Course Spotlight: Dacey Community Fields

Published: 11/16/2012 by: mcmanus

For those disc golfers starving for a new course in the dg wasteland of the Route 495 southeast corridor, your ship has come in!  Dacey Community Fields  park in Franklin MA is officially open!

Hole 1: Dacey Community Park

While this par 62, 5,890 foot course is still being tweaked for tee pad work, fairway clearing and overall flow, it is quite playable in its current state.  The course is entirely wooded and offers a challenging variety of flat, uphill and downhill layouts that will require a variety of shots from the bag.  Placement shots are key on this course; however, there are also opportunities for long bombs, but accuracy is a constant throughout.  Hole 1 (295 ft par 4) starts you off with a bang....a lefty hyzer or righty flick down a tight, flat dogleg right corridor, interrupted by a creek just beyond the midway point. 

The course has good flow, with the exception of holes 17 and 18 where you must backtrack a bit; however, I've heard that's also being tweaked.  Most impressive is the layout of the fairways.  Course designers Jay Mello and Ryan Jette have done a masterful job in designing Dacey to be a very technical course with deceptively long fairways and challenging pin placements.  The course is neatly tucked away behind the athletic fields of Dacey Community Fields and is a mere 20 minutes off route 495 at exit 17. 

A mere 25 minutes from Borderland DGC, Dacey offers a nice challenging alternative and the course is only going to get better over time.  A word of caution, the leaf litter hides many small cut stumps, so be mindful of your footing as you traverse the fairways.  Also, for those holes where the basket is blind from the tee pad, it may be a good idea to have a spotter, especially during leaf fall season and winter snow.  There are white arrows throughout the course to make finding the next hole relatively easy, just remember to look for them as there are cleared paths that lead to nowhere if you miss the arrows.  The first hole is a bit challenging to find.  When you pull into the parking lot, park on the left side and look for the practice basket in a raised grassy area between the left athletic field and the dog park on the right.  Go left from the practice basket and look for a pathway that goes into the woods on your right at the corner of the athletic field.  Follow the pathway and you will see a sign that says "next tee"..this will actually lead you to the first tee.(the sign may have changed since I was there)

Dacey is certainly a worthy and most welcome addition to the 495 corridor so take the time to check it out.  You can follow the NEFA thread on Dacey here to check up on the latest developments, gatherings, happenings, improvements, etc.  With Borderland getting more popular and crowded with each passing year , its certainly nice to have another choice in this area of MA..and what a great choice it is!  To my knowledge, the current course record is at 59, held by John Tserpes, so come and give it your best...you won't be disappointed!

 Comments   (0 comments)