Amberly Elementary School is tucked into a residential neighborhood between Kalamazoo and Portage, MI. The school has added a 9-hole disc golf course with the first five holes playing across the back lawn, and the last four through an adjacent wooded area.

The best holes here currently are the two "transition" holes between the open area and the wooded area. #4 is a fun 230' throw that will require a slight curl to the right to avoid thick brush on the right side of the fairway. The basket is framed between two large tree trunks. #5 is listed as 263' but felt a little longer to me. It requires another right turn around a few tree trunks and a garden. The approach to the basket closes in to the wooded area.

The baskets are MVP Black Hole Portals in great shape. The hole distances range from just under 200' to about 325', so not a bad challenge for rec level players.

Holes 1-3 are wide open and play a little bit close together, but holes 6-9 are my real complaint. These holes, as of my visit, were so overgrown that they were practically unplayable. Weeds, brush, and thorns form a thick covering over what was once the fairways - sometimes up to about waist height. The finishing hole was the worst, with thorns all over the fairway tearing up my legs. As I approached the basket, I saw two children come running into the woods towards me. Their parents, who had not yet seen me, yelled at them to stay out of the woods because there was poison ivy. I can only imagine what they thought when they saw an adult man wade out of the same woods only a minute or two later. As for me, I was thinking about having to deal with poison ivy. A few days later after it became clear that I would not have any ill effects, it occurred to me to do some research and I found out that up to 25% of people have no reaction to poison ivy. Despite playing lots of poorly maintained disc golf courses over the past few years, I have never had a poison ivy issue - so either I am in that 25%, or I have been very lucky and also those parents are liars!

Anyway - Even if the fairways were maintained, #6-8 each turned to the right - so that is five straight right turns including #4 and 5 discussed previously. #9 does turn left, but the hole design still seems unbalanced overall.

There are no tee pads, tee signs, or navigational aids. You'll need UDisc to know where to tee off from for each hole. There are also no trash cans, benches, kiosks, practice baskets, or porta potties. There IS a long walk back to the parking lot after #9.

The course is mostly flat, with no water in play.

I wanted to like this one more - but the lack of tees, overgrown wooded holes, and finally wading thru waist high thorns for 300' on hole 9 sank my rating all the way down to 1.0. The first five holes are a decent place for field work if no one is around, otherwise this course is simply not worth it. There are better options in the area, even if a 9-hole school course is all you are looking for.

On a personal note, my 200th course played!

This course plays behind an elementary school with 4 holes in the open and the final five holes in the woods. The baskets are gorgeous MVP Black Hole Portals, but that's the only equipment you'll find here. There was a sign or two that pointed out the next tee though.

I thought it was pretty cool that the holes go up in difficulty. The first hole has no obstacles and then they gradually add trees to get trickier and trickier. Finishing on #9 where the birdie is very challenging.

No tees or tee signs. You'll have to play with a local (in my case, my nephew who goes to school at Amberly) to know where to tee off or where to go next.

The rough is pretty bad on the back few holes. Going off the fairway is pretty brutal. I think that the rough needs to be cut back, especially given that the target audience is elementary school kids who will inevitably not hit the fairway. You don't want to ruin the fun for that age group.

All in all, a pretty decent/typical 9 hole course. From the longs, it plays like a typical 9er, not what you'd expect from an elementary school. It's great that the school is using the woods for disc golf as I'm not quite sure they'd be used otherwise.