Clear tee signs (hole 3 is missing the beginner tee sign), easy to find the tee pads.

Plenty of benches and trash cans near tee boxes

The city takes care of Bear Creek Park maintenance, meaning the course is cut regularly.

Very technical course. You'll be thinking about pretty much every shot you take, due to the many trees. Expect to use your driver maybe once (hole 14 is by far the longest at around 380 ft.).

Variety of tee shots (excluding many long shots). Adequate forehand and backhand technique is a must for all players.

Tee pads are very tall (2-3" above the ground - good luck beginning your run-up from off the tee - though you likely won't need to).

Not many elevation changes.

The front 8 or so holes are pretty difficult to navigate for the first time.

I have personally encountered plenty of poison oak and poison ivy, a few water moccasins, and early morning golfers will have to deal with some spider webs near the back 6 tee boxes. Just be careful where you walk, remembering to stomp as you walk near water (to ward off any snakes) and you'll be fine.

Many holes end in wooded areas, meaning you'll want to bring plenty of water and towels (if not a long-reaching disc-grabber) in case you throw into a large patch of poison ivy/oak.

Course contains no super epic holes.

Not many straight, open tee shots for beginners to practice throwing straight off the tee.

Other than hole 14 (the only "long" hole at 380 ft. off the advanced tee), I pretty much just tee off with my Roc or putter on this course.

Got lost my first time trying to play this course. After hole 12, you've gotta walk back past hole 1 and into the woods near the highway entrance. Hole 13 starts right there. The back 6 are my favorite holes on the course.

I learned to play disc golf on this course. Due to the technical nature of the course, it really helped develop my approach and putting game early. However, it would've been nice to have more than one or two holes with a straight, open tee shot. Newer players looking to practice straight shots will be somewhat disappointed. There are sections, but this course is heavily wooded and plays pretty short (most holes being around 200-250 ft.).

On Saturday mornings in the summer, the lot is packed out due to Little League. You can still park off the third hole on a residential cul-de-sac and play on these days. I forgot the name of the street, but it's Bear something - very close to "Bear Creek". Just look up the course on Google maps and it'll show the course, holes and all. You can find the street and plug it into your GPS that way.

Short technical course with good mix of wooded shots from the tee. Very little wind makes shot very predictable. Multiple teepads with signs, map of course next to parking lot and 2 practice baskets

Lots of tournament play and lack of parking on the weekends. Course is very active so it takes a beating and can get dusty or muddy depending on the season

- Well maintained
- Nice tee pads and signage
- Variety of shots
- Good parking and plenty of trash cans

- Seems to rely too much on significant hyzer/anhyzer shots (gets boring quick)
- Can get very crowded on the course (be prepared to wait)

Wanted to like this course a little more, but got bored of it after about 9 holes. Seems to be too many of the same shot types to keep my interest.

Great place to learn to throw kids and putters. This is my home course, but that doesn't make me biased. This course is lacking a lot: distance, open shots, forgiveness disc retrievability, etc. That being said, it is a great place to get your short game in check. On windy days this place is generally less windy. In the winter, the lack of foliage makes this a much easier course. Some nice locals, some folks always there- will help you find baskets etc if you need help although you generally won't. The biggest "pro" is that a variety of shots is needed to properly play the course.

-The baskets almost never move.

-There is wicked poison ivy about. A very nice guy named Scott has put forth 100+ hours of his free time to clean up the course and has done a phenomenal job, however- the PI is still out and angry.

-Water comes into play on many holes, which keeps it interesting, but discs are unretrievable on 6, 10, 15, and 16.

-Only one hole to really air it out and get some distance, and only from the long tee (14). This is what I think the major limitation is of the course.


-This course gets a LOT of traffic, and there are often very large groups playing 9-11 people. Manners and etiquette aren't always observed and you often have to ask people to play through, but folks usually let you when you ask.

Use the trash cans people. Not many of you bring your moms along, so they aren't picking up after you.

The course plays through a wooded park that's disc golf exclusive other than the first few holes. There are some pretty open shots mixed in, with most playing through scattered trees or denser trees. Many of the holes have fairly thick rough waiting to punish errant shots. Water comes into play on several holes, including a few that offer tricky risk/reward decisions.

It felt like a pretty good mix of hole shapes, with a few really interesting lines to hit and a decent balance of left and right turning shots. The alternate tees offer some different lines to hit and some distance difference on the longer holes. Both sets of tees are nice concrete pads. There are alternate pin positions that could change up how the course plays.

