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Sheffield’s recently established disc golf course is a hidden gem

“The Rocks at Sheffield Park” is the only disc-golf course in South County, and the only one in the Berkshires that is both open every day and free to play, according to the disc-golf app UDisc.

Sheffield — “I actually let the deer show me the trail. Deer are pretty smart,” says Andy Brooks as he leads me through the newly created disc-golf course in Sheffield. “They figure out the easiest routes between two points pretty quickly, you know?”

“I rarely cut down a tree any bigger around than this,” says Brooks, pointing to a large sapling, as he leads the way through the maze of disc golf holes he has created in what is called Little Johnny’s Mountain, a rocky cobble in the woods at Sheffield Town Park. “The Rocks at Sheffield Park” is the only disc-golf course in South County, and the only one in the Berkshires that is both open every day and free to play, according to the disc-golf app UDisc.

The course takes players through a landscape few would expect just looking at the woods from the park entrance, but Brooks knows this part of the park well. Photo by Kateri Kosek.

“This is one of my favorite spots. There’s a little tiny cave,” Brooks says near the end of the nine-hole course, which winds up and down slopes, past rocky outcroppings that most wouldn’t envision when glancing at these woods from the park entrance. “I had no idea this was here,” people often say to him.

“That’s what I mean!” he says. “I’ve known since I was seven.”

Brooks grew up in Ashley Falls and started playing Little League at the park in 1969, when there were three teams in Sheffield. He would regularly hop on his bike and ride five miles to play ball with friends. Gesturing to the ball field, he says, “So this little area, to me, is like hallowed ground. You know, my memories and my childhood.”

Brooks approached the Sheffield Select Board with the idea to build the course and got permission at the end of 2021. Without any money from the town, he raised the funds himself from private donations, the two main costs being the tee boxes and the baskets. Ward’s Nursery was one of the sponsors, as Sam Ward was a local disc-golf player.

“I spent a winter going through those woods,” says Brooks. The original area he had in mind ended up being too close to wetlands. Donnie Ward, who was part of the Conservation Committee, pointed him to the rocky wooded cobble where the course now sits. For a year or so, he laid out and installed nine high-quality baskets that cost $3,500.

This year was the first The Rocks has been open with full tee boxes and baskets, and people have been coming out, says Brooks. UDisc, an app that locates disc-golf courses, logged 100 people using the course, and plenty more likely did without checking in on the app.

“It’s a good course for a beginner from a length standpoint,” Brooks says, “but it still offers enough challenge for those that have played for a while.”

“To me, this is just an awesome walk back here. I told people, don’t be shy, even if you don’t have a disc. I kind of forgot, because I was a little kid.” He describes how he would ride his bike here, knowing that once he crossed the bridge over Schenob Brook, it snaked around, and he would never have to cross it again. “I used to come to these rocks as a little kid.”

Brooks hurls a disc through a gap in the woods towards a basket. “This is more of a forehand hole,” he says. For the uninitiated, disc golf uses the same concept as “ball golf”—the term disc golfers give to “golf”—which is to get the disc in the basket in as few throws as possible. Players throw the disc in a number of different styles—forehand, backhand, a turnover—and these subtle skills make the disc fall in the desired direction. “Mentally, it’s the same game as golf,” Brooks notes. “You can miss short putts.”

Brooks got involved in disc golf when he was in the service, when someone he knew was doing freestyle tricks, of which there are many that can earn one a number in the Professional Disc Golf Association (PDGA). But he didn’t play it as a game until the Camp Brook course went in behind the Caddy Shack in Canaan, Conn., where he now resides.

People said to him, “Are you excited about that frisbee thing going in?”

And he thought, “What are you talking about?”

But that course was forced to close when it was discovered the town no longer owned the land, part of why Brooks sought to create the Sheffield course. Though disc golf is a “low impact” land use, it is hard to find a suitable parcel without running into liability issues, and according to Brooks, the reason this worked is because the town of Sheffield already had an insurance policy for the park.

The terrain presented some building challenges. “This is one of my favorites,” he says of the seventh hole, “because I had to grind on that rock with a grinder. I had to pull a generator up that hill, over that big log, run an electrical cord and grind down a flat spot.” A fellow player who was a master welder contributed a couple of handmade bases. Brooks’ brother came across some honey locust wood for the taking, “one of the only trees that gets harder after you cut it,” says Brooks. “It is absolute rock. Nature’s pressure-treated wood.”

Players often gripe about some hanging vines on one hole. “You’d be surprised how many times they hit that vine from that tee box, but what do you want me to do, climb up there?” Brooks laughs. “It’s part of the course. It’s a dead tree; it’s not going to be there much longer.” Photo by Kateri Kosek.

He keeps looking at ways to improve. He talks about “opening things up a bit” here and there and tries to keep the mile-a-minute weed at bay. But only the first and ninth holes, which are out in the open, really need mowing. “That’s the beauty of this place. Look around, there’s nothing growing so fast here. This has enough of a canopy that it doesn’t allow things to get out of hand. So that’s why I’m very careful about just how much sunlight I bring into the floor.”

Brooks sets off to join a middle-aged couple who just arrived to play. They say they play here all the time, and you don’t really need to be good to enjoy disc golf. “So many people do it at different ages, it’s fun for everybody.”

The park is open every day, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Fall is a great time to play, and, according to Brooks, “you can even play in the winter if you want to.”

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