MUSKEGON, MI – The first phase of maintenance on Muskegon’s popular disc golf course at McGraft Park has begun as city officials aim to reopen the park at the start of the spring 2019 season.
The course was closed in early May over regional concern about possible oak wilt infections. Officials worried that discs hitting trees at McGraft Park could expose the arbors to oak wilt, a pervasive tree disease caused by a fungus.
A report from a local tree disease expert determined earlier this year that disc golf should not be a detriment to mature oak trees at the park. However, several trees with newer limbs near the McGraft Park fairways needed to be trimmed to ensure that those trees are not harmed by flying discs next year.
Director of Municipal Services LeighAnn Mikesell said trimming trees during warmer months could have exposed them to a possible oak wilt infection, and opted to address the problem in late fall.
City crews have been trimming trees in McGraft Park so the park and its disc golf course can open on schedule.
Mikesell gave an update on the progress to the Muskegon City Commission at its Nov. 13 meeting.
The city-owned, 92-acre McGraft Park is located on Glen Avenue in Muskegon’s Glenside Neighborhood. It is one of two locations that offer disc golf in Muskegon. The Boom Park Disc Golf Course at Richards Park near the Veterans Memorial Causeway is a smaller course on the city’s north side.
The tree trimming is positive sign of life for disc golf in Muskegon after the city and some neighboring communities struggled to wrap their heads around the growing problem of oak wilt.
The disease has infected trees at PJ Hoffmaster State Park in Norton Shores.
In April, Fruitland Township closed its disc golf course at Nestrom Road Park over concerns that oak wilt at Hoffmaster could spread to neighboring communities, but the park was reopened in late June. The closure of the Nestrom Road course caused a fair amount of rancor between residents and the township’s Parks and Recreation Commission, which found no evidence of oak wilt at the park.
That debate, however, caught the attention of Mikesell and other Muskegon city leaders who had similar concerns about oak wilt affecting McGraft Park. The park was closed in May as Mikesell and Michigan State University professor Dave Roberts examined the park for oak wilt.
While there, Roberts told staff that the thick bark surrounding McGraft’s mature oak did not show signs of damage from golf discs, Mikesell said at the meeting on May 22. Roberts also determined that the composite plastic discs didn’t pose a threat of damaging those trees.
Roberts did concede that closing the park temporarily was a good idea, seeing as a number of low-hanging, younger branches along the fairways are at risk, Mikesell said.
Donald Jensen, a disc golf aficionado and the owner of Sweet Spot Disc Golf in Muskegon Heights, said he was happy with the city’s progress and looks forward to McGraft opening in early spring.
However, Jensen maintains that the city’s “knee-jerk” reaction of closing McGraft Park during peak disc golf season had a negative impact on his business and Muskegon’s disc golf community as a whole.
“It hurt us and the store last summer, but it really blew up the disc golf scene that had been cultivated for nearly 19 years at McGraft Park,” he said. “I honestly still think it was a major overreach to solve an unsubstantiated problem. But what’s done is done and we can see the light now.”
Jensen hopes McGraft’s course is maintained in perpetuity to avoid similar issues in the future.
“It’s an asset to Muskegon and so is the store,” Jensen said. “It adds some culture to the mix. Stripping that away was a shame.”
The Boom Park course has 10 playable holes, as opposed to McGraft’s 18-hole course. In addition, Boom Park is more challenging, with plenty of thrush and treacherous water hazards that routinely claim the lives of wayward, uncontrolled discs.
Jensen was one of several people tasked with setting up and installing Boom Park in 2016.
When McGraft closed, disc golf play at Boom Park increased by 10 percent, according to Jensen’s estimate.
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