JELLIE PARK DISC GOLF COURSE (2015)
The first DGC installed in Christchurch!
Chris's first design in the city!
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Chris Davies
​Chris Davies, Dave Rose and CDGC
Community Course
18x RPM Helix permanent baskets
18x paved teepads
Ilam Road, Christchurch
The combined Masonic Lodges of Christchurch, Chris Davies, David Rose
May 2014
March 2015
4.4 out of 5
In late 2014, a representative from the combined Masonic Lodges of Christchurch approached Chris directly, after experiencing the Queenstown Gardens DGC Chris had helped design and install in 1995.The Masons wished Christchurch had a course, and generously donated the baskets for the first official DGC in the city. Chris
selected Jellie Park, and obtained council permission post-earthquakes, to proceed with the project, with no funding from council.
Rounds played annually
Many different course layouts with trees as targets had been played at Jellie Park in the preceding 20 years, and as Chris’s first solo design project he set about to honour many of the design ideas, while removing all disc-losing “Gotcha” holes. He was determined that almost everyone who played disc golf for the first time at Jellie Park, should enjoy themselves, and have fun.
The “Random Walk” nature of the park meant all tee locations, fairways, and basket positions had to allow the course to flow properly, to ensure good speed of play, and high daily throughput. A lot of time was spent refining the basket locations down to the last 10cm, before the install in March 2015, to ensure other park users would not be inconvenienced – and more importantly, would not ordinarily cause a delay, or make players skip a hole.
Chris wanted players to develop a wide range of skills in order to score well at Jellie park. And so each hole requires different skills in order to make the birdie – and this is the secret to Jellie Park’s success: playability, and re-playability.
Players who work hard to lower their scores to 10-under at Jellie Park are well-equipped to play well at most flat DGCs. An SSA 1,000 rated round is around 12 to 13 under par.
The course is also designed to take advantage of the prevailing easterly wind which arrives at the park throughout the warmer months, some time in the late morning or early afternoon.
And so all these various design concepts congealed into what Vortica now call a “Community Course”. See that section of our Courses Section for a full description.
Basically, a community course is specifically designed to reward and encourage the participation of newcomers to the game, and never to punish or discourage them in any way. And at the same time, cause them to learn all the skills they need to enjoy playing at other DGCs.
And those thoughts have been vindicated for many years now, with Jellie Park being the most played DGC in the southern hemisphere, and by some margin! We’re proud that in 2023, of the roughly 750,000 rounds of disc golf played in NZ, over 240,000 of them were on our courses. That’s almost 1/3 of the total.
We take the opportunity to thank local disc golfer David Rose for contributing so much of his time and money to install the paved teepads at Jellie Park. Chris maintained the course at his own expense until 2019.