Service: Design and Installation
Location: Private Residence
City: Portland, ME
Status: Complete

Design Overview

The Big Idea for the design of this private residence was to take advantage of the entire backyard by moving users to the far reaches of the property. The clients wanted to bring disc golf into the lives of their friends and family through a small installation on their property in Southern Maine. With just under an acre to work with, and an extremely tight budget, Explore Disc Golf came up with the specifications for a home made basket and a four hole course, known as The Par 8.

The client’s house enjoys views over their open front lawn that is setback 30 feet from the lightly traveled roadway, while the back yard is completely fenced in with moderate vegetation along the Northwestern edge. In addition to the main house, a sun room leads to a deck with a trellis overhanging a hot tub. A small patio with a fireplace connects the sun room to the garage, while providing an enclosed space for residents to enjoy the views and sounds of the trickling stream that runs throughout the wooded section of their backyard.

With several enclaves on the property, the design maximized the space on the property by reaching back to the house as far as it could. Tucked in by the fence line and running adjacent to the sun room and trellis, the first hole skirts between these two “walls” and under the “ceiling” of pine branches at the wood line. A mandatory forces players to throw straight down the guanlet with OB lying just over the fence to the left. The longest hole on the property, the second hole begins on the patio and demands a low, penetrating disc flight that avoids the low branches yet gets all the way back to the basket. The tightest hole on the courses is the third, which forgives few poorly thrown discs. An uphill, screaming hyzer is needed to skirt through the tight row of pine trees, while straightening out enough to avoid the fence that protects the first hole. The fourth hole requires a large sweeping “S” flight pattern that traverses the on-site stream, yet avoids OB right.

We’re extremely excited to be working on several different scales of design work, and look forward to another project like this. The client was extremely happy with the connectivity, shot selection, use of on-site features, and that fact that we could meet their budget. We offer a variety of Innova products, in terms of baskets and discs, but never discourage the use of home made baskets. This project has gotten significant use since installation, so much so that the clients contacted us again to install three baskets at their camp in Central Maine.