, again, other than that, you know, four to six weeks in the spring, it's all like, not all, but a lot of it is dry. And there was gonna be a big road going across back there. That's why we didn't go back any further. But I just barely found out. Were you there? Was it in that meeting with you, or was it was a different time? I found out that that road is either not going in or not going in for a long time. So
[01:22:11] Scott Belchak:
we have that area as well to talk about. You're talking about
[01:22:15] Colby Zimmerman:
South Of Of Hole 6. Behind the tee pad of Hole 3. And, yes, South Of Hole 6. Yeah. So, ideally, what would happen is you'd play Hole 2, and then you'd play a hole out out there, and then you'd play back. And then the course would kind of resume the same, flow. And then there's also a spot. If next time you play, when you're when you're playing hole six, when you get close to the green, look look straight south, look back, and you'll see, probably 400 feet away, there's a hill with a couple big trees on it. Okay.
[01:22:50] Scott Belchak:
Well and and a lot of phragmites over there.
[01:22:54] Colby Zimmerman:
I think there's one one, like, yes, those little sections right off the fairway, but there aren't very many beyond that. So so that's some that's something we can take care of. This is this is long term. Right? Long term pipe dream. But imagine a tee pad over there, and it's a par five to Old Hole Seven's basket through the double mando on on your probably your third shot. Sure. Yeah. Lots of stuff going on out there. Yeah. So that that that opens up a ton of possibilities.
[01:23:23] Sean Kelley:
Sounds like fun. Yeah. We'll
[01:23:26] Colby Zimmerman:
we'll see. Right?
[01:23:30] Sean Kelley:
I mean, that's the beauty of a disc golf course. It's forever changing. It is forever changing. You know? And If you care about it. Yeah. If you care about it. Like well, it's totally true. Like, I mean, mean, it's it's the only way it progresses is sooner or later, you have to keep updating, making making making slight changes to just improve the course, making it better. Some people might not agree about it. But Yeah. You're never gonna make everybody happy. You never you're never gonna make anybody happy, especially disc golfers. No matter what, it's gonna be one of those situations, like, some of the best players are gonna hate it, some of the best players are gonna love it. And it's it's all opinion based. Right? Majority of the time. So, again, it's just one of those, like, you know but I I think in general, like, it'd be it'd be great. Like, if if we just had courses where, like, sooner or later, like, you know, every every ten years or so, like, it just kinda got, like, a revamp where, like, alright. Sweet. Here's a whole new course. Yeah. Let's just fuck it up. Yeah. Let's switch it up.
Let's switch tee pads, turn them around. Scott's in charge with nuking it, taking all the trees out. We're just scorching earth, and here it is. River bottoms all over the place. No trees whatsoever.
[01:24:36] Scott Belchak:
Just out of bounds all over the place. Well, we got we got, like, six years left because I think it's four years old. Right?
[01:24:43] Colby Zimmerman:
Three years. Play. Yeah. Yeah. Four years. Almost exactly four years old. But it it's it's
[01:24:48] Sean Kelley:
it it it it's a testament to, like, Colby in general where it's like he's he didn't just build the course and then he's like, bap. See you later. Like, he's it's now, like, he's married to it. Like, he he's passionate about it. Like, it's one of those situations where he's constantly thinking about how can I make it better? How can I make it better? And it's going back to the volunteer, like, aspect of it. It's like it's it's one of those situations where it's him and another handful of people. It's the only person pulling people that are thinking about it. Yeah. Other people other people will give him opinions like, I hate that hole. I love this hole. I hate this hole. I love this hole. Well, you should do this. You should do that. But at the same point, him and, like, the the other four people he's mentioned are the only people who are gonna be doing it. Right. You know? So it's it's that it's the as much as he wants to, like, you know, make everyone happy, you you're not gonna make every disc golfer happy. But if you, like, it's just the idea that, like, it's it it should be. It's progressing. It's it's like any, like it's a business, but it's not a business, but you have to keep growing. Right. You have to keep expanding because if you if you just stay stagnant, it's just gonna, you know, flutter and go away.
