The disc golf course at Bear Creek Golf Course in Winthrop is a fairly short and easy nine hole experience. Winthrop, Washington is most assuredly off the beaten track being on hi-way 20 somewhere between Wenatchee and North Cascades National Park. It's highly doubtful that anyone will just accidentally drive by.

The Bear Creek Golf Course is lovely and green, even in summer. Unfortunately, the disc golf course barely touches the golf course. Our disc golf starts just below the pro shop and plays mostly through a undeveloped area with tall grasses and these horrible native plants with the annoying barbs with attach themselves to your socks. I probably spent a full hour pulling these little buggers out of my socks. I would not play this course again without a pair of gaiters. This undeveloped area is also the course's garbage area containing everything from a burned down building to old stacks of lumbers, old rusting equipment to dried up wetlands. It's what the Harlem Globetrotters used to describe an unattractive woman-that is a mulligan.

The teepads are natural and marked with blue or white sticks. The baskets are single chain, very cheap temporary models. There is no signage and I found this to be very problematic. The cost (with tax) is $6.49. One can buy a yearly pass for $50. Scorecards are available with a map printed on them. The map couldn't save me after hole 6. I looked all over and still couldn't determine which direction to take. I eventually found # 9 but never was sure about the location of 7 and 8.
Distances range from 111 feet up to # 5 at 421 feet. The listed pars on the scorecard are elementary level difficulty with # 5 being a par 5. There are both hysers and anhysers and a couple of holes are straightforward.

Navigation after # 6 was big time confusing. I never found # 8 and I'm not sure I played 7 .
No signage.
Natural teepads.
The stick-to-the-socks barbs are horrible and them alone, would deter me from playing here again.
$6.50 to play one nine hole round is steep.

The lady working in the pro shop was friendly and helpful. However, the overall experience was less than enjoyable. I explained to her that the ten disc golf courses that I've played that are on regular courses have all been on the nice green grass of the course. Somehow, we manage to co-exist with the golfers. Keep the baskets off to the side and make the greens OB. A manager at a par three course in the San Diego area told me that the disc golfers are now bringing in more revenue than the golfers. So it can succeed if the course is interesting and creative and the cost is reasonable.

I hope the management here listens and redesign this disc golf course. They are already offering disc golf, footie golf (for the soccer players) and Flingball, which is the first Flingball I've seen. Flingball must appeal to the Lacrosse players. You play with a plastic stick which cups the golf ball like a lacrosse stick and fling it as far as possible. Then the side of the stick is flat so you can putt with it.

If you're ever passing through Winthrop (yeah, right) you might want to stop and play but I wouldn't recommend driving any distance to play here.