Navigation is a major issue here. Many of the holes have multiple paths leading away from the basket, so some wandering is required at times to find the next tee. Hole 1 has a really long walk to get to the bridge across the creek, then back over to the pin area. After hole 12, you have to walk all the way back to the parking lot and find the right trail into the woods to get to the rest of the holes. None of these are marked or obvious, and the map available here is pretty useless.

The signage at the tees is mediocre, and many are missing or broken. With multiple pin positions and no marking of which are in use, it can get frustrating to have to scout ahead on the blind holes. There is a lot of trash and vandalism present here. Though there are some fun shots, there are also some mediocre filler type holes, and the overall challenge level just isn't that high even from the longs.

Beginners can have a great time from the shorts here, there are some risky water shots and some thick rough but the distances are reasonable. More experienced players will find the course fairly short and straightforward even from the longs, though a few of the holes are cool enough to make this one worth a stop.

My reviews are written from the perspective of a player seeing the course for the first time, so the navigation issues knock the rating down slightly for me. Locals won't have those issues once they know the course but other traveling players will likely share my frustrations.

Variety of shots, Concrete pads.

Poor Signage, difficult to find the baskets from a lot of the tees, which would be fine, if there were signs.

With a printed out map it was fine. If you dont mind doing some foot work this course is a fun course to play. Hole 12 is particularly fun.

Each hole is fun and challenging. Holes 1 and 12 are like nothing I have ever see at any other course. They are both scarey and exciting all at the same time. When you do well on them you do real well, when you do bad good by disc.
Lots of tree cover.
Nice concrete tee pads.
2 Tees for every hole.

No signs on the holes. If you don't know the course you might have trouble finding baskets or next tee. Especially hole 13-18 which are across the parking lot from hole 1.
Difficult terrain for some hole, 12 specially.

I love this course. This is where my adventure with Disc Golf began. I still remember standing on the tee for hole 1 and seeing the creek and thinking, "I have to throw across that!" We won't talk about how many discs I have lost on this hole alone before I learned to drive. I hadn't played here in years because I moved more than an hour away. It was great fun to play here again and see how much my game had improved since those crazy first years.
As much as I love this course it has its faults. There aren't any real signs to tell you where to go.. If you don't have a local you will be lost. The guy that showed me the course my first time told me he didn't even know about 13-18 for the first few times he played here. Much of the course felt over grown. I think there are 2 benches on the whole course. Getting from the tee to the basket on hole 12 is an adventure. There is no clear path or bridge across the creek. You have to just climb down the steep banks hop the water and climb up an even steeper bank.
With all the excellent courses in the DFW area Bear Creek is showing its age. Tee signs would be a great improvement. I would love to know how far it is to the basket and what is officially considered out of bounds. Some sort of seating at the tees would be nice especially when your waiting on the group ahead to hole out. Some sort of bridge at hole 12 would be nice. Guess I am getting old but I don't really want to climb through the mud anymore. Signs in the parking lot explaining where holes 13-18 are.
With some improvement this course could be the must play course of DFW. It is already in a great location for almost everyone to get to play here at least once in a while.

Right off highway 360, 15-20 minutes from Arlington in North Central DFW, lots of trees and water hazards, very technical, and also some holes you can run for aces. I love the terrain on this course, deep creeks, beautiful tree lines, and nice grassy meadows.

Lots of people love this course so I tend to schedule my tee times for off hours to avoid loads of golfers. I've gotten stuck behind really large groups on the weekends. All the holes are par 3's and as a power thrower I always love the addition of a few long holes. Take a Golden Retriever with you or be prepared to get in neck deep creeks for lost discs.

This course is a must play in DFW. I usually wait for a day off in the week and there's never anyone there, which makes this course extra perfect.

-Nice mix of relatively open holes and wooded-ish holes
-Concrete tee pads, new signs with distance and map, baskets in good shape
-Lots of interesting fairways, creeks, pond, rusted out car
-Two sets of tees
-Pro tees give different look at many holes not just added distance
-Plenty of parking; holes 1 & 18 near parking lot
-Lots of friendly locals
-The park has that undefinable "homeboy" essence

-The park has that undefinable "homeboy" essence
-Trash
-lots of Poison Ivy, watch the rough!
-Navigation can be a little tricky for first timers, definitely bring a map. better now with new signage!
-For a half-wooded course, it's not that challenging
-Cops, hood rats, annoyed neighbors
-Real easy to lose plastic out here, watch out for the pond behind the basket on #5 and the creek behind #15
-Can get real crowded
-A few of the crossings or paths are not for the balance-challenged, #12 for example

***Update***
New practice area with 2 warm up baskets, new signs on all holes at short and long tees, lots of work cleaning up the course. This place looks great right now! New course map at hole 1. Basket positions have changed, forgot some of those other ones were there it had been so long.
***

This is a really fun, very busy course. The park is nice, albeit not very clean, and has a great vibe for DG. The layout is not all that challenging so it is great for beginners but advanced players might want to check out some of the better courses in DFW if you're visiting.