[01:25:54] Scott Belchak:
But, I mean, it's a testament, and and thank you. Because like I said, Dragonfly is one of my favorite courses. Yeah. Yeah. We should we should go play it. So It's one of those situations, like I'd love to play it with you guys. Talk talk through the future plans, talk through where we're gonna put the gold pads, talk through where we're gonna put the red pads, or at least or at least do that ideas. I like to do that while not playing, by the way. Mhmm. I like I like to go out there and and focus on what I'm thinking about rather than than playing and think. Because I like to play, but I also like to work.
And I like to work, but I don't like to work while I'm playing. I don't like to play while I'm working. Don't shit where you That's funny. That's that's funny because,
[01:26:35] Colby Zimmerman:
obviously, doing it, executing it, that's that feels like work to me. But but planning it and thinking about it and strategizing around it, that's that's play to me. No. I gotta go out there and and and explicitly
[01:26:47] Nick Jennings:
just, like, be on the land and think about it without thinking about my next shot. I gotta go out there and just really think about it. K. So here's what we do. Fair enough. Because I'm I'm in your boat. I would rather play and, like, talk about it and, like, look at different things and maybe throw different shots through wherever, like, we're thinking about. Yeah. So what we do is the three of us should go out there and
[01:27:09] Sean Kelley:
or and all of us. Well well well Dustin, what are you doing that day? You wanna go do something else? Absolutely. I could throw it forehand. Hey. We'll go play the wonder. Alright?
[01:27:17] Sean Kelley:
I wanna play the wonder too. Okay. Okay. You're you're twisting a wonder. Stay here. Go play the wonder.
[01:27:23] Sean Kelley:
Well, what what I was saying though is Shawna needs to make a new course for me. We can play without these motherfuckers.
[01:27:30] Nick Jennings:
I was not trying to be exclusive here. I was just saying that I gotcha. I gotcha. That like, well, specifically preparing for USWDGC, because currently, I'm I'm slated to be the the TD for the Dragonfly Oh, awesome. Show. Awesome. And so it wasn't anything any slights against you guys. I promise. Yeah. Yeah. Except you guys aren't even on you guys aren't even on the committee. That's what I'm twisting my word. Part of the LOC.
[01:27:53] Sean Kelley:
You guys you guys aren't even invited. We'll play chase. You guys are missing the entire joke I was trying to say.
[01:27:58] Scott Belchak:
Maybe you should just start over.
[01:28:02] Colby Zimmerman:
The three of us. What I was saying, though, is that we could go play, and Scott
[01:28:07] Nick Jennings:
can come and caddy for all of us. And not all of us. Be be laden with all of our bags. And I was thinking the three of us because he can't carry more than, like, two bags. Like, he can have one on the front line. Come on. What? You call me a pussy? Cart. Cart. Cart. Front. Not very bad. Front back. Cart. Cart. There you go. That's four. There you go. So there we go. We can all go play, and it's not gonna be our bitch, our bag bitch. Nice. You know? I'm
[01:28:29] Colby Zimmerman:
but It sounds like it breaks Scott's rule though of of working. You know? Yeah. I gotta I gotta That's that's a completely different job. Yeah. Exactly. That's true. Exactly. I gotta focus. Shut up, bag bitch.
[01:28:43] Nick Jennings:
I I do have just kind of a couple of thoughts as we kinda wind down here. We've been talking a lot about change just in in our public spaces and change just kind of in general. It makes me think of, well, in my professional life, I've I've been a sales trainer for most of the last decade. And you have people come in, and they're like, oh, yeah. I'm the greatest thing to ever happen ever. And then they come they get on the phones and they absolutely suck, and they refuse to embrace the change. Right? And there's a a quote that I would always share with them, from Socrates that says, the secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.
