After nearly two years of work, the Airdrie 4-H Helping Hands club is ready to host the grand opening of Crossfield’s first nine-hole disc golf course.
“We are so excited,” said Mark Lang, a group leader with Airdrie 4-H Helping Hands, who managed the project and gathered the student volunteers who constructed the course.
On July 1, in collaboration with local business The Donut Man, the grand opening will take place at the course, which is located in Veterans Peace Park. A day of disk golf, sugary sweets and community will cement the welcome for Crossfield’s newest recreational amenity.
“We should have a lot less restrictions on July 1, which gives us even more [reason] to celebrate,” Lang said.
The students who constructed the components of the disc golf course will also be in attendance to enjoy the fruits of their labour. They will be joined by members of Crossfield Town council to welcome everybody who attends the opening.
Crossfield's mayor, Jo Tennant, said the disc golf course will be a wonderful addition to the community.
“Council and Town administration are grateful for all their hard work before, during and after the pandemic to bring this to fruition,” she said in an email. “Their vision and initiative in bringing this fun, new outdoor activity to Crossfield will provide a welcome activity for years to come.”
According to Lang, the grand opening will involve a few different aspects, but attendees will be able to test out the new course.
“We’ll have a walk-through, but right at the entry, we’ll have game cards for everyone to start right away,” he said. “Everyone can have fun playing the great game of disc golf.”
Similar to traditional golf, the sport of disc golf involves throwing a frisbee or disc from a tee pad into a chained basket, with the objective of landing the disc in the basket in as few throws as possible. Courses typically include nine or 18 baskets, with each “hole” ranging in difficulty and length.
It took around five students in grades 6, 10 and 11 to construct the holes and tee pads for the Crossfield course, and Lang said the kids helped out for a few hours each week. Scouting a location, learning architectural drafts and engineering, designing the disc baskets and learning different types of welds and machines were among the tasks they helped with.
While Lang and his team were hoping to have the course opened by the Victoria Day long weekend in May, the pandemic and a brief return of colder weather delayed the grand opening by a few months.
“COVID-19 kept running through the schools, so there was a lot of closures with the kids,” he said. “It was a challenge and delayed things a lot.”
According to Lang, the community is excited to be able to take advantage of the course, having seen it being worked on over the last two years.
“A lot of people recognize what we were doing in the park,” he said. “They all seem very eager and excited, asking when we will finally be able to open the course.”
With the COVID-19 pandemic resulting in more people finding ways to enjoy the outdoors, Lang said the new amenity gives residents another recreational option in Crossfield and provides an excuse to get outside this summer.
“A lot of people are excited to try something different,” he said, adding the grand opening is the culmination of almost two years of planning and construction.
“We only had a few evenings a week to work on this,” he said. “If I were to compress it, it would have been around two to three months of building, but we had to spread it out over all of that time to abide with everything going on.”
For people interested partaking in the grand opening celebrations, Lang is asking people to show up at Veterans Peace Park on July 1 between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m.
Jordan Stricker, AirdrieToday.com
Follow me on Twitter @Jay_Strickz
