July 31, 2025 • 51 mins
We’re diving into the story of how a forgotten disc golf course in Central Texas became one of the fastest-growing, most-played in the region — and the people who made it happen. Joining me to talk about that and the upcoming Disc Golf Tournament in Leander is Alexander Erwin, current president of the Hill Country Hyzers Disc Golf Club. The club focuses on four tenets: improving existing courses through volunteer work, advocating for new course installations, bringing new players to the game, and donating to local charities.
https://www.hyzers.org
https://www.instagram.com/hchdiscgolfclub/
https://www.reddit.com/r/HillCountryHyzersDGC/
https://www.discgolfscene.com/club/10612/hill-country-hyzers-disc-golf-club
https://www.discgolfscene.com/tournament/Benbrook_Summer_Smash_2025_presented_by_Red_Horn_Brewery_a_HoTT_Points_Event
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/lean-in-leander--4783524/support.
https://www.hyzers.org
https://www.instagram.com/hchdiscgolfclub/
https://www.reddit.com/r/HillCountryHyzersDGC/
https://www.discgolfscene.com/club/10612/hill-country-hyzers-disc-golf-club
https://www.discgolfscene.com/tournament/Benbrook_Summer_Smash_2025_presented_by_Red_Horn_Brewery_a_HoTT_Points_Event
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/lean-in-leander--4783524/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi there, I'm Andrew Naudene, host of Lean in Leander.
If you're new to Texas and Leander, which is highly
likely since we are the nation's fastest growing city of
fifty thousand people or more, or if you've been here
for a while, you should give the podcast to listen
join me as I introduce you to the people, places,
(00:21):
and things that make our city an interesting place to live.
Search for lean in Leander in any podcast directory and
lean in on my hyper local Journey. Hey everybody, we're
(00:47):
back here at Lantern Media Studios for the latest episode
of Lean in Leander. I'm your host, Andrew Naudene, and
with me today is Alexander Irwin, right, okay, and everybody
calls him Zan, so we're gonna be referring to him
as Zen for the remainder of the broadcast and because
(01:09):
that's what he's used to answering to anyway. So the
reason I asked Zan to join me here in the
studio today is to talk a little bit about something
that I was completely, well not completely, but at least
somewhat unfamiliar with how far this particular subject matter or
sport had progressed and the sport itself is disc golf
(01:33):
or frisbee golf for some of us old timers. So
I had the opportunity to meet with somebody from disc
golf community and we had just a very casual conversation
while I was at a friend's wedding event, and he
mentioned to me Benbrook Park. And I was somewhat familiar
(01:55):
with Benbrook Park, but I didn't really understand exactly what
was going on with that park. You know, I'd seen it,
I'd probably tried to park there once or twice, and
I was just like, I don't know what's going on here.
But he kind of informed as to what Benbrook Park
was doing and what they were doing at Benbrook Park.
And I did a little bit more digging and found
a few more facts and figures, and I just thought
(02:15):
this would be a really really good topic to feature
as well as highlight a tournament you guys are having
in August. So the timing here is to bring a
little bit of attention to this tournament, and we'll talk
about that a little bit down downstream here on the podcast.
So anyway, Sam, thanks for coming out.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
And today what we're going to do is we're going
to dive into this story of a forgotten this golf
course in central Texas and now it's one of the fastest,
most played parks in the region. And that, of course
is the previous mentioned Benbrook Park. So if you're not
(02:58):
familiar with Benbrook Park, it is on bag Dad basically
right across from Divine Lake. Correct, So if you headed
down Bagdad towards Liberty Hill. Uh, there's a couple of
different parks there. Obviously Divine on your left, headed towards
Liberty Hill, and then Begbrook would be on your right,
(03:19):
and then you go a little bit further and the
softball park is over there, and so there's a lot
of stuff in that general area that's that's Germane to
our community. But this particular piece was just fascinating, and
like I said, I was, I was really kind of
thrilled having the opportunity to meet you guys and start
talking about this and bringing a little bit of attention
to it. So we're going to use a podcast to
(03:40):
hopefully help with that.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
So let's start simple. What is disc golf?
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Yeah, so some people might not have any idea what
disc golf is. So if you see those baskets. In
a park, a basket is a pole with some chain
suspended from it, and then there is a catch basket
underneath that is our target. So disc golf is similar
to golf in our strategy. The strategy is get the
disc in the basket and as few throws as possible.
(04:11):
And so the equipment is also similar in the sense
that we have different discs that go different distances and
have different shot shapes. So in golf you have clubs
and balls, and disc golf we only have disc and
those discs are shaped differently to like I said, to
perform different patterns in the air. So the interesting thing
(04:32):
about disc golf you can actually curve the disc two ways,
whereas in golf you can only hit straight a slice
or a hook, and so in disc golf you can
actually curve it in an s turn, which is very
satisfying once you finally perfect that co And then there's
also there's no limit on equipment, so some people might
carry thirty or forty discs, whereas in golf you're limited
(04:54):
to fourteen club So it's a great way to get
out in nature. It's has a very low impact on nature,
so that's really why I like it low barriers to entry.
You can go pick up a disc from a from
a sporting goods store for six eight dollars for a
used disk, so it's a it's a really great way,
(05:15):
low cost to get out and enjoy nature.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
So you're part of Hill Country Heiser's disc Golf Club,
which you were explaining to me what a Heiser is,
and I'm going to try to to see if I understood.
So when you're throwing the disc, if you are throwing
it at an angle, so I'm right handed, so if
the right hand side of the disc were up in
(05:38):
the air, that's a Heiser correct. And then I don't
think there's any direct beer correlation here, but it's an
interesting name, an interesting term. If it's the other way,
it's an Anheiser correct.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
Okay, So I got that right, And it works the
same way on a forehand and on a backhand.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
Okay, but it's opposite.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
So just by watching the first couple of seconds of
the podcast here or listening, you're now a disc golf expert.
You can go out there and you have some terminology
to use for sure.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
For sure?
Speaker 1 (06:07):
All right, So I mean to me, you mentioned the
barrier of entry. It's a very very low barrier entry.
You know, help us understand who usually plays disc golf, Like,
how does that break down? Who are the type of
people who play this game?
Speaker 4 (06:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Another great thing that I forgot to mention is it
takes a lot less time and so a round of
golf could take four hours, whereas you could play around
a disc golf in an hour hour and a half.
So that really opens it up to everybody. So to
answer your question, we have people in our club who
are under ten years of age, and we have people
who are over seventy years of age. So we have
(06:43):
some players who just competed in the US Junior World Championships.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
And so we also have a player who is a
eight PDGA number of two hundred and so we have
three hundred thousand PDGA numbers right now and he was
number two hundred.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
So that would be like his ranks.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Actually the time that he applied to the member of
so he was the two hundredth memory.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Okay, so like a caveman. Basically I wouldn't.
Speaker 4 (07:08):
Say that, but he is.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
He has had an incredible impact on the game. So
shout out to Neil dombro.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
That's very cool, Neil. I'm just kidding. You're not a
cave man. I don't even know the guy, all right,
so obviously, I mean I can tell from the way
that you're describing things that there's a passion there and
there's definitely something that you are passionate about. And meeting
the people that I've met so far with the Heisers,
it's very evident that this is a good, solid community effort.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
It's a lot of people.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Involved and they all feel the same way towards the game.
I mean, it's it's something that you know, I can
correlate to my life is is soccer. I'm that way
with football. You know, I've been involved in that sport
for you know, twenty five thirty years now, and you know,
I've watched you know, three four sets of young men
come through the game, right, So it's always fun to
(07:58):
kind of see that. And I'm sure you guys share
some of the same excitement as seeing people getting involved
with the game. What is it that hooks them on
this game? Like, what what's the excitement factor?
Speaker 4 (08:09):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (08:09):
I think for me it's not only being in nature,
it's the competitive aspect, but it's also seeing that perfect
flight of the disc when you release it and it
goes exactly how you wanted it to on the angle
that you wanted it to. So there's a lot of
different variables. You need to release it at the proper
nose angle and then also the proper side angle, and
so when you release it just right and it's perfect
(08:31):
like that's very addicting for me.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
I play a lot of golf.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
When you when you hit the ball and you hit
it perfectly and you feel that oh in this of
contact like that is that's addicting. But also it's about
the camaraderie being with people in the woods, you're in nature.
Disc golf courses are are usually very natural. You can
have some that are just in a park and it's
it's more a normal park setting, but typically it's in
(08:55):
a forest. You wouldn't even know the disc golf courses there.
It's running along a stream, so so it's.
Speaker 4 (09:00):
Just very beautiful. I would say.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Another really addicting part is the amount of discs you
can have, and so if you haven't perfected a shot shape,
you might be able to buy a new disc that
actually helps you to curve the shot that way. So
that can be a very addicting aspect.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
That's kind of cool. So collectors would be someone who
would maybe right.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Yeah, And there's stamps, so disc golf is also very
high with art. Each disc could have a special stamp,
and so that stamp itself is collectible as well as
the mold in the shape of the disc.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Very interesting.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
I was completely unaware that I would probably equate that
maybe to decks in skateboarding, right to where they are
all kind of individual pieces of art. Is it more
of a manufacturing type of thing where you're going to
have I don't know, you know, seventeen of the Lean
and Leander discs, or is it each one is individually built?
Speaker 4 (09:52):
It's both.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
So a local manufacturer mint discs, they have seventeen molds,
and those molds might have each of those molds might
have ten different artists stamps on them. So for example,
if you're getting the new Mustang, that could have an
art from Bob, that could have art from Sally, and
all of those different artists have different stamps on just
(10:15):
that one disc, so it's a really neat way. There's
also different plastics, and so there's there's glow plastic, which
actually glows in the dark. There's opaque plastic, there's translucent plastic.
So you can go as deep as you want, collect
as many discs as you want. You're never gonna catch
them all.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
That's very cool.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
I'm kind of like Pokemon and never catch them all, right, exactly,
all right. So Benbrook Park or Benbrook Ranch Disc golf Course,
whatever it's called. Now, what was that like before your group,
the Hill Country Heisers got involved.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
Yeah, so that's kind of our claim to fame is
the rejuvenation. So before we were involved, the park was
a little bit overgrown. The grass was actually over your
head in some areas, and there was a strip of
fairway approximately two mower width wide that would be mode
and if you didn't land there, good luck finding your disc.
(11:15):
So people would show up, play one hole and then
leave because they might have lost two or three discs
on the first hole.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Right.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
There was no way to cross the creeks. It was
a little bit unsafe. There were palettes in the creeks
to just assist with people getting across. The tea signs
were very inaccurate and it didn't give you much information
and there were no tea pads, so we actually couldn't
host higher level tournaments because you have to have tea pads.
So basically the course was more or less abandoned and
(11:47):
so then it's changed quite a bit.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
So that was around twenty nineteen. It sounds like there
had been some intention and this is I'm learning this,
there had been some intention that ben Brook was a
disc golf course. So when was it originally constructed or
laid out?
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Yes, that was constructed in two thousand and eight, and
the course was a little bit it was tweaked a
little bit to accommodate the baseball fields on the north
side of the park, but more or less the holes
had remained the same for about eleven years.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Okay, okay, and then you guys came in in twenty nineteen.