As a popular urban destination, this course has all the pros and cons that go along with that: it gets busy, play is slow, lots of newer players don't know etiquette, hood rats hang out and the cops show up. The course itself is a lot of fun but sometimes a round out here is not what I'm looking for.

Supposedly the city has had the course on the chopping block for a while now. Keep that in mind before you bring party favors along with your round. The cops do patrol.


**Like this review? Hate it? Message me and let me know why! I want to make them better!**

Great short course! If you want to throw a nice, solid round and are looking for a midrange tune up that's heavily treed, stop by Bear Creek and throw a quick round. Some AWESOME geographical challenges! Bring your right bending mdrange. I use a kite here a lot.

Short. Not real challenging, although there are some water hazard holes and can definitely lose a disk in the water. Not all holes are playable for some one physically callenged or small children, although most of the holes are very family friendly.

This is a fun course to play with a group and marvel at long birdies, or to learn on. But watch the hazards!

Easy to follow
Short and sweet from either box.
Good for work on keeping it low

Frequently too busy
lots of mud after weather with no easy creek crossing on 12, not bad if your actually athletic.

move the baskets. right?

You do get some variety on this course. Lots of right/left, open/tight and elevation changes. Pin placements were well thought out. It can be played fairly quickly.

The baskets are old and worn. The signs are old and missing and of little hlep. Definate navigation issues here. Lots of trast on the course.

It appears to be a well used course, lots of people there. The creek comes into play on several hole so watch out. Needs some longer holes to it. If in the area check it out.

Short simple course with a great mix of technical shots.This course would be good for beginners. Very well maintained park with concrete teepads on each hole.

Getting through this course is sometimes difficult. From the "t" box on hole 1 to the pin you have to balance your way across a pole over a creek unless you want to take the long way to the bridge. Also the back 6 holes are on a seperate part of the park so you sometimes walk into players shooting hole 1.

This is an amazing course for windy days. All the trees surrounding the course provide great cover from wind/sun. It's a beautiful layout and will be alot of fun to beginners and regular players.

Eagle scouts added ten nice sized benches on 1/21/13.Double up an play some long tees! Plenty of disc golfers around.Signage 2012! Theres a brand new map at hole one by the Bridge don't let it confuse u the holes have individual maps!Snap a pic helps too!Short tees are very popular here allowing for low scores,long tees here provide a more challenging disc golf experience for sure.Hole15 has a new location as of 1/8/13.Thanks to Joe and myself hole 15 will have a new sleeve up on the hill beyond where your used to throwing to the other two pins. It should be done by April of 2016!When there's a cold wind blowing out of the north holes 3-10 have virtually no wind ensuring on a cold windy day that you'll be secluded from weathers wrath.Logs to sit and/or to place your bag are a thing of the past as only a few remain since the benches were added!The ditch behind hole 10's long placement shortcuts you to 11 short tee.Also on hole 12 you can walk straight down and up the narrow peninsula up to 12's basket. People like to say Bear Creek is easy but the thickness of the flora here can wreak havoc if your disc isn't kept low and/or leaves the fairways.Remember this is a very fast moving 18 hole shin-dig take it to Lewisville, Gateway, Turner or North park none of which are too far from this course for a more DIFFICULT disc golf experience. Cheap used disc sellers in abundance in the p lot due to the creek.

