The Wonderful Web of Disc Golf
- Limetree
- 6 days ago
- 3 min read
By Tony Forder
Many years ago my brother-in-law and business partner asked me where I wanted be in retirement. I thought about it and replied, I don’t want much – enough to live on, be healthy and be able to throw disc. Modest goals, I know, but so far so good.
I started playing disc golf 40 years ago in Humboldt County, California and I was a founding member of Par Infinity Disc Golf Club.
When I swapped coasts West for East in 1990 I wanted to keep playing disc golf. There was a course at Greenwood Lake, 40 minutes from my house in Northern Jersey. I soon ran into its designer, Dan Doyle.
We stayed in touch over the years, but disc golfing became more intermittent as my beer publication business grew. But my connections did help secure a sponsor for Dan to bring the National Disc Golf Tour to the course he had designed in Warwick, NY in the early 2000’s.
After a while a 47-acre farm came up for sale across the street from the Warwick course and Dan decided to purchase it with a dream of turning it into a recreational destination featuring farming, disc golf and a brewery. He named it The Oasis.
The first project was to design and carve out a disc golf course through the woods and meadows of the property. I helped when I could along with several other enthusiastic disc golfers and the course gradually evolved. Warwick was becoming a magnet for disc golf and The Oasis became a gathering place for local golfers who now had a club, Skylands Disc Golf Club which straddled the border of NY and NJ states.
I was recently introducing a bunch of beginners to the sport and one of my co-players told them, “There are courses everywhere now and you meet the best people playing disc golf. But, be warned, it’s addictive.”
A few years on at a local taproom I overheard a guy talking about putting his trailer up for sale. The $3500 price tag seemed good and I asked Dan if I could park it at his farm so I could be more readily available to help with the development of The Oasis, particularly the brewery project. It was an old school 2-person 1980s Fleetwood heavyweight but since its owner was a handyman, everything worked – stove, heat, bathroom. He even towed it up there for me.
Home of the Limetree Roadside PubCafe – 9 seasons at The Oasis
I soon spent more time than I had anticipated at The Oasis. Print advertising was dwindling and it seemed it was time for my partner and I to pull the plug on our beer publication which had run a 27-year course. There was plenty to do. Other than the ever-evolving disc golf course, fruit trees were being planted, a berry garden developed and a hop field installed.
Then Covid hit and I spent a good part of the early period sheltering in place at The Oasis. My trailer had a nice spot looking out over a meadow. It was very quiet.
The brewery project was in the red tape maze with the town of Warwick, but although Dan was in good standing things dragged along, also slowed by the epidemic. The brewer was to be Charlie Holmgren, a disc golfer of course and a teacher who was building a house nearby. There were a few other glitches including a lawsuit thrown at the Planning Board by a nimby neighbor which took a year to resolve.
In the fall of ’23 I had to move my trailer to make way for demolition of outbuildings and construction began in spring ’24 and, after the usual building and permitting delays, here we are on the cusp of opening Fence Road Farm Brewery. The complex far exceeds my and many other peoples’ expectations in terms of size and scope. Charlie’s been brewing up a storm, I’ve been making mead, Dan’s son Zack is overseeing the kitchen, and Dan is presiding over the Event Space and Pro Shop stacked with golf discs and merch, and decorated with memorabilia of his lifetime devotion to the sport.
We just hired a chef, also a disc golfer, who I found out shares a mutual friend on Facebook – one of my old founding partners in Par Infinity back in California. Dwayne lived in California and is familiar with many of my old haunts. Small world, yeah, but it got me to thinking. Like the atoms that are constantly bouncing around in our bodies, we humans are just bouncing around and coincidences are perhaps no more than inevitable collisions caused by similarities and likeminded attractions – like disc golf.