And I think that if more people because I feel like you kind of embody that, based on the conversation we've had tonight, Colby. And if more people in the community could do that and then embrace not fighting what the old is gonna be, because quite frankly, the old is gonna go by the wayside eventually. No matter what way you slice it, what whatever happens, the old is always gonna go away. But instead of fighting that, if you focus all of that energy on building something new, think about how much better our public spaces would be.
[01:30:00] Dustin Hanson:
You know? Mhmm. Sounds like we need to get this, Socrates guy on the podcast.
[01:30:06] Sean Kelley:
I'll I'll I'll make a phone call. Okay.
[01:30:09] Dustin Hanson:
I feel like I gotta contact my medium. Over 40 or how old is he?
[01:30:13] Nick Jennings:
I think he'd be in the m p six hundred and eighty division. Damn.
[01:30:19] Colby Zimmerman:
Probably older than that, actually. I have no idea. Honest honestly, I'd probably kick his ass.
[01:30:26] Scott Belchak:
No. It's a great quote. Very, very inspiring on that. I I I think it's great.
[01:30:31] Sean Kelley:
Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. That's good. I mean, it's not everyone embraces change. It's hard to it's hard to accept change. But I think in general, like, it's there's always a positive that kinda comes out of it. You know? And sooner or later, like, all that all the negativity towards that change just kinda seems to, like, fade away. But yeah. But how much wasted energy is wasted on that negativity? You know what? Sure. You know what? I'll I'll share about Cracker Barrel right now, dude. They hate their new logo. They already went back.
[01:31:01] Dustin Hanson:
They already went back. Yeah. Universal.
[01:31:04] Sean Kelley:
But I'll get a wider name for for a restaurant. But no. Those are the those are the little things that and it's tough it's tough to be the face of change, like, where Yeah. Hey, man. If you don't like this change, like, I'm gonna go to you or for any of the other curves, I'm going I'm going to Scott or who wherever you're going because those are the people who are in charge of that change. You know what? I'll I'll I'll share this anecdote about change. And and it's it's about the it's about the wonder, and it's about the new whole one. Because I went up there, and the
[01:31:41] Scott Belchak:
with the current hole one being hole one? Because right now, it's new hole one is, with the current hole one being hole one? Because right now, it's new hole one is is over there, and you finish on current hole one being 18, then you walk back to your car. And, our our great friend Chip up there caught wind that I had changed my mind about new hole 1 and that I had reverted back to hole current hole one being hole one and then walking to new hole one. And he reached out to me and said, man, it's a mistake, bro. Chip's passionate about that. It's a mistake, bro. You can't do that. Like, I've I gotta I I feel like I gotta bring this up, but it's the wrong move, man.
Like, the new whole one is is a bold statement, and you gotta you gotta do it. Change is good. I think it's great. And, you know, like, he's he's one of the ones that, as a local up there, and you change things around, like, you think you have a whole new hole one, a whole new starting hole. You know? Like, in my mind, it's like, okay. The local crew is the ones that are gonna be most upset about this. Like, oh, you changed you moved my cheese. Right? But he reached out and was just like, it's the wrong move, man. You know? And and and that solidified in my mind exactly what what what what Nick was saying, where, you know, if if you take the energy from resisting change and take that energy into into making the change like Chip did, you will Have a hole named after you. You'll have a hole named after you. So we're naming that we're naming that hole Chip's conviction.
Nice. Sorry, Chip. Sorry, Chip. He doesn't want it, but it's it's happening. And you know what? The only reason it it's really gonna happen is because he said, no. Don't do that. I don't want it named after me. Sorry, Chip.
[01:33:34] Sean Kelley:
He slides under the radar.
[01:33:36] Scott Belchak:
Yeah. Should should we do Dragonfly a favorite hole? We should. We should. Colby as a guest, you wanna kick us off? It's gotta be Hole 2. Right? Maybe.