Was it something that as a club you had recognized
that this was an opportunity to improve a park or
you just looking for a place to play? I mean,
how did that all kind of transpire?
Speaker 4 (12:37):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (12:38):
So I actually spoke with the founders this week, so
I'm generation two. So the founders we had Devin, we
had Quah, we had Chrissy, we had Jesse, and then
we also had Charles and so those people actually just
happened to meet playing disc golf and then alexcuse me,
(12:59):
I didn't mention Alec. Alec was the founder, and so
he actually kind of got everything started, kind of plugged
in with each of these people, and then they basically
just saw this huge opportunity at ben Brook that was
close to their residences, and so they said, hey, we
love disc golf, this is close. This is a huge
opportunity for us to rejuvenate the park and get things moving.
(13:21):
And so just by happenstance, they decided, yeah, let's let's
do this. There wasn't an established club. They established the
club to do this, and it was all friends who
had met randomly at different courses around town.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
That's interesting.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
So the motivations there were, you know, obviously a passion
for the game, opportunity, and happenstance. I would imagine that
they just happened to live in close proximity, right.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
Yep, exactly.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
And a lot of it was some of the members
met at Wilco just one day. They wandered upon each
other and you know, CoA said, I just met them
and said, hey, do you want to play together? Because
of that, you know, who knows what would happen if
they had never met.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Very interesting.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Yeah, so you've kind of touched on it a little
bit like this transformation that you guys had had, you know, taken.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
First of let's talk about how long did it take
you to do that?
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Right? I mean, you come out, you come across this
course around nineteen Obviously there had been some intent initially,
you know, and maybe have to do a little bit
of digging to see who was involved with that process.
But you know, you come across this course that's that's
intended for disc golf had been neglected and now you
have an opportunity to you know, you know, resuscitate it.
(14:37):
So how long did that process take you guys?
Speaker 3 (14:40):
So the first work days started in twenty nineteen, twenty twenty,
and it was a very long process. At the very beginning,
we hadloppers during tremmors. It was very basic and it
was just to get the course playable. In certain areas,
the vines had grown and the weeds and the trees
had grown so much that you actually had to throw
(15:02):
a shot. We call it a tomahawk or a thummer.
It goes all the way over the tree and then
lands on the other side. There wasn't a direct route,
and so the goal of the original workdays was just
to get the course playable and so that took digging
back in the archives, I would say that took six
months to a year to really get it where it
(15:23):
was worthy of hosting like a basic tournament, you know,
where people would come out and say like, okay, I'm
not going to lose all my discs and have a
terrible time. But it was still known as like you
better be ready when you go to Benbrook.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
So so that was your goal, right, was to make
it a playable course and then eventually be able to
host tournaments or events or anything along those lines.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
Right, Yeah, I would say the goal was twofold.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
It was to create an organization, a nonprofit that supported
other nonprofits in the area, so to be able to
host events and just small meetups where we could support
and we did, you know, backpack drives and we supported EDGE,
which is a youth disc golf organization in Hill Country ministries,
so supporting the community, but then also making sure that
when people come to Benbrook that it was a positive experience,
(16:12):
and so being able to host events rather than just
people would show up once and then never come back again.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
So was there ever a point during that process or
you're just like, man, this is just too much. I
don't know if we can get I don't know if
we're going to be able to pull this off.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
I think the community was so supportive of it because
there are there are many homes directly there at the park.
They were so supportive of it, from people walking their dogs,
people who had nothing to do with disc golf, cub Scouts,
Boy Scouts, Honor Society, students. There was so much support
that we didn't really have time to think pessimistically.
Speaker 4 (16:46):
I'm sure. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
I mean sometimes you go out and we had kind
of a slogan that was, well, if you're not bleeding,
like did you even come out to Benbrook because the
vines were so rough out there that yeah, I mean.
Speaker 4 (16:57):
You had you had wounds to prove it.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
So, you know, the work was hard, but there were
so many people that showed up for these work days
that it was it was always very very positive.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
That's awesome, that's awesome. So I mean that all sounds great.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
And you know, even in a nonprofit world, there's always statistics, right,
there's always analytics, and one of the things that I
wanted to talk about because I found it fascinating when
we discussed it. Originally was just how many people are
actually playing at this park?
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Right?
Speaker 1 (17:29):
So let's talk a little bit about those stats. Would
you say, how would you obviously the growth has been there, right,
how would you define that growth since twenty nineteen? You
guys get this place payable? What does that look like
for you guys there at Benbrook?
Speaker 3 (17:44):
Yeah, So I love statistics and data. We use an
application called you Disc and so I could actually show
you those numbers. So in twenty nineteen, only one hundred
and thirty four rounds were logged in u disc and
so that kind of shows you the abandonment of the course.
Just people weren't out there. The people out there weren't
(18:05):
disc golfers. It was people walking their dog, people jogging. So, yeah,
one hundred and thirty four people played in twenty nineteen,
so you dis calculates one in five players use the
app to mark their score. So you could multiply that
by five and get something between six and seven hundred.
But just I mean that's two people a day, right,
(18:27):
That's just very very low. And then you know, just
to kind of brag, on our group a little bit.
Last year in twenty twenty four, we had more than
eight thousand rounds just on you disc. So that doesn't
take in the multiplier. So you would multiply that by
five and you would get more than forty thousand rounds.
So from six to seven hundred to forty thousand.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
That's incredible. And obviously that you disc is only giving
you a measure, right, I mean, we're using a multiplier here,
but it could it could actually be more than that.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
It could be at the end of the day, right
for sure.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
So you're you're tracking a pretty strong uptick in the
usage of that park. Where are people coming to play from?
Like are they are they just Leander folks?
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Is it just the hill country?
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Heisers, or you're drawing in people from you know, Liberty
Hill ceed of park would assume, but like Georgetown, you know,
maybe Hotto.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
I mean, where are people coming from?
Speaker 3 (19:23):
Yeah, that's a it's a great question. We have tracked. Actually,
you just released some statistics for last year more robust.
We have more than forty one states are represented states
forty one states.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
I was waiting for you to say counties forty one states.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
Yeah, I haven't even drilled into the counties. That's actually
a good question for for this next year. We also
have three other countries, so Canada, Mexico, but then also Japan.
So a big draw for that is the National Amateur
disc Golf Tour and so they host a championship every
October November, and that brings people from all over North America.
(19:59):
So people will come in as a travel destination to
Central Texas and Benbrook and Leander hosts a significant number
of those players.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
So when you talk about hosting, are these organized events?
Are these things that are on the calendar somewhere that
you know, if someone I don't know if there's disc
golf tourism, but like if somebody wanted to, you know, hey,
I'm going to play a bunch of courses in Texas,
that would be one of the things that they would
look at. Here's some events. Let me plan my travel
around this so I get to play that course.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
Absolutely, So U DISC also ranks courses by their rating
and then also by just the number of plays it has,
and so Benbrook has gone from kind of down in
the depths to now risen up. We were at an
average of three point nine stars and now we're at
four point five four point six, and so people see
that people travel and then they want to fill their
(20:49):
course asport. So in U disc it shows you how
many courses you played, where you've played them, So there's
definitely tourism involved in that. And then with the events,
so there is a calendar people utilized disc Golf Scene
we kind of call it DGS for short, and then
there's also U disc They have a calendar as well,
so disc Golf Scene and U disc if people are
interested in knowing what are the what are the local
(21:11):
events coming up? So we host an annual tournament called
Benbrook Summer Smash. We can talk about that a little
bit later, but the National Amateur Tour which I mentioned,
and then we also hosted the US Women's Disc Golf Championship,
So that's the largest women's event in the world and
that was at Benbrook just last year.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
And just off the top of your head, I mean
those are how many players are involved with those events
on average?
Speaker 2 (21:36):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
So Summer Smash we have about one hundred and forty players.
The National Amateur Tour that is sometimes over one thousand players,
and that's at ten courses. Throughout Central successes good.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
So the clarification there would be that they're rotating through
number of courses over a period of time.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Right, correct.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
And then the US Women's Disc Golf Championship that was
around four hundred players, I believe, and so they also
rotated between five courses in the Central Texas area, so on.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
An average day.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
And again my familiar with ben Brook is that I
live in the area, so I drive by it, right,
and you know, it's how do you manage parking? I mean,
there's there's not much parking there, if I recall.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
Yeah, the original parking lot was maybe fifteen spaces, and
so when we had one hundred and thirty four rounds
in one year, that was not in a second.
Speaker 4 (22:24):
Word, it was fine.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
But with the expansion, we actually have pushed south and
so we've opened up an area that's a temporary parking lot,
and so that has probably tripled our parking. But we
actually during our events, we run a sanctioned league, and
we can talk about sanctioning and the PDGA later on,
(22:47):
but when we host a league, we'll actually have people
park over by the baseball fields because we have so
many people showing up. So the first day we had
our biggest event. I went up to the top of
the hill and took a picture of the parking lot
because it was such a proud moment to see cars
in the parking lot versus what we knew we were
used to when the board members would show up for
a work day and there were five cars in the
(23:08):
parking lot.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
So this was really neat.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
So if you're parking people in this expanded parking area
temporary obviously, and then you mentioned, you know, maybe having
some people park at the at the softball baseball fields,
is it a walkable distance there? I mean, based on
so if I'm at the parking lot, how far do
I have to walk to get.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
To the first Yeah, I would say that's probably three
to five hundred yards, So it's a it's a short walk, right,
But you're going to walk two miles during your discol
plane yeah, round.
Speaker 4 (23:38):
So it's funny enough.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
It's exactly a mile from whole one to whole ten
and then exactly a mile back, so it's a two
mile loop, okay. And so the parking lot adds I
don't know, maybe a quarter mile.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
So not much it's on it.
Speaker 4 (23:51):
It's not a very terrible.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
Yeah, yeah, we would prefer if we had a larger
parking facility, but I'm also of the mind of keeping
things natural and no more parking lot.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Right, Yeah, I mean, I obviously for larger events, you
want to be able to facilitate, right, So it is
a delicate balance. Recognize that we have a similar issue
the tournament that I run in Cyprus, Texas near Houston.
We share a park with a softball entity, and if
they happen to be playing at the same time we're playing,
I've got to bring in for for security, like county
(24:26):
sheriffs or whatever off duty, just to manage the traffic, right,
because it's a one way there's only one way to
get in and only one way to get out, right. Hopefully,
I think the long term on that one, they're punching
out towards ninety one and that will make it a
little bit easier to get in and out of the park.
But I understand some of the issues that could potentially,
(24:47):
you know, arise from your parking situation because it does
hamper your ability to do those things. Not to be
a bummer, but I get that.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
Yeah, we're very thankful for that extra forty to fifty
parking spots that we have.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
So was that part of the revitalization that you guys
did that purposely or was it just something that kind
of like, oh, well, there's some space here, we can
do parking over here.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
I think when we started, we were just trying to
fill up the original parking lot because it was empty.
And so quickly we saw wow, like there's people showing
up now. And when we you know, the activity snowballed
and people were coming out for these workdays. Then it became, okay,
we're going to need to lower the ballads and open
it up. And so it was I think it was.
