Bay Memorial Park Course Design

Bay Memorial Park is a city park in Panama City that had a neglected disc golf course and a master plan to fix everything around it: a new walkway, a restored historic school house, memorial lighting, playground, stormwater work. The parks department’s concept plan listed “disc golf restoration” as a Phase 1A line item. I designed the course that line item refers to.

The routing is 18 holes drawn directly onto the city’s plan, which was the point. A course designed on a blank aerial gets redesigned the first time a walkway or a parking lot moves. Designing on the phased master plan meant every tee and basket could be checked against what the city was going to build in that spot and when. Holes 1 through 8 wrap the western pond and use the new walkway as a natural boundary, keeping play away from the playground and the FEMA-funded zone. The middle holes cross the open ground around the memorial, where the sightlines are longest. Holes 12 through 18 use the eastern pond and the tree line before returning toward the gate.

The constraints were the usual ones for a shared park, made explicit: no fairway may cross the pedestrian walkway at a blind spot, nothing throws toward the memorial, the school house restoration area stays clear, and the whole thing has to work for a walker who has never heard of disc golf and is not going to read a sign.

The plan went to the city’s Athletic Operations Manager in fall 2024 alongside a proposal for a spring tournament, with the club providing temporary tee pads, signs, and baskets for the event. The course exists on paper as part of the city’s plan; the build follows the city’s phasing.