The course at Arab hosted a tournament recently that I was fortunate enough to be able to come and play and I was pleasantly surprised that it was much better than the pitch and putt style course I had seen in some YouTube videos.

The course has recently been redesigned and many of the holes have multiple tees now and the newly added longer holes as well as wooded ones.

You begin with some shot shaping shorter holes with tight OB on one and two and three has the pond right behind and an elevated basket.

Four is one of the harder holes with a water carry and the a steep drop off behind the basket.

The mix of open and wooded holes though the middle section makes it fresh and challenging alternating between longer open holes and tight wooded ones.

The only par 4 is #17 and it is a big booming hole that is a nice change of pace.

The new tees are concrete and pretty standard size, and super fresh so they grip well.

I'm not the biggest Mach 3 fan but they are in good shape and catch as well as a Mach3 can.

I enjoyed the mix of hole types and the event was run well.

Decent challenge as well, my best round was -9 in practice and -5 in the tournament which was the hot round for advanced. Lower level players could enjoy the short tees and 970+ players will likely not find it challenging as they were mainly -8 to -14 among the true MPO players there.

Park seems very well maintained as well. The practice basket and gazebo by hole 1 are really nice also.

It's a good course, but not perfect. The course is very flat, and has some odd points about it.

The walk from 4 to 5 is super long, but the tee for 6 is right across the road and the walk from 15 to 16 has you walk the entire length of hole 5 to get there so it would make sense to switch those.

Mach 3s are what they are, I won't gripe too much but they aren't awesome.

Most of the pads are awesome, but a couple are pretty tilted especially 18.

No benches except hole 2 so far which isn't ideal for a course that isn't super short.

There are also some mandos that I don't feel like add much to the play, but could keep you from trying a funky line over the road.

It's really a pretty good course, and these points don't detract a lot, it just isn't a course where you are saying wow very often.

While it might lack some wow factor, it's a very solid course and I would gladly play it again. Since I missed winning advanced by 1 stroke I'll have to come back and try to win it!

(2.809 and soon a 3.032 Rating) A moderately challenging layout with a mixture of open and wooded holes.
- TREES - A total of 5 holes had a tree in play on the entire original 18 hole layout. Many like me after playing the original, thought "well that's the last time I'm coming here" at round conclusion. Thank the lord the new layout finally uses the wooded portions of this park. Starting on hole 6 the layout enters some heavy woods for five continuous holes. Hopefully the tears of joy I parted with, will provide some fertilizer for this very tranquil portion of the park.
- CHAINS - Not my favorite style basket, but the newer machIIIs seemed to still be in great shape post move.
- CHALLENGING - Perfect for Recreational and Intermediate level players. GMcAtee, wericsson and I came out here on a cold morning and the course slapped us around a bit from even the short tees. I was unable to break par as an Intermediate, although I'm sure I'd average a couple down if I lived out this way. The layout requires a good mix of power and precision. A few shots need to be crafted and there is some risk reward play too.
- UNIQUENESS - A fantastic mix of tree coverages. Open with water and rolling elevation, open shots that barrel into defended pockets and tight wooded moving lines. Elevation movement is generally gradual with maybe 30 feet of change on any one hole.
- MAINTENANCE - I've been to Arab DGC three times now, with two of those visits being at the old course. Seems like they do a good job of keeping the place up. The new wooded holes looked great considering their age. I hope they can keep it going.

Some new course blues, but otherwise just a few ticky tack things.
- NAVIGATION AND SIGNAGE - So far it's just temp tee signage using laminated letter size sheets of paper. Permanent tee signs are paid for and designed already with installation expected before the end of the year. Regardless, navigation is going to be difficult between a few holes without a map.
- TEES - Natural or carpet for my visit. 5 by 12 concrete pads are already paid for to my knowledge, thus I was unsure on how to grade this important aspect. It may get paved next week. This is the main reason I gave two scores for the course, along with the imminent signage upgrade. These two categories raise my score by about two tenths of a point.
- BEGINNER FRIENDLY - It was, but now, not so much. Plastic can and will be lost on (4) and (16). If you have scuba gear, you would be able to fish wericsson's driver from the middle of the pond. We told him to not to grip-lock just before his tee off. Anyways, new players should skip these two holes. In addition, the off-fairway vegetation is pretty thick on the wooded holes. Discs could be lost there too.
- MULTI USE HAZARDS - No one in our group was a fan of (16) with a building in play on the right side. Holes (1) and (2) have other park functions adjacent to the fairway. Overall a very minor issue.
- PARKING - A gravel parking lot. Keep the Ferrari in the garage for this excursion.

I get it that the original layout was aimed to be beginner friendly and to grow the sport in a town without a disc golf option. The old course layout did its job. Nevertheless, for the disc golf scene to continue to grow, it needed a new shot of adrenaline, like that which is provided by this new re-envisioned layout. My favorite hole on the old layout wouldn't make my top five and perhaps not even the top ten if included in this new layout. So yeah, its leaps and bounds better in my opinion. Among courses in the greater region (excluding Huntsville), I'd say it's one of the better ones. Not destination level worthy like Kudzu Cove, but still a course worth driving to at least once from cities like Huntsville, Cullman, Hartselle and maybe even Gadsen.
- NATURAL BEAUTY - I scored the original layout at around 25 percentile. Since the new layout has done a better job incorporating the natural features, I upped this score quite a bit. My favorite looking hole is number (7) and I also liked (9) and (10). All of these noted holes are fully wooded with thick tunneling vegetation. I like the water shot on (4), but the one on (16) is scarred a bit with manmade features in forward view. Overall I scored the new layout around 50 percentile.
- TIME PLAY - Average.