The worst problems are too many people,land degraded to dirt, its a short course and poor unmanaged broken down concrete tee boxes.Theres also only 3 tees reaching over 400 and of course the massive amounts of thorny vines and darn near year round poison Ivy that flourish here.Little league has taken over what use to be our field.Car Break-ins in broad day light brought Police presence even more.These new family events have been taking place every day of the week almost now creating a very crowded parking lot.K-9's randomly sniff cars here.Beer, weed,even cursing is frowned upon by the neighborhood and these families .WATCH YOURSELF IN THE PARKING LOT.Expired tags are what the cops look for to guys an gals;Okay i said my piece about going to jail possibly from from bear creek which i've witnessed more then a handful people.Some Reject/dooche ripped and broke limbs on alot of our cedar trees recently esp. 9 and 10. Some fool chopped trees also on 16 and 17(No Talent)in 2007.7 long is no longer as hard as it once was with a tree cut down in 2012.We know who cut it, REALLY SUCKS. I wish we had better ways of catching an prosecuting these scums of society that choose to whack down trees on fairways.Beavers are the only ones' allowed to cut our trees! Bring A leash!Idiots that don't respect the leash laws only cause conflicts to flare up when the sidewalk neighborhood pedestrians clash with unleashed dogs.Even if you have the sweetest dog in the world Bear Creek is "NOT" a Dog Park.We aren't out there to watch you schmoozing with the other dog walkers.Honey bees are abundant in warmer months around the zillion trash cans scattered about! Watch Out! A large moccisin bit someone here summer 09' right next to 15's basket while attempting to come onto the shoreline from the creek the moccasin came from under the water to get one anda half fangs in ol' Jeremy S.Consensus is that this snake which he nick-named "Big Poppa" is still around and/or has mated.Wanna hunt him?Follow the shore line downstream from 15 not as far as the backside of hole six.We believe moccasins still live in this area under the creekbanks.

After playing the front 12 with Barry Schultz once he said he enjoyed 6 and 9 long.If your hungry the park has pecan trees on 5,8 and 14 and 18's tee areas.Wild onions grow on 10 an 11 and the famous Texas Grapevines never die around hole 13's tees. Plenty of squirrels and rabbits too for added protein.Over five hawks live along the creekway near holes 10,11 and 16 don't be surprised if you hear them being loud while u play.Bring a fishing line if you think your good enough to catch some of the Bass that are spotted swimming upstream as well.Dam yellow jacket bit me! Don't badger the tree and rat snakes they're harmless and not aggressive or venomous unlike the moccasins of course .Moccasin wrangling is approved if you can get one. Copperheads have been seen numerous times too.the Bullfrogs,snapping turtles,ducks and the beautiful Blue Herring are seen soaring thru as well.Clyde is what we're callin the huge Beaver that has been spotted by me and others. Bobcats,Coyotes,racoons and fox round off the complete # of native fauna I've seen at this park that the DFW airport wilderness has kept safe to roam our disc course.

Bear Creek makes good use of the available land and has aged well over the years, growing from a little 9-hole course back in the late 90s to a full 18-holes with multiple pin placements and dual teepads on every hole.

In most cases the long teepads not only add distance but open up (or force) differently shaped lines to the pins, offering a variety of shots for the course. The course -- from both the longs and the shorts -- flows well with very little wasted space and very little extra walking between holes. This clean design allows the course to play much faster than most courses, as long as you can keep it on the fairways.

Fortunately, the fairways are a lot more obvious than they were a few years ago. The underbrush and poison ivy used to be legendary. Now, the course has worn in to the point where only truly errant shots get penalized by bad underbrush and unreasonable foliage.

The course makes good use of the underbrush and tees that are there, forcing a lot of different lines, ranging from big hyzers to low tunnel shots to delicate anhyzers to flicks, thumbers and skip shots around corners.

The course is almost completely flat -- all of the elevation is dropoffs into creeks/ponds -- so if you are playing well, everything is flat ground. This is good for speed-of-play, but is weak from a course-design standpoint. Having at least a couple elevation changes would have been nice variety.

My biggest pet peeves on a course are waiting to play and loosing discs, and unfortunately, Bear Creek is frequent home to both occurrences...

Bear Creek is one of the busiest courses in Texas, and lots and lots of high school kids play here recreationally (and sometimes are into other, less sanctioned activities on the side). Backups can be prevalent on the course, and often there are groups that lack the tact to allow more serious golfers to play through.

The course also has more than it's share of water hazards. With most pin placements, 9 or 10 of the holes have water hazards (9 from shorts, 10 from longs), and there are seldom good opportunities to retrieve your discs. The water is often murky or covered in foul-smelling scum, trash is abundant, broken glass, snakes, etc... are prevalent. It's just not a great place to go fishing for your discs (though I have done it before). So a bad bounce off a tree or a shot pulled early or sailing just a little too long, and you can be down in the creek with the water moccasins. This is a huge detractor for me.

I've also experienced (and heard of many other instances) where neighborhood kids have waited around the corners on blind shots and grabbed and run off with discs when the owners aren't in view. I don't think this is frequent, but it's happened to enough people -- and there are enough blind holes -- that it is worth keeping in mind as you play. On some of the shots, friends and I made a point of keeping spotters -- not to find our discs, but to make sure SOMEONE ELSE didn't find our discs before we did.

