PORT ANGELES — Clallam County will build an 18-hole disc golf course on the Miller Peninsula east of Sequim Bay.
Parks, Fair and Facilities Director Joel Winborn, meeting with the three county commissioners Monday, relayed a unanimous recommendation of the parks advisory board to build the course on a 20-acre site off Thompson Road.
No commissioner objected to the disc golf proposal, although Commissioner Mike Doherty said he would have preferred a site closer to Sequim.
“I’m a supporter of disc golf, for sure,” he added.
The county-owned Thompson Road property is about 9 miles from Sequim and a half-mile north of the intersection of Old Blyn Highway and Thompson Road.
“This has been an ongoing proposal with the park board for many years now,” Winborn said of disc golf.
“We’re looking for your blessing to move forward on this proposal.”
The idea of a Clallam County disc golf park surfaced in 2007 with a proposal to put an 18-hole course at Robin Hill Farm County Park west of Sequim.
That proposal was taken off the table after it was met with strong opposition from neighbors.
Commissioners in 2010 added disc golf as an accepted use in the parks and recreation master plan, except at Robin Hill Farm.
“I, for one, think it’s time to move this ahead,” Commissioner Jim McEntire said of the Thompson Road park.
Clallam County has owned the 40-acre Thompson Road property since 1928. The county plans to convert the northern half of the parcel into a tree-lined disc golf course by the end of this year.
“That would be our goal,” county Parks and Fair Supervisor Bruce Giddens said in a telephone interview.
The estimated $13,700 cost was approved in the 2014 budget in a real estate excise tax fund.
The cost includes metal chains for the disc golf “holes,” signs and concrete slabs.
The county is hoping for volunteer labor and equipment to help build the course.
Some of the trees in the 20-foot-wide fairways will have to be removed, Winborn said. The trees will be chipped up and used as a trail that traverses the fairways.
The object of disc golf — also known as Frisbee golf — is to land a disc into a raised basket “hole.”
Giddens said the free course will provide low-cost family entertainment to citizens.
A public disc golf course exists at Lincoln Park in the city of Port Angeles.
Smaller private courses are located near Carlsborg and in Chimacum, Giddens said.
County officials say disc golf has seen a 12 percent to 15 percent annual growth nationwide during the past decade.
There were 94 disc golf courses in Washington state — 64 public and 30 private — as of last year, according to the county parks department.
Winborn said disc golfers are “champing at the bit” for a new course on the East End.
A 52-page report on the Thompson Road disc golf course is available on the Clallam County parks website at www.clallam.net/Parks.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5072, or at rollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