(25:30):
It was in our dreams, but it wasn't necessarily. We
didn't know how quickly that was going to happen.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Right, And and again, this is all part of a
real revitalization program that you guys put to put together.
You've already mentioned some of the key players and some
of the people who were involved in that process. You know,
what we really haven't talked about was like cost, Like
how much did that cost you? Because I'm assuming and
correct me if I'm wrong that the onus of the revitalization,
(25:56):
the onus of the rehabilitation of the park is squarely
on the shoulders of the club.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Is that fair.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
We talked a little bit about the value of the revitalization.
You gave me some numbers. Let's talk a little bit
more about that. What did it ended up looking like?
Speaker 3 (26:11):
Yeah, so total value all in was over fifty two
thousand dollars of added value that we have provided, and
so some of that is donated money, some of that
is donated time. A significant portion of that would be
the time. So we have actually contributed sixty three workdays
that we have hosted out at Benbrook Ranch Park. That's
(26:32):
four hundred and eight volunteers that have showed up and
over sixteen hundred hours, and so that's just labor time.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
Well, and then when you look at the actual cash value,
that would be over thirteen thousand dollars. And then we
have additional cash of that we have actually raised for
these future projects for the shade structure and things that
we can talk about later on.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
So you're organization is already thinking of working with the
city to enhance what is already at the park. Right
from a perspective of so I'll just to kind of
frame this so because I know a lot of people don't.
There's a couple of different ways that this is done,
and it's actually been it's been an education for me
(27:20):
here in Leander because what I'm used to from a
volunteer organization as far as sporting volunteer organizations are concerned,
because I've worked with a five y' one C three
for again many many years managing a tournament in Houston,
is that the county in this particular instance is responsible
for the land where the park is situated, right, But
(27:44):
there's a there's like a brother in law deal with
the club and the county charge is a very very
nominal fee for rental and the club is responsible for
all of the upkeep. So in that particular instance, we're
talking about a soccer facility twenty one fields. It's the
(28:05):
Dias Park in Cyprus. If anybody wants to go look
at it, because it's one of the nicest facilities in
the state. It actually won groundskeeping awards right because they
just do such a great job. Andrew out there with
the Dynamo Soccer Club does such a great job of
maintenance there. So I've always used that as my model. Right.
(28:26):
The reason I bring it up is because when I
came to Leander, I found out, well, no, the city's
actually managing like the softball league and you know, doing
all that kind of stuff. I'm like, that's just unusual
to me, a little bit different here in Central Texas,
and every community handles that differently. The reason I bring
that up is to kind of frame it, like, so
heisers are holding, you know, fundraisers and raising money to
(28:49):
do these things.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Could you maybe.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Kind of equate that to what your partnership is with
the city. Is it a fifty to fifty thing, is
it a sixty forty seventy third?
Speaker 2 (29:00):
What's that look like?
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Yeah, that's a that's a great question. We have a
five year agreement with the City of Leander that we're
a partner, and so it's a fairly broad agreement, but
basically just that that our our mission and our vision
is to improve these properties within Leander. Leander actually takes
care of basically everything at the park, So they do
the mowing, they do all that. What we do we
(29:22):
work with an arborast and we do some of the
tree trimming when the when the trees are starting to
grow more in the lines of the disk and things
like that. So we take great care and cutting trees,
but for the most part, Leander manages and takes care
of the entire property. And and so because of that,
because we see that, we supplement that with this revenue
(29:45):
that we can provide to buy new baskets and things
like that, so that the disc off amenities, you know,
things that are extra, are things that we provide so
that the city doesn't have to come out of pocket
to purchase those things.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
And that's a great public private par partnership, you know.
From that perspective, I think it's called the memorandum of understanding.
So I think that's what you have with the city,
and you know, I think there's plenty of opportunity to
leverage those types of relationships. And this is again an
example of where you buy outreach. And I don't know
if it was you guys who reached to the city
(30:19):
or the vice versa, or if it was just kind
of like timing, everything all kind of came together. But
I'm a firm believer that again, the community itself can
take care of a lot of these things without necessarily
putting any kind of financial burden on the city or
at least amending what the city is providing by providing
(30:39):
additional revenue, So which is what sounds like you guys
are doing right, definitely, and I get that because again
the club that I work with, you know, we spend
upwards of sixty thousand dollars on the maintenance of the
fields every year, and that's because we use them for soccer.
If it was just grass, you could just mow it
and be fine, right, it wouldn't matter. But in this
(30:59):
case there's a purpose for it. Much like what you
guys are doing with some of the facility there and
the arborists and things of that nature. I think that equates,
would you.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
Agree, Yeah, yeah, absolutely, And we have to mark the course,
you know, there's out of bound lines and things like that,
so we have to do certain things above just mowing
the grass. But Leander does a great job of taking
care of the facility itself. And then, like I said,
we just try to supplement that with these extra amenities
that make the park you know, kind of take it
to that next level.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
So you mentioned a tree, and you mentioned the arborist.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Have you guys corrected the one what you call it
the where you have to throw the disc up over
the well.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
So one thing I forgot to mention this. One of
the biggest parts of the project is Benbrook was redesigned
by Mike Olss. And so Mike ols is one of
the greatest course designers in our area right here. He's
designed Roy G. Guerrero, the Ranch, some really excellent courses,
and so when he redesigned that course, he actually redirected
(31:54):
some of the holes, and so it was whole seven
where you had to throw the tomahawker the thumber. So
that hole doesn't exist anymore. I still kind of look
fondly over at it when we pass by on whole five.
But but that redesign was actually a crucial part of
bringing these bigger events in because the way the original
course was designed was.
Speaker 4 (32:17):
With old disc technology.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
So disc technology has advanced, and so because of that,
the design needed to change, and so it was a
little bit unsafe. We had holes that were actually facing
directly at private property, and so people would throw over fences.
And so we've changed that hole and now it faces,
you know, almost one hundred and eighty degrees in a
different direction, so that people aren't throwing at other people's houses,
and so the holes are much safer, and so props
(32:41):
to Mike Ols for a really great design.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Okay, well that's awesome. That's good to know.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
I mean, and again I want to emphasize that, you know,
the public private partnership here is something that can be leveraged,
you know, again to because taxpayers are always concerned about
where their tax dollars are going, right, and that's fair,
that's notable, right, But they're also looking for those quality
of life pieces, right, And I would definitely place this
(33:07):
into quality of life. I mean, yes, not everybody plays
disc golf, but to your point earlier, people can walk
through this park. Now they can actually walk their dog
with and they can walk over the creek. So there's
an easy walkable space at least there at Benbrook Park.
So I mean, heck, I don't have kids that are
that age any longer. But if you have kids and
(33:29):
you want to drop them off the skate park and
let them kind of, you know, rattle around at the
skate park for about an hour or so, you can
have a very very pleasant walk through Benbrook Park, come
back around, maybe watch a couple of disc golfers, and
maybe an inning or two of softball before you head
back to the skate park, right, And that's a really
(33:50):
nice thing, right, And that's why I wanted to bring
it up, because it's like there's some really really nice
quality of life here in Leander that if you knew
about it, you easily take advantage of it.
Speaker 4 (33:59):
Yeah, and to build off that.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
In the past, I think ninety percent of the people
walking in the park where or people in the park
where people walking, and maybe ten percent were disc golfers.
And so now that's totally flipped where ninety percent of
disc golfers and there's still people walking. But if we
can leverage all that foot traffic and the money bringing
in to improve amenities for everyone, then that's just a win.
If we can get a shade structure and a water
(34:21):
fountain and something like that, then that's that's just a
huge win for us. And people can enjoy the benches
we put in, you can have a seat, you can
walk across these creek crossings. So yeah, it's it's a
win for everyone. And tax dollars unfortunately can't pay for everything,
so if we can supplement that, then we're totally fine
with that.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Yeah. And I think it's great that you're stepping up
as an organization with a willingness to do that type
of thing, right. You know, some people might argue that
it's self fulfilling, like because you're using it, so you
want it. But you're making the very valid points that
I try to make all the time. It's like, yeah,
once there's this type of investment from the private community,
(35:00):
well everybody can benefit from it. It's not just for them, right, definitely,
all right, awesome.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
I would say City of Leander, in the Park's Department
of Leander has put in a tremendous amount and so
I don't want to claim a monopoly of that. They
have certainly helped us tremendously, and there's certain things we
can't do, operating heavy equipment, installing things in the park.
Of course, we have to have their blessing and follow
those protocols. So the City of Leander has invested. Obviously
(35:28):
we have as well. But yeah, it's been a great
public private partnership and a great tandem between the two.
So they were able to install these creek crossings before
I mentioned how difficult it was to cross the creek.
So Eduardo, one of their employees, has built these beautiful
creek crossings that crossed the creek. Seven different times, and
(35:49):
so that's kind of my crowning achievement.
Speaker 4 (35:51):
Even though we didn't even do it.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
We wanted those done and they install them and their
fantastic and everyone can enjoy them. People walking their dog,
you can just walk straight across the creek now and
it's wonderful.
Speaker 4 (36:04):
Cool.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Well, that's awesome, And you touched on a little bit there,
you know, the city working with your club, and I
want to kind of kind of talk a little bit
more about that going forward. So let's talk about the
volunteers and the community that was involved in this. Like,
you know, again you've kind of touched on this. You
(36:27):
mentioned Boy Scouts and you know, National Honor Society and
all this other stuff. Was that as a direct result
of the people who were currently playing or were currently
playing the game at that point or was it just
some communal awareness that came about by the effort itself.
People saw you doing something and they're like, hey, what
are you doing?
Speaker 4 (36:45):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (36:46):
I think it's it's funny because some of those things
just fell into place. I'm an Eagle Scout, so I remembered, hey,
boy Scouts need service hours, and so you know, Dustin
was very helpful with this as well. We went to
a local Boy Scout troupe and taught a disc golf
clinic and then you know, that group was very invested
in the park. They actually had done an Eagle Scout
(37:06):
project for some benches in the park before that, so
we knew that they were interested in the park, so
we connected with them. They're a great partner. And then
Honor Society students need service hours as well, so there's
a need in the community and a desire to do service,
and so people came out, they saw what we were doing,
and like I said, it just kind of snowballed and
just built into something even bigger where we thought the
(37:29):
project was going to take a lot longer I think,
and we were able to get it done quicker than
we had anticipated.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
Was there a financial piece to that as well? Like
you know, I'm sure nothing comes for free. I mean
maybe your effort and your time, but you know, evaluations, etc.
We're data guys, so we'll I'm sure we could probably
get off on that, but like there had to be
and there's costs to this.
Speaker 3 (37:50):
Right at the beginning, it was just personal loppers and
string tremors and very lo fi and so after that
I reached out to one of the local manufacturer's Mint
Discs and was able to form a partnership with them.
They were very generous and donating merchandise that we could
sell to raise money for the club, so that we
could buy heavier duty machinery and so. And when I
(38:14):
say machinery, I mean tools.
