Harcrest Park’s disc golf course to be torn out, replaced
PENN TWP — As part of ongoing improvements to Harcrest Park, the park’s nine-hole disc golf course will be removed and replaced with an improved 18-hole course designed with input from disc golf enthusiasts.
The redesign of the course was approved during the monthly board of supervisors meeting Tuesday night, Sept. 9.
Disc golf enthusiast and township resident Cody Winget, who helped design the new course, was present, as well as at a Parks and Recreation committee meeting on Aug. 21, when he and Cameron Weber proposed the plans for the course to the township.
“Those gentlemen go around playing different courses, and they had some suggestions for improvements to the course that’s there,” Supervisor Douglas Roth said. “They expressed some interest in changing things around, and after some discussion, they came up with a plan, and we OK’d it.”
“It’s not that there’s anything wrong,” Winget said. “There’s just things that we can make better. We want to make disc golf as safe as possible for everybody. We want to make sure that things are installed to the industry standard.”
Roth, who is also on the parks committee, said construction of the new course would cost the township next to nothing, and the disc golf community would take care of the costs.
Winget told supervisors the new course would be a substantial improvement over the current one for enthusiastic players such as himself.
“We want to put in new, professionally installed tee pads for all 18 holes and new baskets as well,” Winget said. “We also want to move some of the holes away from where the benches are installed to promote player flow and give the opportunity for more players to play the course.”
The original nine-hole disc golf course was installed in 2017 by Ian Gumto of Scout Troop 53 as an Eagle Scout project. According to minutes from the August parks meeting, Gumto “attended the meeting and expressed enthusiasm for the new course.”
“We want to pay homage to Ian and all the previous sponsors that helped bring the course in originally,” Winget said.
Roth said other improvements are coming to Harcrest Park in the near future.
“We have a shade shelter we’re going to put up,” Roth said. “It’s 20 feet by 20 feet. It was delivered, but we still have to erect it.”
The park is also planning to add 44 trees — including dogwood, red maple, black gum, and sweet bay magnolia — to beautify the ellipse area of the park. The trees are due to be delivered sometime this fall.
