Cass Benton Makes Me Sad

I went and played a round at Cass Benton the other day. Cass Benton is an awesome course with a great mix of open and wooded holes with many long drives. It is the course where I learned to play, and learned to love the sport of disc golf.
Over the past years I have slowly seen the decline of the course, the vandalism on the rise, and the garabage taking over.
The course is free to play so it attracts very large numbers of people to play there.
I went there to play for the first time this year, and it made me sad. Anywhere that you could possibly spray paint or tag with a marker it was deffinitly marked up. The signs for the tees used to be really nice now basically every single one has been drawn into the shape of a penis. I am sure that it is not really that funny. At least anyone that I have ever played with never thought it was.
The worst part is a Huge boulder (at least the size of a car) between the tees on hole 14 some spary painted smoke cronic on it in huge letters. I don't understand why anyone would want to destroy the park this way. The forest floor has no foliage on it what so ever anymore and it is just packed down dirst where the erosion is causeing all the trees to become uprooted and fall over. We need to protect our parks. I feel that this kind of behavior can cause this course to be taken away from us. Maybe the local club need to take some ownership for there course.
Playing at Cass Benton Made Me sad and angry.

[RAY :[24Chains]:]

There is no way they could pull the baskets out of that course. The base is Cement blocks buried in like 3 feet or more of dirt. They would have to cut the pin and then dig up the cement. I Agree the course needs some maintenance but so far no one has attempted to clean up the course other then occasionally dump the trash and mow the lawn. What needs to happen is a group of golfers needs to work on beautifying the course. Making the players notice that there are actual golfers that care. Because then others will follow. I would like to see a clean up tourney there. Were everyone plays with a trash bag, picking up trash and cleaning up the course.

[BogieWon]

Here in Chico we have problems with partying and vandalism too. IMO, these people are not serious golfers, but they do cause most of the "problems". Whatever happened to keeping ones habits "low-pro"? I would recomend getting the local police to patrol on occaision (or more often). I wish they would patrol our coure more. A $150 ticket for drinking usually gets a persons attention - and hopefully drives them away!

[Jack Moore]

" A $150 ticket for drinking usually gets a persons attention - and hopefully drives them away!"

That was the point I was hinting at, if these people had to start forking over $150 at a pop that would cut into their beer or weed money, plus if there was a police presence at the park on a regular basis they would tend to stay away.Ratting out people is one thing but keeping your course clean and the families that use the safe is justified in my book.

[Mikey]

it's a shame

[Brad Maynes]

The really sad thing about this is that Cass' reputation is obviously starting to turn. From playing a round with you earlier this year, Paul, I was thinking I needed to motivate myself to get out and play it. But everything I've read everywhere else about how trashed it has become has made me think "Eh, I'll play somewhere else". Sad for a course that, at least at one time, was regarded as one of the better courses in the area.

[Ben Calhoun]

One actual solution is to re-design the course, possibly using the land across the street. Multiple pin positions this time to change up monthly reducing erosion, and flush tee pads to prevent erosion around them.

[Justin Wehrheim]

1. I feel your pain, I too learned to play and love disc at Cass. 2. Pigs aren't the answer, you said it yourself, we don't need anymore trash at Cass. People are either going to have to be responsible for themselves (not gonna happen) or they will pull it (We've already lost Micheal we can't bare to lose Cass) 3. The land across the street is a cross country track course that the schools in the area use; including colleges. I've looked across the road at those hills many times planning holes in head.

[Russell]

yeah, everytime I go there it's a little sadder than the previous visit.

Really a shame too, for such a great course.



The worst part is somehow the drainage issues are the least of the worries out there.....and it's far from a small problem.