[01:33:45] Colby Zimmerman:
Yeah. I mean, Hole Hole 2 is my baby. That that's my favorite hole in terms of, in terms of how it plays. Like like, as as a as as somebody who's helped design the course and as a tournament director, I like Hole 2 for the separation, for the difficulty, for the fairness. Right out of the gate too. Yeah. For for the fact that if you get up there and you hit do anything other than your intended shot, you're you're screwed. Mhmm. But if you hit your intended shot, you feel like a million bucks. And you're a king. And and and guess what? It's fair. Like, it's there for you. The hallway's there. And then once you hit that shot, your second shot's a little easier. It's not easy to get to to get in the circle or get parked, but it's easier. Like, you you've got you've got more options. So I get for that reason. My favorite hole to throw is hole 18 or hole 1 in the XL position.
[01:34:38] Nick Jennings:
Mhmm. Is hole one in the XL position, is that thirteen's basket? No. Hole one in the XL position is,
[01:34:44] Sean Kelley:
a turf tee pad up on the hill back behind it as a par four. Yeah. You throw Oh. You gotta throw all around in through, like, the gap of the trees. Yeah.
[01:34:54] Nick Jennings:
Mhmm. So, like, there's that little there's that, obviously. And then there's, like, that little gap at the fence. It's to the right of that up on the hill there. Yeah. Yeah. When it's not covered in weeds, you can actually tell that it looks really nice. Yeah.
[01:35:06] Colby Zimmerman:
But it's never not covered in weeds.
[01:35:09] Scott Belchak:
Yeah. That's fair. I think I think my favorite hole is is is 18. I'm a sucker for awesome par fours, and 18 is one of the best par fours we have in the state of Utah, I think. It's just it's just perfect. You just get this bomber off the tee that you want. You wanna finish long and left, and your upshot's tricky. You know, I'd love to see some OB back there. I'd love to see some some OB separating 16. 15. 15. Fifteen's
[01:35:38] Dustin Hanson:
like, I'd love to see some some OB long on that. Like a weird backdoor spot there. If you,
[01:35:43] Scott Belchak:
yeah, go out. I'd I'd I'd I'd love to see OB all along by Hole 17. Like, I'd love to see that. I think that that would make it feel really strong. But I I I would also say that I would love to see that berm gone, just gone, because right now, it's it's really it's really awkward because you'll throw you'll throw a shot out of bounds, and then you're double penalized because you have to take your your next lie on, like, the side of a of that berm.
[01:36:13] Colby Zimmerman:
So, like Yeah. It should be common knowledge you get, like
[01:36:16] Scott Belchak:
if you go OB, you get five meters off that fence. Yeah. Well, or just put some OB line right right along the berm for now. And and Yeah. And there's a tournament coming up, out there. Oh, and shout out to Jeff Jeffrey Kronch. Kronch? Conch? Kronch? Kronch. Kronch. Jeffrey Kronch for running his first his first event out there. That's that's exciting. He's part of the he's part of the PDGA TD training program. So he's learning how to be a TD straight from Scott Withers of the PDGA. He's teaching him everything he needs to do. Is that what Scott Withers do now? Yep. Yep. He's he's an employee of the PDGA. That's cool. Yep. Yeah.
I know that. So, play his play his event. It's the only it's the only action in town that weekend, and it's the only tournament at Dragonfly this year, essentially. Wow. My bad. So make sure you make sure you register for Geoffrey Crotch's tournament.
[01:37:08] Colby Zimmerman:
When is that?
[01:37:09] Scott Belchak:
I think it's when is it? It's it's I don't remember exactly. It's it's October. I mean, it's not far away. We don't have a lot of season left. Yeah. It's it's it's early October. It'll be a good time. You know what? I will stand on the fact that that some of the best tournaments you'll ever go play is a rookie's
[01:37:29] Sean Kelley:
first tournament. Oh, there's a work day at the river Bottoms that day.
