A project years in the making — and involving a fair bit of public pressure — finally came to fruition at Westminster City Park on Saturday.

Standing on an overlook next to the park’s operations center, the colored array of autumn stretching west to the base of the Front Range, enthusiasts and city officials alike celebrated the return of the city’s public disc golf course, concluding years of community outcry.

“This is a big deal for the disc golf community,” said Aric Otzelberger, director of Westminster’s Parks, Recreation and Libraries Department. “There was demand for the course, and it’s nice because you don’t need a lot to play it.”

The course features nine holes, several with multiple baskets, in the grassy expanse next to Sheridan Boulevard. Fresh-poured concrete pads placed next to a metal sign with the par, distance and course map mark the tee boxes for each hole.

It isn’t the first time the park has featured its own public disc golf course. From the early 2000s through 2020, disc golfers could shoot for the chains just a stone’s roll down the hill from the new concrete.

But in 2021, while undertaking an infrastructure project that included replacing sewer pipe along the park’s Big Dry Creek, crews had to put a bypass pump through the course, said Blake Ramsey, the operations manager for the department.

“Once we saw the impacts of the sewer projects, we knew we absolutely couldn’t have people out there,” Ramsey said. “We were hoping that we could play around the project … they were pumping sewage on the ground and through a pipe running through the middle of the course.”

Ramsey added that the decision to close the course was made on relatively short notice, only after officials saw the impacts of the project. The course’s users were not pleased.

“I encouraged all the disc golfers to send emails and talk to people about this,” said Darren Kohagen, who played at the old course and was upset when the city closed it down.

“Let’s say they pulled all the pickleball courts from Westminster, people would be so upset. When they pulled the disc golf course, I felt the same way,” Kohagen added.

He wasn’t alone in his dismay. Several members of the city’s disc golf community were outraged by the course’s closure, continually following up with officials and demanding Westminster find another location for the sport.

Councilmember David DeMott, speaking before a ceremonial ribbon-cutting on Saturday, acknowledged the public pressure the city faced to put disc golf back on the map.

“The city manager, who is now twice removed, told council that the course would come back, and then somewhere along the way whoever was in charge decided it wasn’t going to come back,” DeMott said. “That, obviously, made this community not happy as well as the council not happy, so we really worked hard to make sure this got put back in the budget and we actually did this.”

Despite Saturday being the course’s grand opening, it wasn’t the first time Kohagen and Chuck Allwine, another member of their about-10-person group, had played on it. Both had been in the area on Tuesday as crews were completing the final installations and decided, after four years of waiting, they couldn’t wait any longer.

“We were following the guy putting the baskets in,” Allwine said. “We didn’t know where the course was supposed to be. As soon as he put a sign up on one, I was there and followed him around.”

Ramsey said that the project, including the planning and construction, cost around $20,000 in total. The sum, Otzelberger said, is fairly low in comparison with other potential community-oriented initiatives.

“For us, trying to be good stewards of the limited resources we have, the utilization per dollar is amazing for disc golf,” Otzelberger said. “Even for Blake’s crew to maintain it too, it’s just more modest.”

Officials plan to expand the course to the northeast and add an additional nine holes by next summer.