Speaker 4 (38:17):
We could buy tools.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
String trimmers, hedge trimmers, things like that to actually work
on the course. But also we could generate funds to
you know, sell T shirts and sell hats and things
like that to raise more money for the course, so
we could purchase new baskets, new t signs, a new
course map. We have two practice baskets now. So all
of that was because of that partnership with Mint Discs.
(38:41):
And then we were also able to I would say,
entice people to come out to these workdays by offering
discs as a free token of our appreciation. So met
provided discs that we could give to those volunteers if
they came out and performed service.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
So Mint disc I'm assuming minimum regional player. Where what's
their kind of background are they?
Speaker 4 (39:05):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (39:05):
Mint Discs was established in twenty seventeen and they are
originally Central Texas, but now they've expanded, you know nationwide,
there's people that have a cult following of Mint discs,
so when they release a new disc, it's you know,
everybody scrambling to get it. So they do a really
good job with artwork, you know, these special limited edition
discs that you could buy to have a really neat
(39:26):
artwork on it. Like I mentioned, it features local artists,
so it supports that community as well. And so Mint
also hosts tournaments through the Hot Tour, the Heart of
Texas Tour, and so we partner with them. Our event
Benbrook Summer Smash is a part of the Hot Tour
as well. Oh okay, yeah, So it's a really tight
knit community and they do really neat release parties where
(39:49):
you can go to the warehouse and actually stamp your
own discs, so you can put it in the hot stamper,
you know, push the buttons and then the play it'll
come down and stamp the disc.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
Where are they located.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
They are over on the east side of Austin at
Austin Beer Works. It's called Spring Sprinkle Valley is the
name of the facility. Okay, so yeah, check it out.
Speaker 1 (40:09):
I'm going to have to I've been there a few times,
so that's pretty awesome. Yeah, no, now, and they have
a course there and a putting.
Speaker 4 (40:14):
Course, so all right, pretty night.
Speaker 1 (40:16):
All right. The only thing I can throw is my back,
so I don't know if I'm act putting, you could
do the putting.
Speaker 4 (40:22):
So we actually host segue.
Speaker 3 (40:24):
We host the putting league at Redhorn Brewery, and that's
been a great way for people to be introduced into
the sport. Those putts are twenty to thirty feet, so
very low intimidation factor there. Most people can throw a
disc twenty to thirty feet and it's through the brewery.
Redhorn is very gracious to allow us to use their
facility for the past three years, so we're coming up
(40:46):
on one hundred different putting leagues we've ran there. Wow,
And like I said, it's a great way to introduce
people significant others that might not play. They come, have
a taco, have a beer, have a coffee, and they're like, wow,
this is actually really fun. And then people get hooked
just because of that flight of the disc.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
Like we were talking, very very very interesting.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
There's a lot of components here, Like I said, the
collectors of component, the low barrier of entry, you know,
limited editions. I mean, this is well thought out right
from that perspective. So from a marketing perspective, there's there's
definitely you're capturing the at least the attention and you know,
leveraging the passion of the people who play the game.
(41:25):
But again it sounds like there's an opportunity to bring
more people into it. And that's part of what I
wanted to talk to you about, right because I became
aware of your event here in August. I also know
that I think it's Obsidian. Obsidian Brewery is also involved
with you guys. Help me understand what they're doing for you.
Speaker 3 (41:43):
Yeah, absolutely so, we greatly appreciate our partnership with Obsidian.
If you have not been out to Benbrook, you don't know,
but there is heavy ruf and so if you throw
your disc in the rough and you lose it, the
culture and disc off is that you put your name,
your phone number, your email, whatever it is on your
disc and that someone would actually return that to you.
So unlike a golf ball, a golf ball is fairly expendable.
(42:05):
It's just you know, it costs three or four bucks whatever.
This disc you could have had for five years. It
could have been your favorite disc, right, And so when
you lose a golf ball, that's just equipment. But when
you lose a disc like that's a tool, that's that's
like losing your driver. And so people will return that
disc to you. So we have a lost and Found
box at Benbrook, and that box actually we take to
(42:26):
Obsidian and then they host those those discs for us
so people can come back. Well, we'll text them and
then they'll come and pick them up. And then they
can also as a as a token for their for
their loss, they can get a discount on the beer.
Oh that's very cool, you know, pizza or whatnot that
they purchase.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
Right right, I mean, I'm sensing a lot of community roots,
a lot of volunteer power here. I mean, I think
it's it's it's really really it's not unusual. I want
to say that for Leander, because I find this in
Leander a lot. It just depends on the group that
you're talking to, you know, what particular organization it is
or whatnot. But there really is this overarching sense of community.
(43:06):
And I think it's community with an ass because it's multiples, right,
And I think there's a genuine want for that, especially nowadays,
like there's just so many opportunities to be divisive about
everything that there's that these things that bring people together,
and sport has always been one of those things. Sure,
and then for a sport to be again as easily
(43:28):
accessible as something like disc golf, I think it's a
great opportunity for the city and and for the community
at large to understand what's going on here, right, So
that's kind of what we're trying to do with the
segments today and kind of make people.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
Aware of this.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
So yeah, okay, so Hill Country Heisers, You guys are
obviously involved with the maintenance and upkeep of this particular park,
and you know, obviously well ingrained, well connected to the
larger p DGA community. I think that's a fair way
to put it, right, Yes, sir, you're not just managing
(44:06):
this course though, right you're you're We've talked about the
leagues that you're running, the tournaments. You know, that's got
to put some pressures on Again, I run a tournament,
so I kind of understand this piece.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
How does that look for you guys? Like how many
people get.
Speaker 1 (44:19):
Involved with managing scheduling? You know, putting together, the tea times,
all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (44:24):
Yeah, so in the past we hosted twelve events a month,
so that was that was a lot. We were hosting
about three events a week. We had a Monday night league,
we had a Tuesday putting league, and then we had
a Saturday league as well. So we've kind of throttled
down a little bit from that because that was that
was a lot. That was during COVID when there wasn't
really much going on and people there was just a
(44:45):
big need in the community for something to do and
for people to you know, just meet with one another
have fellowship. So I look back on those times fondly,
but at the same time they were it was very busy,
So we've throttled back a little bit. We do putting
league every other Tuesday now and then we still have
we do it Sunday or a Monday league, and we
(45:05):
kind of transition between those. We also host clinics for
the community. I think it's really important that people in
the community know about disc golf, they know how to
play disc golf, So we're looking forward to ramping those
back up, and then we host a sanctioned league, which
is a series of six to eight weeks, and we
see a big uptick in that because people want to
(45:27):
get a sanctioned round that works on your rating. So
if you're a PDGA member Professional Disc Golf Association, you
get a rating kind of like a handicapped in golf.
And so people are on the quest to improve their
rating and so people will come travel from quite a
wide distance to come play in those And so to
(45:49):
answer your question, those events require a lot of help.
So we have a board. We have a board of
directors that helps out tremendously. There's eight of us, and
we also have community leaders outside of our board who
come to help with the with the work days, they'll
put in time to help us during our leagues. They'll
come help set up at Redhorn for our putting league. So,
(46:11):
I mean it requires a lot of hands.
Speaker 1 (46:14):
And from that perspective, you know, are there any kind
of ideas of where you guys want to go from here,
because I mean, it sounds like you've got to me,
it sounds like you've got an opportunity to expand like
there's there's opportunities to make this a little bit of
a bigger draw if you will. Are you looking at
(46:36):
maybe creating additional courses in the city or are you
are you are you looking to add variance to the
course that you that you have. How does that look
for you guys future wise?
Speaker 3 (46:46):
Yeah, both of those. So Benbrook will continue to be
our home. Benbrook is a challenging course, and so we
are looking to expand to a different course where we
would create kind of a more beginner friendly environment. And
so that is one aspect of growth. The other would
be to continue to fortify Benbrook and to make it better.
That would be with short teapads so for beginners to
(47:08):
be able to utilize the course with greater ease. Also
a shade structure. We don't really have a gathering point
right now, and so to have a shade structure would
be great for us. And then also to improve their
restroom and to add a water fountain over there in
that area. And then we've also talked about including different
basket locations, and so one thing that makes a course
(47:31):
kind of takes it to the next level would be
multiple basket locations. So just like in golf, you change
the whole location and disc golf you can switch to
a different basket and actually you just need to install
a sleeve in the ground and then you can move
the basket to different areas. So that would take Benbrook
to kind of like the next level of course.
Speaker 2 (47:51):
So again let's circle back around to the course itself.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
You do have this event coming up here in August.
Remind me again what the.
Speaker 3 (47:58):
Date is on that August ninth and tenth. Okay, And
we do have a player party on August eighth at
Red Horn Brewery and that's open to the public and
we're gonna have lots of different fun events there.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
The Red Horn, which which Red Horn.
Speaker 1 (48:10):
Is Scottsdale Drive, scott Sale o Scottsdale, because I know
people will I mean it's not that far to the
other one on.
Speaker 3 (48:15):
Palmer, right, but we've had many people go to go
to the different ones, so yep, Scottsdale Drive.
Speaker 1 (48:21):
Yeah, and that the guys at the scotts Sale location
are really really great. I mean, that's a great crew
out there, and you know what, we frequent that place
ourselves quite a bit. And yeah, no, I know, it's
a really really nice facility. That's a good place to
spend some time. So if you're interested in doing that
and getting involved or at least maybe even just spectating.
Speaker 3 (48:42):
Yeah, if you've never seen a disc golf tournament before
and just kind of want to know what it's about.
There's going to be a very festive atmosphere. We're going
to have vendors there, We're going to have food and beverage.
So August ninth and tenth that at Benbrook Ranch Park.
You might have to park at the baseball because it
is going to be crowded.
Speaker 2 (48:59):
But it's a short walk were to establish.
Speaker 3 (49:01):
Yeah, but come out even if you have no idea
and you just want to meet us, ask us questions.
I would invite people and say just come to one
of our events. We have discs that we can offer
to people who've never tried disc off before, and you know,
just paying it forward and get people involved in the game.
Speaker 1 (49:17):
That's very cool. So I appreciate your time today. I
think this has been really, really informative and hopefully people
will get a sense of what I think is a
great opportunity for the city of Leander. And I'm looking
forward to working with you guys, you know, and doing
what I can to help you and move some of
these plans and ideas forward.
Speaker 2 (49:38):
So if anybody wants to learn more about this golf.
We've established it.
Speaker 1 (49:42):
You do some things of red horns, there's you know,
the little put things and whatnot. Where do I find
all that information? Like what's online? What are your socials?
How do we get in touch with you?
Speaker 3 (49:51):
Yep, so Hill Country Heiser's hy z e r s.
We have a Facebook group that's kind of where most
of our interactions go. Also our website heisers dot org.
So again that's Hyzers.
Speaker 1 (50:05):
So it's easy to remember. It's spelled differently than Anheiser
because that's the beer place and you'll end up there.
But I think that if you did do some Anheiser searches,
you would eventually come up with disc golf. I would
think it's very possible. It's plausible anyway, Zan, I appreciate
your time. Thanks so very very much for taking the
time today, and for you folks out there, thanks for
(50:28):
joining us again here on the podcast. What I'm trying
to do here obviously is kind of highlight some of
the things happening here in the community of Leander, Texas
and you know, paying it forward, as Zan said, just
kind of letting people know what's going on. This is
a great, great opportunity for people to pick up on
something that, again very low barrier of entry, probably fairly
(50:50):
easy to do at least kind of get around in.