[01:37:34] Scott Belchak:
So it is. That guy just hosted his first turn. Draper open it. It was fantastic. It was great. You know? Because they because it's it's the same reason why why why the band's debut album is the best. Because they're coming from nothing, they're putting their heart and soul in it, and then their sophomore album sucks. Yep. So
[01:37:52] Sean Kelley:
go go go to his tournament because it's gonna be a great time because he's gonna try really hard. Jeff, we don't think your second tournament's gonna suck, though. It might. It might. But your first term is not gonna suck because you're gonna try really hard. We believe in you. Sean, what's your favorite hole? Well, I'd like to say one is is, it's not my favorite hole, but hole two just because you brought it up when you we were speaking earlier. It was because Hole 2 forever was like my I hated that hole. Your nemesis. But then I learned how to tame it where you were talking where it's like, yeah. Shoot your 150 shot up and then shoot your long three fifty, like, up there. And once I learned how to play that hole, that became, like, one of my favorite holes. Okay. So So once you became a bitch No. Once you learn how to play it. But it was funny when he said it, I was just like, it's exactly how I learned how to play that hole.
I was like, because I used to just try to bomb it up there. That's what I do. I would just go and crash crash, like, in trees, and then I was just like, light. Like, take it take it off, get it up into position, and then play up in the thing. But so I will say that I'll do. But I hate honestly, I think 17 I like 17 just because it's a beautiful hole. I love the green. I love shooting out of those trees, shoot shooting up into it. I think it's just like a it's it's not the hardest hole. It's not the easiest hole, but it's it's just one of those, like, just beautiful holes shooting up into that green. I like I like like 17. You know what 17 needs is a Sean Kelly boardwalk from the basket, like, around to the Sure. Tee pad I mean in the swamp. That's what I'm saying. Sometimes it's it's muddy walking back to the to the tee box. It needs like a a a 300 foot boardwalk. Another
[01:39:31] Scott Belchak:
gear? It needs a it does. It needs a boardwalk through the swamp.
[01:39:35] Sean Kelley:
But I like I I do like I I I like 17. I I love I love the green of 17.
[01:39:41] Colby Zimmerman:
I just like What's short or long or both? Long.
[01:39:44] Sean Kelley:
Oh, where it is now? Yeah. It's in the long position now. It's so much fun. It's so much fun. I I I like I like 17. It completely changes that hole. Yeah. For me, it's a forehand in the short position. It's a backhand flip up in the long position. That's what I Yeah. I just think it's Yeah. Me shooting out of the shooting out of the trees,
[01:39:59] Colby Zimmerman:
and you getting up there. Yeah. That's what I It feels it feels like you're in a tunnel, but it doesn't also feel that tight. Exactly. What about you, Dusty?
[01:40:06] Dustin Hanson:
Six. I'm a predominant four hand player. And, hitting that gap and just being able to punch one through, I've parked it a few times, taken, like, a distance driver and let it flip up and drag all the way there. On on your drive? Yeah. It was kinda cool, especially a tournament play to get one there and be like, alright. I got a 50 footer. Is that is that still in play with how tall the trees are outside the gap? Currently, I don't know. It it's been a minute since I've been there. I bet. I I would be it's probably there, but it's probably the size of a mail slot. Like, it's it's small. Yeah. It's small. You gotta gotta get it over. Well, first, you gotta get through the gap. Like, you know And I say field goal, but it's it's like a seven foot wide gap. It's a VCR slot is what I like. It is. And then you gotta get it over the next set of trees and under the set of trees that, you know, made the initial gap. Mhmm. And so it's really small. If you get it just right, yeah, you can you can get it there. You gotta get lucky. That's awesome. And so doing that once, I was like, cool. I got a 50 footer that I can make bar from. So Yeah. I shoot it once with the back hand. It was it felt amazing. Yeah. No. That's a good feeling to get that shot. Oh, yeah. It was awesome. Forehand or backhand. It doesn't matter. Yeah. It's amazing. Nick?
[01:41:13] Nick Jennings:
Probably 13. No. I'm just kidding.
