Published: June 08, 2009 08:38 am      

Disc golf course opens at Miller Park

By Bobbie Poynter / Community Editor

As a disc golf course designer, H.B. Clark, of the HBC Group, LLC, out of Bowling Green, first looks at the beauty of the surrounding area in which he plans to build a course. In Miller Park, Clark saw six to seven acres of rolling woodland beauty coming at him from all directions.

“God made the course,” Clark quoted of his favorite golf course architect, Arnold Palmer. “He just didn’t tell me where to put the holes.”

The ‘holes’ in this case are large metal baskets on a pole draped by loose chains. The ‘tee box’ is a rectangular concrete slab for the player to stand and shoot his first ‘drive’ down the fairway.

The new nine-hole Par 3 Miller Park Disc Golf Course held its official ribbon-cutting ceremony Friday. Among those in attendance were Mayor Willard McBurney, members of the Corbin Chamber of Commerce, representatives of those businesses sponsoring holes on the course, and members of the community, who were there to get their first look at the beautiful course winding through the woods of Miller Park.

The course designer took special care not to disturb the properties of the surrounding homes in the design of the course and planned it so that the direction of the greens and fairways lead away from the residential properties.

“This new disc golf course is free to the community and will be open from daylight to dark, year round,” said Marlan Sams, director of the Corbin Recreation Center. “As with any golf course, we would expect the players to respect the privacy of the surrounding neighborhood.”

To date, six of the nine holes are sponsored at $200 a year. The sponsorships help with the maintenance and upkeep of the course.

The Corbin Recreation Center thanked its current sponsors: W.D. Bryant, Lowe’s Sporting Goods, Corbin Materials, Beef O’Brady’s, Planet Earth PC and Vangent. The group extended an invitation to other businesses or organizations in the community to sponsor a hole.

Anyone wishing to try their hand at disc golf can find a selection of Frisbees, including a disc golf set complete with ‘fairway driver,’ mid-range disc and ‘putter’ at Lowe’s Sporting Goods.