You might not get a great score, but you know, hey,
golf's the same way and it costs way more than
this thing does. So anyway, thanks again. I appreciate your time.
I appreciate your time here listening to the podcast, and
we'll have some additional stuff coming up here in the
next few weeks, and I hope you'll continue to join
(51:12):
us here on Lean and Leander. So thanks a lot, guys,
we'll see you next time.
Hi there, I'm Andrew Naudene, host of Lean in Leander.
If you're new to Texas and Leander, which is highly
likely since we are the nation's fastest growing city of
fifty thousand people or more, or if you've been here
for a while, you should give the podcast to listen
join me as I introduce you to the people, places,
(00:21):
and things that make our city an interesting place to live.
Search for lean in Leander in any podcast directory and
lean in on my hyper local Journey. Hey everybody, we're
(00:47):
back here at Lantern Media Studios for the latest episode
of Lean in Leander. I'm your host, Andrew Naudene, and
with me today is Alexander Irwin, right, okay, and everybody
calls him Zan, so we're gonna be referring to him
as Zen for the remainder of the broadcast and because
(01:09):
that's what he's used to answering to anyway. So the
reason I asked Zan to join me here in the
studio today is to talk a little bit about something
that I was completely, well not completely, but at least
somewhat unfamiliar with how far this particular subject matter or
sport had progressed and the sport itself is disc golf
(01:33):
or frisbee golf for some of us old timers. So
I had the opportunity to meet with somebody from disc
golf community and we had just a very casual conversation
while I was at a friend's wedding event, and he
mentioned to me Benbrook Park. And I was somewhat familiar
(01:55):
with Benbrook Park, but I didn't really understand exactly what
was going on with that park. You know, I'd seen it,
I'd probably tried to park there once or twice, and
I was just like, I don't know what's going on here.
But he kind of informed as to what Benbrook Park
was doing and what they were doing at Benbrook Park.
And I did a little bit more digging and found
a few more facts and figures, and I just thought
(02:15):
this would be a really really good topic to feature
as well as highlight a tournament you guys are having
in August. So the timing here is to bring a
little bit of attention to this tournament, and we'll talk
about that a little bit down downstream here on the podcast.
So anyway, Sam, thanks for coming out.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
And today what we're going to do is we're going
to dive into this story of a forgotten this golf
course in central Texas and now it's one of the fastest,
most played parks in the region. And that, of course
is the previous mentioned Benbrook Park. So if you're not
(02:58):
familiar with Benbrook Park, it is on bag Dad basically
right across from Divine Lake. Correct, So if you headed
down Bagdad towards Liberty Hill. Uh, there's a couple of
different parks there. Obviously Divine on your left, headed towards
Liberty Hill, and then Begbrook would be on your right,
(03:19):
and then you go a little bit further and the
softball park is over there, and so there's a lot
of stuff in that general area that's that's Germane to
our community. But this particular piece was just fascinating, and
like I said, I was, I was really kind of
thrilled having the opportunity to meet you guys and start
talking about this and bringing a little bit of attention
to it. So we're going to use a podcast to
(03:40):
hopefully help with that.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
So let's start simple. What is disc golf?
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Yeah, so some people might not have any idea what
disc golf is. So if you see those baskets. In
a park, a basket is a pole with some chain
suspended from it, and then there is a catch basket
underneath that is our target. So disc golf is similar
to golf in our strategy. The strategy is get the
disc in the basket and as few throws as possible.
(04:11):
And so the equipment is also similar in the sense
that we have different discs that go different distances and
have different shot shapes. So in golf you have clubs
and balls, and disc golf we only have disc and
those discs are shaped differently to like I said, to
perform different patterns in the air. So the interesting thing
(04:32):
about disc golf you can actually curve the disc two ways,
whereas in golf you can only hit straight a slice
or a hook, and so in disc golf you can
actually curve it in an s turn, which is very
satisfying once you finally perfect that co And then there's
also there's no limit on equipment, so some people might
carry thirty or forty discs, whereas in golf you're limited
(04:54):
to fourteen club So it's a great way to get
out in nature. It's has a very low impact on nature,
so that's really why I like it low barriers to entry.
You can go pick up a disc from a from
a sporting goods store for six eight dollars for a
used disk, so it's a it's a really great way,
(05:15):
low cost to get out and enjoy nature.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
So you're part of Hill Country Heiser's disc Golf Club,
which you were explaining to me what a Heiser is,
and I'm going to try to to see if I understood.
So when you're throwing the disc, if you are throwing
it at an angle, so I'm right handed, so if
the right hand side of the disc were up in
(05:38):
the air, that's a Heiser correct. And then I don't
think there's any direct beer correlation here, but it's an
interesting name, an interesting term. If it's the other way,
it's an Anheiser correct.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
Okay, So I got that right, And it works the
same way on a forehand and on a backhand.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
Okay, but it's opposite.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
So just by watching the first couple of seconds of
the podcast here or listening, you're now a disc golf expert.
You can go out there and you have some terminology
to use for sure.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
For sure?
Speaker 1 (06:07):
All right, So I mean to me, you mentioned the
barrier of entry. It's a very very low barrier entry.
You know, help us understand who usually plays disc golf, Like,
how does that break down? Who are the type of
people who play this game?
Speaker 4 (06:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Another great thing that I forgot to mention is it
takes a lot less time and so a round of
golf could take four hours, whereas you could play around
a disc golf in an hour hour and a half.
So that really opens it up to everybody. So to
answer your question, we have people in our club who
are under ten years of age, and we have people
who are over seventy years of age. So we have
(06:43):
some players who just competed in the US Junior World Championships.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
And so we also have a player who is a
eight PDGA number of two hundred and so we have
three hundred thousand PDGA numbers right now and he was
number two hundred.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
So that would be like his ranks.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Actually the time that he applied to the member of
so he was the two hundredth memory.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Okay, so like a caveman. Basically I wouldn't.
Speaker 4 (07:08):
Say that, but he is.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
He has had an incredible impact on the game. So
shout out to Neil dombro.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
That's very cool, Neil. I'm just kidding. You're not a
cave man. I don't even know the guy, all right,
so obviously, I mean I can tell from the way
that you're describing things that there's a passion there and
there's definitely something that you are passionate about. And meeting
the people that I've met so far with the Heisers,
it's very evident that this is a good, solid community effort.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
It's a lot of people.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Involved and they all feel the same way towards the game.
I mean, it's it's something that you know, I can
correlate to my life is is soccer. I'm that way
with football. You know, I've been involved in that sport
for you know, twenty five thirty years now, and you know,
I've watched you know, three four sets of young men
come through the game, right, So it's always fun to
(07:58):
kind of see that. And I'm sure you guys share
some of the same excitement as seeing people getting involved
with the game. What is it that hooks them on
this game? Like, what what's the excitement factor?
Speaker 4 (08:09):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (08:09):
I think for me it's not only being in nature,
it's the competitive aspect, but it's also seeing that perfect
flight of the disc when you release it and it
goes exactly how you wanted it to on the angle
that you wanted it to. So there's a lot of
different variables. You need to release it at the proper
nose angle and then also the proper side angle, and
so when you release it just right and it's perfect
(08:31):
like that's very addicting for me.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
I play a lot of golf.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
When you when you hit the ball and you hit
it perfectly and you feel that oh in this of
contact like that is that's addicting. But also it's about
the camaraderie being with people in the woods, you're in nature.
Disc golf courses are are usually very natural. You can
have some that are just in a park and it's
it's more a normal park setting, but typically it's in
(08:55):
a forest. You wouldn't even know the disc golf courses there.
It's running along a stream, so so it's.
Speaker 4 (09:00):
Just very beautiful. I would say.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Another really addicting part is the amount of discs you
can have, and so if you haven't perfected a shot shape,
you might be able to buy a new disc that
actually helps you to curve the shot that way. So
that can be a very addicting aspect.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
That's kind of cool. So collectors would be someone who
would maybe right.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Yeah, And there's stamps, so disc golf is also very
high with art. Each disc could have a special stamp,
and so that stamp itself is collectible as well as
the mold in the shape of the disc.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Very interesting.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
I was completely unaware that I would probably equate that
maybe to decks in skateboarding, right to where they are
all kind of individual pieces of art. Is it more
of a manufacturing type of thing where you're going to
have I don't know, you know, seventeen of the Lean
and Leander discs, or is it each one is individually built?
Speaker 4 (09:52):
It's both.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
So a local manufacturer mint discs, they have seventeen molds,
and those molds might have each of those molds might
have ten different artists stamps on them. So for example,
if you're getting the new Mustang, that could have an
art from Bob, that could have art from Sally, and
all of those different artists have different stamps on just
(10:15):
that one disc, so it's a really neat way. There's
also different plastics, and so there's there's glow plastic, which
actually glows in the dark. There's opaque plastic, there's translucent plastic.
So you can go as deep as you want, collect
as many discs as you want. You're never gonna catch
them all.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
That's very cool.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
I'm kind of like Pokemon and never catch them all, right, exactly,
all right. So Benbrook Park or Benbrook Ranch Disc golf Course,
whatever it's called. Now, what was that like before your group,
the Hill Country Heisers got involved.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
Yeah, so that's kind of our claim to fame is
the rejuvenation. So before we were involved, the park was
a little bit overgrown. The grass was actually over your
head in some areas, and there was a strip of
fairway approximately two mower width wide that would be mode
and if you didn't land there, good luck finding your disc.
(11:15):
So people would show up, play one hole and then
leave because they might have lost two or three discs
on the first hole.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Right.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
There was no way to cross the creeks. It was
a little bit unsafe. There were palettes in the creeks
to just assist with people getting across. The tea signs
were very inaccurate and it didn't give you much information
and there were no tea pads, so we actually couldn't
host higher level tournaments because you have to have tea pads.
So basically the course was more or less abandoned and
(11:47):
so then it's changed quite a bit.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
So that was around twenty nineteen. It sounds like there
had been some intention and this is I'm learning this,
there had been some intention that ben Brook was a
disc golf course. So when was it originally constructed or
laid out?
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Yes, that was constructed in two thousand and eight, and
the course was a little bit it was tweaked a
little bit to accommodate the baseball fields on the north
side of the park, but more or less the holes
had remained the same for about eleven years.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Okay, okay, and then you guys came in in twenty nineteen.
Was it something that as a club you had recognized
that this was an opportunity to improve a park or
you just looking for a place to play? I mean,
how did that all kind of transpire?
Speaker 4 (12:37):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (12:38):
So I actually spoke with the founders this week, so
I'm generation two. So the founders we had Devin, we
had Quah, we had Chrissy, we had Jesse, and then
we also had Charles and so those people actually just
happened to meet playing disc golf and then alexcuse me,
(12:59):
I didn't mention Alec. Alec was the founder, and so
he actually kind of got everything started, kind of plugged
in with each of these people, and then they basically
just saw this huge opportunity at ben Brook that was
close to their residences, and so they said, hey, we
love disc golf, this is close. This is a huge
opportunity for us to rejuvenate the park and get things moving.