A last con worth mentioning is the poison ivy. The annual tournament called the "Poison Ivy Open" held at Bear Creek is aptly named. The poison ivy has been beaten back immensely over the years, but I still have friends who catch poison ivy every time they play Bear Creek. The poison ivy is there, and is prevalent any time you toss a disc off the fairway or skip past a basket. It's not going to kill you, but it is worth watching out for.

My parents lived near this course for years and it's where my brother and I would play hundreds of rounds a year during summer and winter breaks when I was home from college...

So I admit I have a hard time being objective about this course because it is where I learned to play. I have a lot of fond memories about it, and a lot of experience. But it also means that it's been so long since I first navigated this course that I have no idea how hard it is to find your way through the holes... I have no idea whether the teesigns are any good, since I haven't looked at them in years; in short, I know I can't answer some of the basic questions most people would have about a course.

I can give a word of warning that holes 13-18 can be hard to find your first time through. After hole 12, walk back through the parking lot and turn right into the woods just before you get to the interstate access road to the park. There you will find the teebox for hole 13. However, there are so many people who play this course that it is always easy to find a helpful local to show you through... my brother had the pleasure of playing tour guide for Ron Russell several years ago when he was passing through -- my brother said he'd never seen so many birdies look so effortless...

I have many fond memories of Bear Creek -- aces hit or watched, great rounds of Glow golf, snakes snapping, blue-balled disc retrieval in the icy stream in the dead of winter, innumerable great times with friends and family... and this colors my perception of the course. It is home to amazing memories, but I'm also aware of how many better courses I've played all across the country.

What makes Bear Creek special -- the reason I suspect it has approximately a 4.0 rating -- is that so many people come to treat Bear Creek as their disc golf home. There are many great local golfers who call this home and have spent thousands of hours working on their games and teaching/inspiring others to play disc golf. This is an amazing course for the memories and for the people. However, it isn't an amazing course for the holes or for the land -- there are much better courses to play, but few better places to learn from such a great community of golfers.

Nice design stressing fundamentals, with all sorts of shots. Low ceilings, high ceilings, tunnels, short putter shots through thick woods, shots over and next to a creek with steep sides and murky water. Well balanced shot mix overall (but begins with 3 rhbh shots in a row). Well mowed, clean.

POISON IVY- too much to avoid, you WILL get it on you playing here.
- Needs some new signs, tough to realize there are even dual tees on the first hole with one hidden from the other.
- Hole #13 is like impossible to find without help or just luck, you must cross back over #1 to the parking lot, then enter the woods through a small trail. No sign points this out, leaving it up to you to walk around for a long time searching for it.

There's just too much poison ivy for anyone highly allergic to have a good time, or to play the course (even play well) and not get covered in it head-to-toe. Be prepared for that, or skip it as I recommend, if allergic.
You will encounter it on the follow through on the tee, on the paths between holes (sometimes have to find alt. route to the next hole to avoid touching it), surrounding baskets and lining the fairways 5 feet high.

One of the greatest things about the course is the option for short tees or long tees. There are also multiple pin positions on many holes, although they are rarely moved these days. Bring your hiking shoes, because there is some good terrain to cross. You shoot over a creek on hole 12 and over a pond on hole 8 (from the long tee). The water hazards will keep you on your toes. There are lots of holes for possible aces and birdies and a couple that you're doing well to pull out a par on. This course seems to draw a lot of beginners as well as some very good, experienced players; it has something for everyone.

Watch out for poison ivy and other miscellaneous poisonous plant. I've not really gotten it bad myself, but have heard of folks that have out there. The course is easy to follow in most places. People get mixed up after holes 3 and 12. After 3, follow the sidewalk around to hole 4, don't go to the teebox that you see first, that is actually hole 11. After 12, you have to walk back to the parking lot and enter the trees near the access road to find 13. Lots of people will start their round on 13 instead of 1 because the course flows better that way. There are usually quite a few people out playing so be prepared to be patient while you wait.

My biggest complaint with Bear Creek are it's design flaws. There are several holes that fall into the "poke and hope" category to me. These holes are 6, 12, and 13 from both sets of tees, and hole 16 from the long tee. These holes are notorious for punishing good shots while rewarding lucky errant shots. Bear Creek is a ratings killer for tournaments if you don't have an exceptionally good round. It is not difficult for less skilled players to shoot well and skew the ratings negatively.

If you are consistently playing under par on the shorts, give the long tees a shot...they are a lot of fun and more challenging. This course used to be one of my favorites in the area, but as I have gotten better, I like this course less and less.

this course will have you trying all kinds of shots. there are some very challenging holes. you will need extra discs on this course.

hole 12 can be a bit annoying seeing that you have to be a billy goat to get to the hole after you throw your shot.