[01:41:17] Scott Belchak:
Too soon. Too soon. Too soon.
[01:41:21] Nick Jennings:
No. I I probably have to say my favorite hole is Hole 8 in the long position.
[01:41:27] Colby Zimmerman:
The left. The yeah. The left position. The right the right position shouldn't be a thing. That was that was meant to be for Hole 10. It's too close. Yeah. It's too close.
[01:41:35] Nick Jennings:
But that that shot, it's that again, it's like a six or seven and maybe eight foot wide gap off the tee for about 50 or 60 feet. You know? Like, it's pretty sporadic. Like, there's trees up there. And then it's blind all the way up and to the left. Yeah. And it's one of those it's one of those holes that when you when you actually, like, get it there within twenty, twenty five feet, you're like, fuck. Yeah. I just did that. You know? Yep. No. That's one of my most feared holes on the course when I'm having a good round. When get to eight, I'm like, this will this will tell a lot for the rest of the round. It's nine for me. It's 12. Like that little tiny gap. Well, there's, like, three or four in a row there. So there's a lot of them. Yeah. 12 too. Yeah. 12 Sitting there waiting for you. I haven't tamed 12 yet. That that's that's a tough one. But That's nice.
Yeah. It is looking so good right now at Dragonfly.
[01:42:27] Colby Zimmerman:
Thank thanks everybody who's who's putting in that work. Seriously, though. Just rocking it. Yeah, Sean. We should go play. You should you should try that out.
[01:42:35] Scott Belchak:
Sean's too busy working.
[01:42:37] Sean Kelley:
Although He can't play. I have to We do have a funny story about Dragonfly. We do? About the bench we brought out to Oh, we do. We do.
[01:42:46] Scott Belchak:
We do. Yeah. I went I went He brings up brings up Bob. Yeah. I went up again. I I went and Bob Bob Bumgardner, the guy who's basically responsible for the Tetons and the arena, contacted me because he works up at the u and said and said, hey. I've got I've there's this awesome bench here at at at the University of Utah surplus store. Yeah. So I went I I went and this is this is the the the the bench that's on Current Hope. It's 99. Right? It's on 9. 9. Yeah. It's on 9. 9. The the only bench on the property. Mhmm. And so I went and bought that thing for the nonprofit went and bought that thing for $10. $10. And and we loaded it in Sean's in Sean's van.
And, we drove we drove it out there during a during Nice. Yeah. We drove it out there during, a workday because we're just like, hey. We got an awesome bench. Let's put it somewhere. And we took it to, like, eight holes. And We carried that bench all over that course. Carried it all over the place. It was the heaviest ungodly bench ever. And and and every every time we we thought we had a good place for it, we got told we got told, no. You can't put it there because the gold pad's gonna be right. The gold like, the gold pad's gonna be over there. So you can't you can't put that there because because the gold pad. Yeah. It's like, well, what gold pad? There's no gold pad. Let's just put a bench. Like, we're just gonna put a bench here. Right? So we could just, like, put it if we would just put it here, then there's there's a bench here. Oh, no. We can't put it there. There's a there's a gold pad there. So we just went, like, all over the property for this thing and eventually found a bench there because there's no gold pad. I was like, okay. Thank you. So we we just carried this bench all over this course.
What day? Finally finally got the bench there, but,
[01:44:31] Sean Kelley:
that bench will go down in history as the best $10 ever spent. Best $10. It's a big stretch. You're just so glad to see a bench when you get there. Oh. You're so glad. It's a good spot. It's such a perfect spot with trees. It's whole night. It's like, alright. Halfway through your round, you could sit down, take a break. Yeah. It's a good spot. You can contact the existence as you're about to throw down the gap, you know, and all the choices. It was a workday. We ended up when we settled on whole nine, me and Scott just, like, sat on the bench.