(13:21):
And so just by happenstance, they decided, yeah, let's let's
do this. There wasn't an established club. They established the
club to do this, and it was all friends who
had met randomly at different courses around town.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
That's interesting.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
So the motivations there were, you know, obviously a passion
for the game, opportunity, and happenstance. I would imagine that
they just happened to live in close proximity, right.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
Yep, exactly.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
And a lot of it was some of the members
met at Wilco just one day. They wandered upon each
other and you know, CoA said, I just met them
and said, hey, do you want to play together? Because
of that, you know, who knows what would happen if
they had never met.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Very interesting.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Yeah, so you've kind of touched on it a little
bit like this transformation that you guys had had, you know, taken.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
First of let's talk about how long did it take
you to do that?
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Right? I mean, you come out, you come across this
course around nineteen Obviously there had been some intent initially,
you know, and maybe have to do a little bit
of digging to see who was involved with that process.
But you know, you come across this course that's that's
intended for disc golf had been neglected and now you
have an opportunity to you know, you know, resuscitate it.
(14:37):
So how long did that process take you guys?
Speaker 3 (14:40):
So the first work days started in twenty nineteen, twenty twenty,
and it was a very long process. At the very beginning,
we hadloppers during tremmors. It was very basic and it
was just to get the course playable. In certain areas,
the vines had grown and the weeds and the trees
had grown so much that you actually had to throw
(15:02):
a shot. We call it a tomahawk or a thummer.
It goes all the way over the tree and then
lands on the other side. There wasn't a direct route,
and so the goal of the original workdays was just
to get the course playable and so that took digging
back in the archives, I would say that took six
months to a year to really get it where it
(15:23):
was worthy of hosting like a basic tournament, you know,
where people would come out and say like, okay, I'm
not going to lose all my discs and have a
terrible time. But it was still known as like you
better be ready when you go to Benbrook.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
So so that was your goal, right, was to make
it a playable course and then eventually be able to
host tournaments or events or anything along those lines.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
Right, Yeah, I would say the goal was twofold.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
It was to create an organization, a nonprofit that supported
other nonprofits in the area, so to be able to
host events and just small meetups where we could support
and we did, you know, backpack drives and we supported EDGE,
which is a youth disc golf organization in Hill Country ministries,
so supporting the community, but then also making sure that
when people come to Benbrook that it was a positive experience,
(16:12):
and so being able to host events rather than just
people would show up once and then never come back again.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
So was there ever a point during that process or
you're just like, man, this is just too much. I
don't know if we can get I don't know if
we're going to be able to pull this off.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
I think the community was so supportive of it because
there are there are many homes directly there at the park.
They were so supportive of it, from people walking their dogs,
people who had nothing to do with disc golf, cub Scouts,
Boy Scouts, Honor Society, students. There was so much support
that we didn't really have time to think pessimistically.
Speaker 4 (16:46):
I'm sure. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
I mean sometimes you go out and we had kind
of a slogan that was, well, if you're not bleeding,
like did you even come out to Benbrook because the
vines were so rough out there that yeah, I mean.
Speaker 4 (16:57):
You had you had wounds to prove it.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
So, you know, the work was hard, but there were
so many people that showed up for these work days
that it was it was always very very positive.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
That's awesome, that's awesome. So I mean that all sounds great.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
And you know, even in a nonprofit world, there's always statistics, right,
there's always analytics, and one of the things that I
wanted to talk about because I found it fascinating when
we discussed it. Originally was just how many people are
actually playing at this park?
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Right?
Speaker 1 (17:29):
So let's talk a little bit about those stats. Would
you say, how would you obviously the growth has been there, right,
how would you define that growth since twenty nineteen? You
guys get this place payable? What does that look like
for you guys there at Benbrook?
Speaker 3 (17:44):
Yeah, So I love statistics and data. We use an
application called you Disc and so I could actually show
you those numbers. So in twenty nineteen, only one hundred
and thirty four rounds were logged in u disc and
so that kind of shows you the abandonment of the course.
Just people weren't out there. The people out there weren't
(18:05):
disc golfers. It was people walking their dog, people jogging. So, yeah,
one hundred and thirty four people played in twenty nineteen,
so you dis calculates one in five players use the
app to mark their score. So you could multiply that
by five and get something between six and seven hundred.
But just I mean that's two people a day, right,
(18:27):
That's just very very low. And then you know, just
to kind of brag, on our group a little bit.
Last year in twenty twenty four, we had more than
eight thousand rounds just on you disc. So that doesn't
take in the multiplier. So you would multiply that by
five and you would get more than forty thousand rounds.
So from six to seven hundred to forty thousand.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
That's incredible. And obviously that you disc is only giving
you a measure, right, I mean, we're using a multiplier here,
but it could it could actually be more than that.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
It could be at the end of the day, right
for sure.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
So you're you're tracking a pretty strong uptick in the
usage of that park. Where are people coming to play from?
Like are they are they just Leander folks?
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Is it just the hill country?
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Heisers, or you're drawing in people from you know, Liberty
Hill ceed of park would assume, but like Georgetown, you know,
maybe Hotto.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
I mean, where are people coming from?
Speaker 3 (19:23):
Yeah, that's a it's a great question. We have tracked. Actually,
you just released some statistics for last year more robust.
We have more than forty one states are represented states
forty one states.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
I was waiting for you to say counties forty one states.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
Yeah, I haven't even drilled into the counties. That's actually
a good question for for this next year. We also
have three other countries, so Canada, Mexico, but then also Japan.
So a big draw for that is the National Amateur
disc Golf Tour and so they host a championship every
October November, and that brings people from all over North America.
(19:59):
So people will come in as a travel destination to
Central Texas and Benbrook and Leander hosts a significant number
of those players.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
So when you talk about hosting, are these organized events?
Are these things that are on the calendar somewhere that
you know, if someone I don't know if there's disc
golf tourism, but like if somebody wanted to, you know, hey,
I'm going to play a bunch of courses in Texas,
that would be one of the things that they would
look at. Here's some events. Let me plan my travel
around this so I get to play that course.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
Absolutely, So U DISC also ranks courses by their rating
and then also by just the number of plays it has,
and so Benbrook has gone from kind of down in
the depths to now risen up. We were at an
average of three point nine stars and now we're at
four point five four point six, and so people see
that people travel and then they want to fill their
(20:49):
course asport. So in U disc it shows you how
many courses you played, where you've played them, So there's
definitely tourism involved in that. And then with the events,
so there is a calendar people utilized disc Golf Scene
we kind of call it DGS for short, and then
there's also U disc They have a calendar as well,
so disc Golf Scene and U disc if people are
interested in knowing what are the what are the local
(21:11):
events coming up? So we host an annual tournament called
Benbrook Summer Smash. We can talk about that a little
bit later, but the National Amateur Tour which I mentioned,
and then we also hosted the US Women's Disc Golf Championship,
So that's the largest women's event in the world and
that was at Benbrook just last year.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
And just off the top of your head, I mean
those are how many players are involved with those events
on average?
Speaker 2 (21:36):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
So Summer Smash we have about one hundred and forty players.
The National Amateur Tour that is sometimes over one thousand players,
and that's at ten courses. Throughout Central successes good.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
So the clarification there would be that they're rotating through
number of courses over a period of time.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Right, correct.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
And then the US Women's Disc Golf Championship that was
around four hundred players, I believe, and so they also
rotated between five courses in the Central Texas area, so on.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
An average day.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
And again my familiar with ben Brook is that I
live in the area, so I drive by it, right,
and you know, it's how do you manage parking? I mean,
there's there's not much parking there, if I recall.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
Yeah, the original parking lot was maybe fifteen spaces, and
so when we had one hundred and thirty four rounds
in one year, that was not in a second.
Speaker 4 (22:24):
Word, it was fine.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
But with the expansion, we actually have pushed south and
so we've opened up an area that's a temporary parking lot,
and so that has probably tripled our parking. But we
actually during our events, we run a sanctioned league, and
we can talk about sanctioning and the PDGA later on,
(22:47):
but when we host a league, we'll actually have people
park over by the baseball fields because we have so
many people showing up. So the first day we had
our biggest event. I went up to the top of
the hill and took a picture of the parking lot
because it was such a proud moment to see cars
in the parking lot versus what we knew we were
used to when the board members would show up for
a work day and there were five cars in the
(23:08):
parking lot.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
So this was really neat.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
So if you're parking people in this expanded parking area
temporary obviously, and then you mentioned, you know, maybe having
some people park at the at the softball baseball fields,
is it a walkable distance there? I mean, based on
so if I'm at the parking lot, how far do
I have to walk to get.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
To the first Yeah, I would say that's probably three
to five hundred yards, So it's a it's a short walk, right,
But you're going to walk two miles during your discol
plane yeah, round.
Speaker 4 (23:38):
So it's funny enough.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
It's exactly a mile from whole one to whole ten
and then exactly a mile back, so it's a two
mile loop, okay. And so the parking lot adds I
don't know, maybe a quarter mile.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
So not much it's on it.
Speaker 4 (23:51):
It's not a very terrible.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
Yeah, yeah, we would prefer if we had a larger
parking facility, but I'm also of the mind of keeping
things natural and no more parking lot.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Right, Yeah, I mean, I obviously for larger events, you
want to be able to facilitate, right, So it is
a delicate balance. Recognize that we have a similar issue
the tournament that I run in Cyprus, Texas near Houston.
We share a park with a softball entity, and if
they happen to be playing at the same time we're playing,
I've got to bring in for for security, like county
(24:26):
sheriffs or whatever off duty, just to manage the traffic, right,
because it's a one way there's only one way to
get in and only one way to get out, right. Hopefully,
I think the long term on that one, they're punching
out towards ninety one and that will make it a
little bit easier to get in and out of the park.
But I understand some of the issues that could potentially,
(24:47):
you know, arise from your parking situation because it does
hamper your ability to do those things. Not to be
a bummer, but I get that.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
Yeah, we're very thankful for that extra forty to fifty
parking spots that we have.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
So was that part of the revitalization that you guys
did that purposely or was it just something that kind
of like, oh, well, there's some space here, we can
do parking over here.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
I think when we started, we were just trying to
fill up the original parking lot because it was empty.
And so quickly we saw wow, like there's people showing
up now. And when we you know, the activity snowballed
and people were coming out for these workdays. Then it became, okay,
we're going to need to lower the ballads and open
it up. And so it was I think it was.
(25:30):
It was in our dreams, but it wasn't necessarily. We
didn't know how quickly that was going to happen.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Right, And and again, this is all part of a
real revitalization program that you guys put to put together.
You've already mentioned some of the key players and some
of the people who were involved in that process. You know,
what we really haven't talked about was like cost, Like
how much did that cost you? Because I'm assuming and
correct me if I'm wrong that the onus of the revitalization,
(25:56):
the onus of the rehabilitation of the park is squarely
on the shoulders of the club.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Is that fair.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
We talked a little bit about the value of the revitalization.
