By P.J. Harmer — Rattling Chains staff

This week’s poll will help us, somewhat, shape the direction we plan on going with Rattling Chains.

Though we have a great group of writers, the reality is none of us get paid to do the work on this site. Therefore, when real life gets in the way, sometimes the content takes a hit.

When that happens, sometimes the load comes down on one or more of us and it becomes a burden.

But that’s neither here nor there.

All of us who write for this site enjoy the aspects we bring to readers — a journalistic way to look at the sport we love. I still believe we offer content not available in most other places, such as our in-depth pieces. Our interviews are not in a Q&A format, rather crafted in the form of an article in the format many traditional publications would use.

To do so is a time-consuming situation. We research. We interview. We write. We edit. We format.

Over the past few months, I’ve watched our site statistics. I’ve seen the type of stories that seem to get the hits and I’ve seen the ones that don’t work as well. I know what days the bigger hits will come and I know where hits come from on certain days etc.

Still, as we shape the site and we push forward, we need to know how to shape the site. For the next two weeks — today and next Monday — I’ll be doing polls that are based on the site and the reading tendencies of our visitors. In the end, we hope to continually make the site better moving forward.

I’ll get back to all of this in a moment. First, I’d like to visit last week’s poll, when we asked you what your favorite course was.

This was a new way of doing the poll — fully based on comments. However, we got different responses because in several places, when the poll/post was linked or liked, it was changed. Apparently, in some places, people read this poll as us asking you, if you had unlimited money, what your dream course would be.

Obviously, it was completely different.

Here are a few comments from last week’s poll…

Ben said:

My favorite course is at Recreation Park in Bryan, Ohio. It’s well-maintained and requires versatility to get a good score. Restroom facilities, water fountains, vending machines, and the atmosphere of a city park that the city puts effort into make it a great place to play. Not a lot of elevation changes, but NW Ohio is like that.

I’m a big fan of courses like this. It’s nice to know that some municipalities realize how good disc golf courses can be for their area.

Nate Simpson said:

My favorite course that I have played would be Timber Ridge in Michigan. The course has been closed and I only had a few opportunities to play it. It was used in the 2008 worlds and was designed by Larry LaBond. It was an 18-hole course that was over 10,000 ft of throwing. It closed due to a lack of funding as it was a pay to play and in the middle of nowhere and a difficult course to play and traverse.

I hate hearing about great courses being taken down or going extinct. Sounds like this one would have been something to see.

Matt Sime said:

Birds of Paradise, Miranda, Calif., tops my list of 1023 courses played. Despite a long list of possible relative negatives (Natural tees, some are quite rough, no amenities, only playable on rare occasions) and I wouldn’t necessarily want it as my home course, BOP is the ultimate destination course. I could list a variety of descriptors like “Epic” or “Incredibly Awesome” but words don’t quite begin to describe the true beauty of this course. Nearly every hole out of 27 made my jaw drop, my heart rate increase, my camera finger get tired, and my score increase. This is the course that if making the trip is ever a slight possibility, do whatever you can to make it, sell your first born child, sacrifice a goat, or trade your soul to the devil, one round at BOP is worth it.

More than one person mentioned this as a favorite in the poll. I’ve heard of it before, too. I think I’ll have to add it to my “must-play” list should I ever make my way to California.

Joe says:

I have to go with Flip City. I camped there for a couple of days this past summer, and the experience is unparalleled. Every hole could be a signature hole at another course, everything is beautifully maintained, and Bill is one of the nicest guys around. I haven’t had a chance to play many other “top courses,” but I have a hard time imaging a course better than Flip City, and I will take every chance I have to go back.

Flip City has topped my wish list for a long time. I hope to see it soon.

Reston said:

My favorite course would have to be Brent Hambrick Memorial in Westerville, OH. I grew up there, it’s where I learned to play, and the best thing about it is that it’s so versatile. There are 27 holes, the front 9 are generally wide open and mix short and long range, the back 9 are mostly technical wooded shots, and the additional 9 are a good mix of wooded and open shots. If I want a nice relaxed fun round, I can play the short tees, and if I want a good challenging round I’ll play from the pro tees. The only downside is that it gets crowded, but I can’t even count the number of times that I’ve gone to play by myself and instead I’ve wound up playing a round with some random person or group of people. Everyone is friendly, and it’s just a fantastic course all around

This is another course that was listed more than once from people in this poll. I might have to road trip to a few of these courses!

Rob P says:

Mohawk DGC in Mohawk, IN (east of Indy) – Awesome private course with open holes, tight holes, interesting holes (basket on ground, basket on a 10-12 high huge stump, hanging basket over a small creek) right turns, left turns, island holes, baskets on hills, tees on hills. Long holes, short holes. Everything one wants in a course.

That sounds like an extremely fun course! I like knowing when there are a lot of different types of holes and when it’s creative.

Thanks to everyone who posted to that thread. I enjoyed reading (and looking up) about all your favorite courses. I’d encourage other readers to go back to that post and read the comments. Maybe you’ll find yourself a new favorite!

Now, back to this week’s poll.

As noted earlier in this post, this is the first of two polls dealing with the site. We have been talking about many different things we can do to make this site be the best it can be.

That being said, we’ve only been going at it since March. I knew that there would be many changes over the course of the first year and we’re discussing some now that might help with the self preservation of the site.

Below is this week’s poll. Please be as honest as you can. And feel free to drop some comments below about your visiting habits. We’ll touch on subjects of content next week, so no need to go there yet!

The choices below are pretty open-ended, but it will help us with our research. Again, comments are important, too, as it helps us build. We’ll tackle content and story ideas next week.

But for now, we want to know how often you visit the site?

[poll id=”40″]

If you have any comments, questions, thoughts, ideas or anything else, feel free to e-mail me and the crew at: pj@rattlingchains.com. Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook!