Arnold City Park is a 68-acre park located off of Lemay Ferry Rd. Sitting 20 minutes from JB and 30 from downtown St. Louis, this is the furthest course south of St .Louis until you get to Festus, which is another 20-25 minutes down I-55. In addition to the 9 hole disc golf course, this park has 4 pavilions, bathrooms, a lake you can fish in, some fields, and plenty of walking paths. This park also has a farmer's market setup near the entrance. Overall, this park gets a lot of foot traffic, and the walking paths are consistently busy with folks when the weather is nice.

The course has light orange/cream colored DGA baskets that are in good shape. Each hole has 2 tees designated by a wooden post with the hole number on them. These are differentiated by each tee having a red or blue number to show which tee pad it is. There is also a fiberglass rules sign for the disc golf course near the parking lot, which serves as a way of showing you're going in the right direction to find the course.

The disc golf course is located on the south edge of the park, between a subdivisions and the park's walking paths. There's also an old road that runs along the edge of the park and course; it's blocked off and doesn't get any car traffic anymore. The course design is an out and back layout that goes out through a largely open field, and then comes back just inside the tree line. The course design makes for a little variety in shots, with holes 1 through 4 providing more open holes, followed up with shorter shots through the woods for holes 5 through 9.

The open holes are mostly straightforward shots that don't require much fineness off the tee. Hole 1 is an exception, as the tees are just inside the woods and require a gentle right ending drive to get close to the basket.

The back half of the course involves tight lines off the tees, with holes 5 and 6 having mandatory doglegs. These are likely in place to try and keep golfers from throwing drives over either other fairways or the walking paths. The pictures on DGCR might either be old or from the red tees, but the blue tee of hole 5 looks like it has a double mando that requires you to throw between two powerline posts, which is a first for me. Hole 6 also has a mando from the blue tee the requires a FHBH hyzer around s clump of trees. All in all, despite being a short course at around 2,000, this course has some variety in the shots it requires players to throw.

Other than the rules sign near the parking lot closest to the course, there's no actual signage for the disc golf course. The tees are only designated by wooden posts, and there's no directional signs leading you to the course from the parking lots. If you have never played this course before, it can be hard to find it, as it's a little ways up the walking path and not very visible from the parking lot. The practice basket that's noted on the map on DGCR is no longer in the open area by the parking lot either. The wooden posts, to me, do not immediately strike me as tee pads, and despite the tees for hole 1 being close to the walking path, I initially walked past them after I saw hole 1's basket, assuming it was the practice basket at first.

While a lot of the tee pads are relatively easy to find from the previous pin, additional signage would be nice to help golfers know what tee is to what basket without extra walking. Even some of the wooden posts are without a number; I'm assuming hole 6 has a tee on either side of hole 5's pin since there are two posts nearby, but one of them didn't have a number so I can't say for sure. I also did not see two tees for hole 9. UDisc is pretty up to date and can help with navigation, but additional signage (any signage) would help out immensely.

It seems like this course was not allowed to be designed to use any other land in the park, requiring it to be shoehorned into a relatively small strip of real estate. While I can tell there's been attempts to keep each fairway from overlapping, there are spots that could make for concerning situations. The walkway that goes through the woods along the back half of the course did get a good amount of foot traffic during my round here, and a tree kick that hit just right could easily make its way towards that pathway from a good amount of the tee pads for those last 5 holes. At least one other park goes was even walking their dog through the course; I don't know if that's common, but that also doesn't help matters much. The course only had one other group on it when I played, but when I was playing hole 7, I had to look out since they were throwing from a tee that wasn't far from the one I was on. I imagine that this would be an issue at a number of spots on this course if it were to be even slightly busier than when I played, and it was slow during my whole round.

The tee pads are all natural, and some tee areas proved to be a little slick during my round. The ones in the field were find, but of the pads in the back half of the course may force you to choose your run up footing carefully.

I appreciate the mandos on the course for trying to keep your drives safe, but something about throwing between the posts for large powerlines seems off to me. I'm sure the wood is strong, but still.

Overall, if the course designers for Arnold City Park were only given this plot of land to work with, then they did about as good of a job as you could with what's there. It's a tight 9 hole course that new players will find to be a good challenge, while intermediate folks will likely be pushing at least a stroke or two below 27 for a round.

I didn't explore the park too much, but it seems like there's a good amount of wooded area in the back section of the park across the walking path that could have been utilized in the design. However, my round was a few days after some rain, and there were some bigger puddles around the lake in the park. Combine that with the park being next to the Meremec River, and I wonder if this park and disc golf course have any flooding issues.

There's a weekly glow league here over the winter that I have seen posts on social media for, so the course does get some regulars and some love from locals. I think some additional signage in the form of directions from the parking lot, as well as even the most basic of tee signs, would help this course a lot.