[01:45:00] Scott Belchak:
That was our thing. That was our whole work. We were just working, and we're just like, yep. This is all we're doing. We just carried this bench all over this course. Yep. We're not doing anything else. Yep. I mean, we had a giant impact that day. You know? We made butts happy. Yeah. For the next years or years, we made butts happy. Wooden wheels out of the way. We're like, yeah. Put it right there. Let's put your bag there. Sit right here. It was great. It was great. Yeah. So Yeah. Yep. So when you when you when you sit on that bench or when you put your bag on that bench on on Hole 9, just remember that that you can sign up for leagues, and we take we'll we'll take your $10, and we'll buy benches. Yeah. Elevate Utah. Making butts happy since 2022.
Here we go. That's right. See? And benches are for butts, not for bags. That's right. Yeah. You know? Like like, we could have a whole podcast just about about that. Like, if you're playing with a four top and you put your bag on a bench, you you just go to hell already. Already, you know? Seriously. Cardinal's like You should just be able to dump that bag. No. You just knock it off the bench. Well, you know what Sean's doing up at the wonder is he's building benches for bags is what he's doing. He's building benches for butts, but then in addition to benches for butts, he's building benches for bags. Every like, bags lives matter. So he's gonna put he's he's he's he's gonna put We need you need to make shirts now. You can't just say it. It's gotta be a black shirt, white text. You can just buy them. It just says BLM anyway. It doesn't matter. Yeah. Exactly. They yeah. So he's got he's got he's got he's got benches for bags, and he's positioning them in a spot where you can put them up and you can rummage through them at eye level. That's
[01:46:43] Colby Zimmerman:
that's awesome. Yeah. I love that.
[01:46:46] Nick Jennings:
It looks so good. Come you put them up.
[01:46:48] Sean Kelley:
The bags the bags sit at, like, 42 inches high. Put it down there. Your disc your discs are working high right in front of you. Jesus Christ.
[01:46:57] Scott Belchak:
Fucking old armor. See? But you know what, though? If if if if our poor man place 20 year olds on building courses. Alright? So the 40 year old's gonna take care of it.
[01:47:07] Colby Zimmerman:
That's true. We we said calm down. We appreciate we appreciate you. You're doing great work. You are. Keep it up. I'm just saying. Keep it up. No. You're the right person to build a course because you have experience on the blue pads and the gold pads, and now you're experiencing the red pads. Yeah. It's perfect. Yeah. Red pads.
[01:47:26] Nick Jennings:
Yeah. With his one found full wait
[01:47:29] Sean Kelley:
list. Which which which he he didn't even keep because he because he gave it back to distracted. Honestly. This is a return disk. I aced with it. I aced with it. We all signed it, and then I just was like, here you go. You can take this back. That's a pretty overstable disc too. You know? It's not like one that you're used to. First of all, we're gonna have to have a whole podcast about that because the one disc he found so we were playing I have a what was it? It was a destroyer. It was like a Barely newer. No. It was, I feel like I need to defend myself on the on the lightweight disc. So I had a I had a lightweight disc, and it was one of those things that I I chucked. And I was playing around with Scott, and I was just like, yeah. You can pick that up, whatever. And he picks it up. For some reason, he just, like, turns it over, and he's just like, what was it? Like, one? I I turned it over. I turned it over because it felt like a freaking feather. It was sounds like but it was just like a lightweight dish. It's like $1.37.
All he does was not a one thirty seven. I will defend that to the line. But he turns it over. He's like, ah, this is, what is this? And so at every every single point that I pull out a disc, he's like, ah, what is that? Like, a one fifteen? So I just keep getting shit about a lightweight disc, which is great. I accept it. It's fine. It's a it's a it's a lifelong choice I want to live with. They fly far. They fly far. Distance. Discraft. I'm 47. Alright? I need all the help I can get at distance. I ain't gonna lie to you.
[01:49:00] Dustin Hanson:
I'm not gonna criticize you. Flying disc is a one fifty five model. That's what I'm saying. Alright?