You gave me some numbers. Let's talk a little bit
more about that. What did it ended up looking like?
Speaker 3 (26:11):
Yeah, so total value all in was over fifty two
thousand dollars of added value that we have provided, and
so some of that is donated money, some of that
is donated time. A significant portion of that would be
the time. So we have actually contributed sixty three workdays
that we have hosted out at Benbrook Ranch Park. That's
(26:32):
four hundred and eight volunteers that have showed up and
over sixteen hundred hours, and so that's just labor time.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
Well, and then when you look at the actual cash value,
that would be over thirteen thousand dollars. And then we
have additional cash of that we have actually raised for
these future projects for the shade structure and things that
we can talk about later on.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
So you're organization is already thinking of working with the
city to enhance what is already at the park. Right
from a perspective of so I'll just to kind of
frame this so because I know a lot of people don't.
There's a couple of different ways that this is done,
and it's actually been it's been an education for me
(27:20):
here in Leander because what I'm used to from a
volunteer organization as far as sporting volunteer organizations are concerned,
because I've worked with a five y' one C three
for again many many years managing a tournament in Houston,
is that the county in this particular instance is responsible
for the land where the park is situated, right, But
(27:44):
there's a there's like a brother in law deal with
the club and the county charge is a very very
nominal fee for rental and the club is responsible for
all of the upkeep. So in that particular instance, we're
talking about a soccer facility twenty one fields. It's the
(28:05):
Dias Park in Cyprus. If anybody wants to go look
at it, because it's one of the nicest facilities in
the state. It actually won groundskeeping awards right because they
just do such a great job. Andrew out there with
the Dynamo Soccer Club does such a great job of
maintenance there. So I've always used that as my model. Right.
(28:26):
The reason I bring it up is because when I
came to Leander, I found out, well, no, the city's
actually managing like the softball league and you know, doing
all that kind of stuff. I'm like, that's just unusual
to me, a little bit different here in Central Texas,
and every community handles that differently. The reason I bring
that up is to kind of frame it, like, so
heisers are holding, you know, fundraisers and raising money to
(28:49):
do these things.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Could you maybe.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Kind of equate that to what your partnership is with
the city. Is it a fifty to fifty thing, is
it a sixty forty seventy third?
Speaker 2 (29:00):
What's that look like?
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Yeah, that's a that's a great question. We have a
five year agreement with the City of Leander that we're
a partner, and so it's a fairly broad agreement, but
basically just that that our our mission and our vision
is to improve these properties within Leander. Leander actually takes
care of basically everything at the park, So they do
the mowing, they do all that. What we do we
(29:22):
work with an arborast and we do some of the
tree trimming when the when the trees are starting to
grow more in the lines of the disk and things
like that. So we take great care and cutting trees,
but for the most part, Leander manages and takes care
of the entire property. And and so because of that,
because we see that, we supplement that with this revenue
(29:45):
that we can provide to buy new baskets and things
like that, so that the disc off amenities, you know,
things that are extra, are things that we provide so
that the city doesn't have to come out of pocket
to purchase those things.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
And that's a great public private par partnership, you know.
From that perspective, I think it's called the memorandum of understanding.
So I think that's what you have with the city,
and you know, I think there's plenty of opportunity to
leverage those types of relationships. And this is again an
example of where you buy outreach. And I don't know
if it was you guys who reached to the city
(30:19):
or the vice versa, or if it was just kind
of like timing, everything all kind of came together. But
I'm a firm believer that again, the community itself can
take care of a lot of these things without necessarily
putting any kind of financial burden on the city or
at least amending what the city is providing by providing
(30:39):
additional revenue, So which is what sounds like you guys
are doing right, definitely, and I get that because again
the club that I work with, you know, we spend
upwards of sixty thousand dollars on the maintenance of the
fields every year, and that's because we use them for soccer.
If it was just grass, you could just mow it
and be fine, right, it wouldn't matter. But in this
(30:59):
case there's a purpose for it. Much like what you
guys are doing with some of the facility there and
the arborists and things of that nature. I think that equates,
would you.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
Agree, Yeah, yeah, absolutely, And we have to mark the course,
you know, there's out of bound lines and things like that,
so we have to do certain things above just mowing
the grass. But Leander does a great job of taking
care of the facility itself. And then, like I said,
we just try to supplement that with these extra amenities
that make the park you know, kind of take it
to that next level.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
So you mentioned a tree, and you mentioned the arborist.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Have you guys corrected the one what you call it
the where you have to throw the disc up over
the well.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
So one thing I forgot to mention this. One of
the biggest parts of the project is Benbrook was redesigned
by Mike Olss. And so Mike ols is one of
the greatest course designers in our area right here. He's
designed Roy G. Guerrero, the Ranch, some really excellent courses,
and so when he redesigned that course, he actually redirected
(31:54):
some of the holes, and so it was whole seven
where you had to throw the tomahawker the thumber. So
that hole doesn't exist anymore. I still kind of look
fondly over at it when we pass by on whole five.
But but that redesign was actually a crucial part of
bringing these bigger events in because the way the original
course was designed was.
Speaker 4 (32:17):
With old disc technology.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
So disc technology has advanced, and so because of that,
the design needed to change, and so it was a
little bit unsafe. We had holes that were actually facing
directly at private property, and so people would throw over fences.
And so we've changed that hole and now it faces,
you know, almost one hundred and eighty degrees in a
different direction, so that people aren't throwing at other people's houses,
and so the holes are much safer, and so props
(32:41):
to Mike Ols for a really great design.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Okay, well that's awesome. That's good to know.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
I mean, and again I want to emphasize that, you know,
the public private partnership here is something that can be leveraged,
you know, again to because taxpayers are always concerned about
where their tax dollars are going, right, and that's fair,
that's notable, right, But they're also looking for those quality
of life pieces, right, And I would definitely place this
(33:07):
into quality of life. I mean, yes, not everybody plays
disc golf, but to your point earlier, people can walk
through this park. Now they can actually walk their dog
with and they can walk over the creek. So there's
an easy walkable space at least there at Benbrook Park.
So I mean, heck, I don't have kids that are
that age any longer. But if you have kids and
(33:29):
you want to drop them off the skate park and
let them kind of, you know, rattle around at the
skate park for about an hour or so, you can
have a very very pleasant walk through Benbrook Park, come
back around, maybe watch a couple of disc golfers, and
maybe an inning or two of softball before you head
back to the skate park, right, And that's a really
(33:50):
nice thing, right, And that's why I wanted to bring
it up, because it's like there's some really really nice
quality of life here in Leander that if you knew
about it, you easily take advantage of it.
Speaker 4 (33:59):
Yeah, and to build off that.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
In the past, I think ninety percent of the people
walking in the park where or people in the park
where people walking, and maybe ten percent were disc golfers.
And so now that's totally flipped where ninety percent of
disc golfers and there's still people walking. But if we
can leverage all that foot traffic and the money bringing
in to improve amenities for everyone, then that's just a win.
If we can get a shade structure and a water
(34:21):
fountain and something like that, then that's that's just a
huge win for us. And people can enjoy the benches
we put in, you can have a seat, you can
walk across these creek crossings. So yeah, it's it's a
win for everyone. And tax dollars unfortunately can't pay for everything,
so if we can supplement that, then we're totally fine
with that.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Yeah. And I think it's great that you're stepping up
as an organization with a willingness to do that type
of thing, right. You know, some people might argue that
it's self fulfilling, like because you're using it, so you
want it. But you're making the very valid points that
I try to make all the time. It's like, yeah,
once there's this type of investment from the private community,
(35:00):
well everybody can benefit from it. It's not just for them, right, definitely,
all right, awesome.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
I would say City of Leander, in the Park's Department
of Leander has put in a tremendous amount and so
I don't want to claim a monopoly of that. They
have certainly helped us tremendously, and there's certain things we
can't do, operating heavy equipment, installing things in the park.
Of course, we have to have their blessing and follow
those protocols. So the City of Leander has invested. Obviously
(35:28):
we have as well. But yeah, it's been a great
public private partnership and a great tandem between the two.
So they were able to install these creek crossings before
I mentioned how difficult it was to cross the creek.
So Eduardo, one of their employees, has built these beautiful
creek crossings that crossed the creek. Seven different times, and
(35:49):
so that's kind of my crowning achievement.
Speaker 4 (35:51):
Even though we didn't even do it.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
We wanted those done and they install them and their
fantastic and everyone can enjoy them. People walking their dog,
you can just walk straight across the creek now and
it's wonderful.
Speaker 4 (36:04):
Cool.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Well, that's awesome, And you touched on a little bit there,
you know, the city working with your club, and I
want to kind of kind of talk a little bit
more about that going forward. So let's talk about the
volunteers and the community that was involved in this. Like,
you know, again you've kind of touched on this. You
(36:27):
mentioned Boy Scouts and you know, National Honor Society and
all this other stuff. Was that as a direct result
of the people who were currently playing or were currently
playing the game at that point or was it just
some communal awareness that came about by the effort itself.
People saw you doing something and they're like, hey, what
are you doing?
Speaker 4 (36:45):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (36:46):
I think it's it's funny because some of those things
just fell into place. I'm an Eagle Scout, so I remembered, hey,
boy Scouts need service hours, and so you know, Dustin
was very helpful with this as well. We went to
a local Boy Scout troupe and taught a disc golf
clinic and then you know, that group was very invested
in the park. They actually had done an Eagle Scout
(37:06):
project for some benches in the park before that, so
we knew that they were interested in the park, so
we connected with them. They're a great partner. And then
Honor Society students need service hours as well, so there's
a need in the community and a desire to do service,
and so people came out, they saw what we were doing,
and like I said, it just kind of snowballed and
just built into something even bigger where we thought the
(37:29):
project was going to take a lot longer I think,
and we were able to get it done quicker than
we had anticipated.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
Was there a financial piece to that as well? Like
you know, I'm sure nothing comes for free. I mean
maybe your effort and your time, but you know, evaluations, etc.
We're data guys, so we'll I'm sure we could probably
get off on that, but like there had to be
and there's costs to this.
Speaker 3 (37:50):
Right at the beginning, it was just personal loppers and
string tremors and very lo fi and so after that
I reached out to one of the local manufacturer's Mint
Discs and was able to form a partnership with them.
They were very generous and donating merchandise that we could
sell to raise money for the club, so that we
could buy heavier duty machinery and so. And when I
(38:14):
say machinery, I mean tools.
Speaker 4 (38:17):
We could buy tools.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
String trimmers, hedge trimmers, things like that to actually work
on the course. But also we could generate funds to
you know, sell T shirts and sell hats and things
like that to raise more money for the course, so
we could purchase new baskets, new t signs, a new
course map. We have two practice baskets now. So all
of that was because of that partnership with Mint Discs.
(38:41):
And then we were also able to I would say,
entice people to come out to these workdays by offering
discs as a free token of our appreciation. So met
provided discs that we could give to those volunteers if
they came out and performed service.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
So Mint disc I'm assuming minimum regional player. Where what's
their kind of background are they?
