The Spillway DGC is a long, long "championship" caliber course located just outside of Pana IL next to Lake Pana. The course is heavily wooded and very hilly. There's only two open holes on the whole course, holes 1 and 8. There's also a fairly large creek that runs through the west side of the course by holes holes 2, 3 and 4. The creek actually runs almost the entire length of the fairway for hole 3 creating lots of OB potential.

This course is looonnnggg. The course totals come in at 10,500 feet and a par of 71. Just a massive course from the long tees, which are currently the only tees in place. There looks to be plans for shorter red tees but these are nowhere near done at the time of this review. There were red flagged areas on many of the fairways which looked to be shorter positions. Even with the shorter positions it's still going to be a long course unless there's also plans for a second basket on each hole.

Currently the baskets are beautiful, brand new Innova Discatcher Pro 28's. These are top of the line baskets and catch great. The yellow bands really make them stand out in the woods out here. One basket per hole. It appears that there will be multiple placements, at least on some of the holes, but I can't be certain with the lack of tee signs at the moment.

The design is pretty well done. Still very rough around the edges but you can see what the final goal is intended to be. If a couple more trees can be removed to open up the lines a bit it'll go a long way, especially near some of the pins. The flow of the course is pretty good too. You'll definitely want a map for the time being, but it's doable without one if need be. The course starts out with a bang. There's two 1000+ foot holes out of the first three. Hole 4 is nearly 1000'. Thankfully it gets back to more normal lengths by the back half, mostly.

The tee pads are a mixed bag at the moment. There was probably a third of them that were concrete while the rest were either gravel or still being framed up. All are marked though.

There's a lot of cons currently. I'll leave the unfinished aspects out of it though.

My biggest issue with this course is the sheer length combined with the heavily wooded nature of the design. The top pros would get eaten alive out here. The wife and I aren't pros by any stretch of the imagination but we're not noobs either. It took me 99 throws to finish the round out here. 99. That's 28 over par. The wife finished at 117 throws. 46 over par. 46. That's worse that any other course either of us have ever played, and that's a lot of different courses. I sincerely hope that shorter tees are in the works or this place will never see any traffic. This was in ideal cool spring conditions too.

I don't see how this course is going to be maintained in the warmer months. It's just so massive. On top of that there needs to be numerous bridges put in to safely navigate the numerous creeks and ditches that run throughout the course. I was joking at the end that the course is all about cross a creek, walk up a hill, cross a creek, walk up a hill. Half joking honestly.

Some of the holes just felt like overkill. Lots of the actually but I'll name a few. Hole 3 is just way too long to have a creek running the length of it. You're going to have to keep crossing from one side to the other if you're not straight up in the creek. Holes 12 and 16 are already longer right turning holes that finish uphill. Is there really the need to push the pin to the back side of the open area that the powerlines run through? That's an additional, and unnecessary extra 70 or so feet.

At no point does the course loop back to the lot so you'll need to pack everything you need beforehand. Expect a long round out here. It took the two of us over two hours to play it without stopping for a break.

There's thorns and all kinds of other nasty stuff off and even in the fairway out there. I haven't bled on a course like I did out there in a long time. There's also lots of tripping hazards at the moment, but I'm sure that'll be cleaned up soon enough.

This course has potential and I'll gladly update my review if I play it again in a couple years. As of right now it's just too raw and unforgiving for me to recommend this one to anyone. The bones of a great course are there but it's a ways off at the moment.