If I lived closer to this course, I'd probably play it more. However, being about a half hour from this park and closer to a number of other courses in the area, this course will likely not be on my regular rotation much. It's out of the way if you're trying to make it a part of a day of golfing at JB or the courses in Fenton, Sunset Hills, or Festus, and I'd rate most of the other St. Louis 9 holes above it as well. If you're wanting to add more courses to your count though, come give it a shot. A lower rated 9 hole course is still better than no course.

Arnold City Park is a busy multi-use park that is a popular destination for dog walkers and families. On the south end of the park is a 9 hole disc golf course. The course has good DGA baskets, two tees per hole and natural tees. The area that holes 1-4 are on is an open strip of land that looks like a residential street where houses were either not built or houses were torn down because of flooding. Holes 5-8 are in what would have been a wooded buffer zone between the backyards of the houses that are not there and the park and are set slightly downhill from the open strip.

Hole 1 tees out of the wooded area to a basket in a built-up platform. From there Holes 2-4 are grip it/rip it open shots down the closed road. Holes 5-8 are all sub-200' wooded technical shots (Hole 5 has a 250'blue tee with a mando that's not bad). Hole 9 is a little longer (210'/255').

There isn't a lot of space for the wooded holes. The basket for 5 is essentially in the fairway for 6 and everything is crammed together. Since all of these holes are so short, they are pretty repetitive. The three shots in the open are just flat, open shots that also get pretty repetitive. Other than hole 1, the rest of the course is basically two shots. I couldn't really design anything better, though. There just isn't much land to use, and what is there is flat.

There is nothing in the way of amenities. The tees are natural; the tee signs are posts with the number on them and the distance written on the side. There are no directional signs to get you from the parking lot to where the course starts. There are no signs to direct you through the maze of parking lots to where you should park. There is no course map. The course is there if you know where to go.

There are some safety concerns since the park is popular with the community; there are walking paths all through the course so you have to keep your eyes open for pedestrians. The course seems to be the de facto Arnold dog park with a lot of people walking their floofers. You also have to watch out for other golfers; the wooded holes are crammed together and unlike a lot of unspectacular 9-hole courses, this one seems to be busy every time I'm there.

The course holds an amazing amount of water, which makes the natural tees a problem. Mosquitoes are also a serious concern since all the standing water makes it a great breeding ground for them.

Arnold City Park serves a purpose, and that purpose is to give players in Northern Jefferson County someplace to throw when they don't have time to drive all the way in to Jefferson Barracks. That's what it does. Outside of that purpose, it's just not a good disc golf course. It's sloggy, it's buggy, the shots are meh. If I lived in the area, I'd be fine with the limitations of the course and play it regularly. Meh golf is better than no golf. If you don't live in the area, there is no reason for you to go there.

Good flow. Nice colored baskets. Nice pond/fountain by hole 1.

Short. Easy.

This course is great to take people that are just starting the game or wanting to know what it is about. I took a friend for his first time and we still managed to knock out 27 holes in a couple hours. Good mix of short and long holes, but I think Schroeder is a much better 9 hole course in the area.

It's tough to find positive things to say about this course, but there are a few.
The baskets are in fantastic shape and the bright orange top rings are very easy to spot.
The course has a practice basket right next to the parking lot and the lake for you to warm up on (but it's always been a bog of standing water when I've been).
Holes 2 and 3 give you a good chance to throw a decent length drive with nothing much in the way and no real elevation changes so you can certainly use it as an opportunity to practice some basics and keeping your discs flat and straight.
Holes 4 through 9 are really short and provide an opportunity to attempt some nice long putter/ace throws with a fair amount of obstacles. Hole 3 has a huge fallen tree right in front of the basket that I can't tell whether it is on purpose or incidental, but I like it.
The grounds are nicely manicured where applicable and there is really no way you'll be losing a disc here.

Well, there honestly isn't much to the course. The property is flat and there isn't much in the way of creativity. Each basket has been cemented into the ground and there are no alternate positions.
The natural tees are becoming a bit worn and the tee off for 1 is a little hard to deal with being half on/off a walking path.
The 5th through 9th holes are all ridiculously short and each one seems very much just like the other - in the marsh with some thin trees, and a short hyzer/anhyzer to the open basket... the same distance as the last.
The really big problem here is water. Those short 'woodsy' holes 5 - 9 are all below flood stage and, of the 5 times I've been by to play (a friend lives in the neighborhood), were under a foot of water and were being patrolled by angry ducks. Completely unusable.

I suppose that this course could be improved by expanding the space a little to get 5 of the 9 holes into the open area and give more room for some variety on the last section. I don't think anything can really be done with the available space to get the course out of the flood plain... so that is what it is.
Wasn't bad for practice, but it just isn't much of a game playing Arnold City Park.