Speaker 4 (39:05):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (39:05):
Mint Discs was established in twenty seventeen and they are
originally Central Texas, but now they've expanded, you know nationwide,
there's people that have a cult following of Mint discs,
so when they release a new disc, it's you know,
everybody scrambling to get it. So they do a really
good job with artwork, you know, these special limited edition
discs that you could buy to have a really neat
(39:26):
artwork on it. Like I mentioned, it features local artists,
so it supports that community as well. And so Mint
also hosts tournaments through the Hot Tour, the Heart of
Texas Tour, and so we partner with them. Our event
Benbrook Summer Smash is a part of the Hot Tour
as well. Oh okay, yeah, So it's a really tight
knit community and they do really neat release parties where
(39:49):
you can go to the warehouse and actually stamp your
own discs, so you can put it in the hot stamper,
you know, push the buttons and then the play it'll
come down and stamp the disc.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
Where are they located.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
They are over on the east side of Austin at
Austin Beer Works. It's called Spring Sprinkle Valley is the
name of the facility. Okay, so yeah, check it out.
Speaker 1 (40:09):
I'm going to have to I've been there a few times,
so that's pretty awesome. Yeah, no, now, and they have
a course there and a putting.
Speaker 4 (40:14):
Course, so all right, pretty night.
Speaker 1 (40:16):
All right. The only thing I can throw is my back,
so I don't know if I'm act putting, you could
do the putting.
Speaker 4 (40:22):
So we actually host segue.
Speaker 3 (40:24):
We host the putting league at Redhorn Brewery, and that's
been a great way for people to be introduced into
the sport. Those putts are twenty to thirty feet, so
very low intimidation factor there. Most people can throw a
disc twenty to thirty feet and it's through the brewery.
Redhorn is very gracious to allow us to use their
facility for the past three years, so we're coming up
(40:46):
on one hundred different putting leagues we've ran there. Wow,
And like I said, it's a great way to introduce
people significant others that might not play. They come, have
a taco, have a beer, have a coffee, and they're like, wow,
this is actually really fun. And then people get hooked
just because of that flight of the disc.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
Like we were talking, very very very interesting.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
There's a lot of components here, Like I said, the
collectors of component, the low barrier of entry, you know,
limited editions. I mean, this is well thought out right
from that perspective. So from a marketing perspective, there's there's
definitely you're capturing the at least the attention and you know,
leveraging the passion of the people who play the game.
(41:25):
But again it sounds like there's an opportunity to bring
more people into it. And that's part of what I
wanted to talk to you about, right because I became
aware of your event here in August. I also know
that I think it's Obsidian. Obsidian Brewery is also involved
with you guys. Help me understand what they're doing for you.
Speaker 3 (41:43):
Yeah, absolutely so, we greatly appreciate our partnership with Obsidian.
If you have not been out to Benbrook, you don't know,
but there is heavy ruf and so if you throw
your disc in the rough and you lose it, the
culture and disc off is that you put your name,
your phone number, your email, whatever it is on your
disc and that someone would actually return that to you.
So unlike a golf ball, a golf ball is fairly expendable.
(42:05):
It's just you know, it costs three or four bucks whatever.
This disc you could have had for five years. It
could have been your favorite disc, right, And so when
you lose a golf ball, that's just equipment. But when
you lose a disc like that's a tool, that's that's
like losing your driver. And so people will return that
disc to you. So we have a lost and Found
box at Benbrook, and that box actually we take to
(42:26):
Obsidian and then they host those those discs for us
so people can come back. Well, we'll text them and
then they'll come and pick them up. And then they
can also as a as a token for their for
their loss, they can get a discount on the beer.
Oh that's very cool, you know, pizza or whatnot that
they purchase.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
Right right, I mean, I'm sensing a lot of community roots,
a lot of volunteer power here. I mean, I think
it's it's it's really really it's not unusual. I want
to say that for Leander, because I find this in
Leander a lot. It just depends on the group that
you're talking to, you know, what particular organization it is
or whatnot. But there really is this overarching sense of community.
(43:06):
And I think it's community with an ass because it's multiples, right,
And I think there's a genuine want for that, especially nowadays,
like there's just so many opportunities to be divisive about
everything that there's that these things that bring people together,
and sport has always been one of those things. Sure,
and then for a sport to be again as easily
(43:28):
accessible as something like disc golf, I think it's a
great opportunity for the city and and for the community
at large to understand what's going on here, right, So
that's kind of what we're trying to do with the
segments today and kind of make people.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
Aware of this.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
So yeah, okay, so Hill Country Heisers, You guys are
obviously involved with the maintenance and upkeep of this particular park,
and you know, obviously well ingrained, well connected to the
larger p DGA community. I think that's a fair way
to put it, right, Yes, sir, you're not just managing
(44:06):
this course though, right you're you're We've talked about the
leagues that you're running, the tournaments. You know, that's got
to put some pressures on Again, I run a tournament,
so I kind of understand this piece.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
How does that look for you guys? Like how many
people get.
Speaker 1 (44:19):
Involved with managing scheduling? You know, putting together, the tea times,
all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (44:24):
Yeah, so in the past we hosted twelve events a month,
so that was that was a lot. We were hosting
about three events a week. We had a Monday night league,
we had a Tuesday putting league, and then we had
a Saturday league as well. So we've kind of throttled
down a little bit from that because that was that
was a lot. That was during COVID when there wasn't
really much going on and people there was just a
(44:45):
big need in the community for something to do and
for people to you know, just meet with one another
have fellowship. So I look back on those times fondly,
but at the same time they were it was very busy,
So we've throttled back a little bit. We do putting
league every other Tuesday now and then we still have
we do it Sunday or a Monday league, and we
(45:05):
kind of transition between those. We also host clinics for
the community. I think it's really important that people in
the community know about disc golf, they know how to
play disc golf, So we're looking forward to ramping those
back up, and then we host a sanctioned league, which
is a series of six to eight weeks, and we
see a big uptick in that because people want to
(45:27):
get a sanctioned round that works on your rating. So
if you're a PDGA member Professional Disc Golf Association, you
get a rating kind of like a handicapped in golf.
And so people are on the quest to improve their
rating and so people will come travel from quite a
wide distance to come play in those And so to
(45:49):
answer your question, those events require a lot of help.
So we have a board. We have a board of
directors that helps out tremendously. There's eight of us, and
we also have community leaders outside of our board who
come to help with the with the work days, they'll
put in time to help us during our leagues. They'll
come help set up at Redhorn for our putting league. So,
(46:11):
I mean it requires a lot of hands.
Speaker 1 (46:14):
And from that perspective, you know, are there any kind
of ideas of where you guys want to go from here,
because I mean, it sounds like you've got to me,
it sounds like you've got an opportunity to expand like
there's there's opportunities to make this a little bit of
a bigger draw if you will. Are you looking at
(46:36):
maybe creating additional courses in the city or are you
are you are you looking to add variance to the
course that you that you have. How does that look
for you guys future wise?
Speaker 3 (46:46):
Yeah, both of those. So Benbrook will continue to be
our home. Benbrook is a challenging course, and so we
are looking to expand to a different course where we
would create kind of a more beginner friendly environment. And
so that is one aspect of growth. The other would
be to continue to fortify Benbrook and to make it better.
That would be with short teapads so for beginners to
(47:08):
be able to utilize the course with greater ease. Also
a shade structure. We don't really have a gathering point
right now, and so to have a shade structure would
be great for us. And then also to improve their
restroom and to add a water fountain over there in
that area. And then we've also talked about including different
basket locations, and so one thing that makes a course
(47:31):
kind of takes it to the next level would be
multiple basket locations. So just like in golf, you change
the whole location and disc golf you can switch to
a different basket and actually you just need to install
a sleeve in the ground and then you can move
the basket to different areas. So that would take Benbrook
to kind of like the next level of course.
Speaker 2 (47:51):
So again let's circle back around to the course itself.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
You do have this event coming up here in August.
Remind me again what the.
Speaker 3 (47:58):
Date is on that August ninth and tenth. Okay, And
we do have a player party on August eighth at
Red Horn Brewery and that's open to the public and
we're gonna have lots of different fun events there.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
The Red Horn, which which Red Horn.
Speaker 1 (48:10):
Is Scottsdale Drive, scott Sale o Scottsdale, because I know
people will I mean it's not that far to the
other one on.
Speaker 3 (48:15):
Palmer, right, but we've had many people go to go
to the different ones, so yep, Scottsdale Drive.
Speaker 1 (48:21):
Yeah, and that the guys at the scotts Sale location
are really really great. I mean, that's a great crew
out there, and you know what, we frequent that place
ourselves quite a bit. And yeah, no, I know, it's
a really really nice facility. That's a good place to
spend some time. So if you're interested in doing that
and getting involved or at least maybe even just spectating.
Speaker 3 (48:42):
Yeah, if you've never seen a disc golf tournament before
and just kind of want to know what it's about.
There's going to be a very festive atmosphere. We're going
to have vendors there, We're going to have food and beverage.
So August ninth and tenth that at Benbrook Ranch Park.
You might have to park at the baseball because it
is going to be crowded.
Speaker 2 (48:59):
But it's a short walk were to establish.
Speaker 3 (49:01):
Yeah, but come out even if you have no idea
and you just want to meet us, ask us questions.
I would invite people and say just come to one
of our events. We have discs that we can offer
to people who've never tried disc off before, and you know,
just paying it forward and get people involved in the game.
Speaker 1 (49:17):
That's very cool. So I appreciate your time today. I
think this has been really, really informative and hopefully people
will get a sense of what I think is a
great opportunity for the city of Leander. And I'm looking
forward to working with you guys, you know, and doing
what I can to help you and move some of
these plans and ideas forward.
Speaker 2 (49:38):
So if anybody wants to learn more about this golf.
We've established it.
Speaker 1 (49:42):
You do some things of red horns, there's you know,
the little put things and whatnot. Where do I find
all that information? Like what's online? What are your socials?
How do we get in touch with you?
Speaker 3 (49:51):
Yep, so Hill Country Heiser's hy z e r s.
We have a Facebook group that's kind of where most
of our interactions go. Also our website heisers dot org.
So again that's Hyzers.
Speaker 1 (50:05):
So it's easy to remember. It's spelled differently than Anheiser
because that's the beer place and you'll end up there.
But I think that if you did do some Anheiser searches,
you would eventually come up with disc golf. I would
think it's very possible. It's plausible anyway, Zan, I appreciate
your time. Thanks so very very much for taking the
time today, and for you folks out there, thanks for
(50:28):
joining us again here on the podcast. What I'm trying
to do here obviously is kind of highlight some of
the things happening here in the community of Leander, Texas
and you know, paying it forward, as Zan said, just
kind of letting people know what's going on. This is
a great, great opportunity for people to pick up on
something that, again very low barrier of entry, probably fairly
(50:50):
easy to do at least kind of get around in.
You might not get a great score, but you know, hey,
golf's the same way and it costs way more than
this thing does. So anyway, thanks again. I appreciate your time.
I appreciate your time here listening to the podcast, and
we'll have some additional stuff coming up here in the
next few weeks, and I hope you'll continue to join
(51:12):
us here on Lean and Leander. So thanks a lot, guys,
we'll see you next time.
Popular Podcasts
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com