[01:49:08] Scott Belchak:
Oh, that got off the rails quick. This whole last ten minutes might just be a Patreon
[01:49:12] Dustin Hanson:
subscriber special. It's not bad. We're fighting a shot.
[01:49:18] Nick Jennings:
Well, again, Colby, thank you very much for all of your hard work at Dragonfly and kinda spearheading things Yeah. Good transition. And taking it into your own hands, and making something happen out there. It's a great property, and it's It's a beautiful, man. Scott's point, it's got so much upside
[01:49:33] Colby Zimmerman:
Yeah. As well. Absolutely. And and, again, I'd be remiss without thanking everybody who who also helped. You know? Curtis Curtis gave a year and a half of his life to that course. So
[01:49:44] Scott Belchak:
I mean The the the hardest year and a half because everyone was criticizing him every step of the way. You know? Like, woah. Why are you putting a disc golf course in Russian olive filled filled land? This sucks. Well yeah. And and at that time, everything was changing all the time, you know, know, like we're talking about. So but, anyway, I I digress.
[01:50:00] Colby Zimmerman:
I I huge appreciation to everybody everybody who's who's helped and and Sean Bagley. Ton of work. Sean Bagley's put in a ton of work. A a a bunch of people have a list too long to name names. So so huge appreciation to everybody who's helped and and the community for coming out to several volunteer days.
[01:50:17] Nick Jennings:
Yeah. And you can play in one of the Elevate Utah leagues down there. Yeah. It's ending this week, and then I'm sure we'll start
[01:50:25] Sean Kelley:
another one. Yeah. Probably be probably be be
[01:50:27] Scott Belchak:
unicorns and rainbows. I don't know. I just I just scheduled one up at the observatory that's all about, spaghetti monsters from outer space who want to come and, destroy all the disc golf courses and replace them with meatball
[01:50:39] Sean Kelley:
ball golf courses. Nice. So thanks, Chad, GPT. What you doing today, dude? Spare time. Alright. It's not spare time.
[01:50:47] Scott Belchak:
This is what I do.
[01:50:49] Sean Kelley:
This is my life. Shut up. He's working.
[01:50:51] Dustin Hanson:
He's working. Working.
[01:50:56] Nick Jennings:
Okay. Well, I think that'll wrap us up here for this episode of the Elevate Utah Disc Golf Podcast. Thanks as always for joining us, and we'll see you out there. Cheers.
Cold open and bell banter kickoff
Why the Wonder Course needs bells (hiker safety)
Bell rabbit hole: materials, clappers, and volume tests
In-store bell trials and choosing a cast-iron ‘train bell’
Noise, roads, and installing child-proof bell setups
From bell acoustics to course culture: ring after good shots
Introducing guest Colby Zimmerman and Dragonfly course
Dragonfly origin story: pitching Lehi City and funding
Volunteers, the core committee, and building the first 9
Carving Hole 2: 200 trees and creating a signature challenge
Reframing disc golf as a city ‘adult playground’
Making maintenance happen: city buy-in after a big cleanup
Becoming a city employee to mow and proving consistency
Scaling up: adding a three-person mowing crew
From ‘get a mower there’ to sustainable fairways
Debate: Russian olives vs long-term tree replacement
Where to plant: willows, cottonwoods, and test plots
Untapped wetland parcels around Utah Lake
US Women’s prep: parking, shuttles, and access planning
Course upgrades for a major: paths, benches, turf tees
Volunteer culture: why and how to show up
Pathing, the missing tee pad, and resurrecting Old Hole 7
Routing changes: 6→Old 7→current 7 and new pin options
Execution matters: selling changes to the community
Drainage and dirt work: berm removal and trenching
Groundwater realities and green surfacing ideas (clover?)
Bright future: more land, par-5 dreams, and layout ideas
Favorite-hole roundtable at Dragonfly
The $10 bench saga and ‘benches for bags’ at the Wonder
Thanks, credits, and leagues wrap-up
