Gorham, ME

Bennett Disc Farm

3.535(based on 18 reviews)
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2 0
Highway Bill
Experience: 25.9 years 67 played 5 reviews
3.50 star(s)

bombs away 2+ years drive by

Reviewed: Played on:Oct 22, 2013 Played the course:5+ times

Pros:

For a "field course", there is a ton of variety packed into 2 unique layouts here. The red layout is the original and slightly longer of the two. Both are a blast to play and will certainly test your arm and disc selection, especially in the wind. If you can throw 300', I recommend giving this place a shot.
The cement tee boxes are large, safe and very well done and the baskets here are Discatchers...both very good things.
There are field holes, a few wooded holes, and combinations of the two. Both layouts follow one another which aids in navigation.
Most of the baskets are in precarious spots, making you think twice about your approach and putt. *more courses should put teeth into their putting areas*
Between that and the extreme elevation changes and slopes, the variety of challenging holes is pleasantly surprising. There are some very fun and unique tee shots from which to rip your favorite HSDs. Hole 1 (red), hole 3 (red), hole 9 (gold) and hole 12 (gold) must be experienced if you're in southern Maine. Incidentally, the layout colors (red and gold) don't correspond to PDGA difficulty levels. Just colors picked at random I think.
That being said, these 2 layouts are no more than a blue level par 59-60. This means that 12-13 of the holes are par 3's, 5-6 par 4's. While this is more par 4's than most courses offer, it still falls short of any true test of golf. I give this course a 3.5 only as it relates to the limited quality choices available in our sport.

Cons:

-The "rough" can get really long. Spotters are necessary.
-Scorecards are usually unavailable.
-No hole info on tee signs.
-No disc sales

Other Thoughts:

The strategically placed plastic wrapped hay bale bunkers add a nice touch to "The Farm" courses.
Play long grass OB for an added challenge.
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8 6
iHitTree
Bronze level trusted reviewer
Experience: 21.9 years 100 played 38 reviews
3.50 star(s)

Diamond in the rough 2+ years

Reviewed: Updated: Played on:Aug 23, 2012 Played the course:5+ times

Pros:

-distance baby! Show off that arm! There are a number of par 5's, one of which exceeding 1000 from the red tee!
-HUGE contour to the land--big rolling hills with major elevation changes
-blended field and woods.
-uncrowded
-friendly regulars
-marshmallow looking hay bails are 'natural' looking markers to aid in the direction you should throw--a nice navigational tool.

Cons:

-what am I paying for? No grooming, no signs for next hole, no scorecards, no tee signs telling par or distance or basket location, no staff available to help. It was a frustrating until gettin they hang of the direction of the red tees. I had a very similar experience as the previous reviewer did. I played the yellow hole 1 and had no idea where to go so I went back to the tee area and saw the red tee and checked online seeing that I was searching for an 800 ft par 5 which surely was not the basket labeled 1 staring me in the face. Then I noticed it off to the right way down. After this initial mix up, navigation wasn't bad.
-can have trouble with drives in fairway due to long grass
-exhausting walking over 2.5 miles up and down large hills when the grass is 8 inches tall. Even a narrowly mowed path through fairways would make the walking a lot more bearable.
-For an honor system pay style, $6 is a bad number since most people (unless they plan ahead) may not have a 5 and a 1. It should be $5 without anyone there to make change.
-no bathrooms that I found but they may have them available
-no water fountain
-beer bottles everywhere at hole 5's tee box

Other Thoughts:

This course is on a farm-like property that also offers paintball (pretty cool combo of sports). It is definitely one of the best open courses I've played. At first look there may not be many obstacles on some of the holes, but elevation and wind are your obstacles. I highly recommend this course. There are red tees and yellow tees, and a few of the holes have alternative baskets that I believe are meant for the yellow tees. I think Red is the tougher play, although there were a small handful of holes where the yellow actually was tougher than the red (hole 15 and hole 7), but I recommend playing Red tees.

Great holes:
-Hole 7 has a really cool initial tree column that opens into a little grove with a very steep 20-25 foot tall natural bowl looking up to the basket. Very cool hole.
-Hole 3 is a monster downhill hole where if you don't make it to the bottom off the tee, then you probably lost your disk as there are high bushes on both sides and only a narrow waing path through them to the bottom. The hill may be 8 or 9 stories tall! A classic risk/reward hole. Probably my favorite on the course.
-Hole 12 starts out with a slightly downhill open throw, but you need to clear a gap in the trees, where the basket resides on the other side of a small creek--a nice tee shot
-Hole 14 is over 1000 feet. BIG. Enough said.
-Hole 16 shows you an uphill hole through with a taunting tunnel through a thicket of trees that frames the basket. You can try a fairway driver or middy thru the small opening or throw a high hyzer playing the fade over top of the trees. A technical hole as compared to its brethren.

This course will take over 2 hours to play. Great Grade A disc!
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6 0
jtreadwell
Bronze level trusted reviewer
Experience: 13.8 years 92 played 28 reviews
3.50 star(s)

Wild-Style Disc Golf 2+ years drive by

Reviewed: Updated: Played on:Apr 1, 2014 Played the course:5+ times

Pros:

- Very unique holes and situations
- A true chance to air out your driving arm
- Great atmosphere
- 1 3/4 courses for the price of one

Cons:

- Very unforgiving rough
- Little to no amenities for your 6$
- Difficult navigation until you learn the "language"

Other Thoughts:

Get ready for some wild-style disc golf. BAP is an excellent course that glorifies the extreme. Upon arriving, the wind was blowing hard across the fields and there was a dirt bike event wrapping up on the other side of the barn from the course. There are very few indicators as to where to start and where to go at first so it took me and my buddy a minute to figure it out. We found the kiosk with the deposit box but were a bit disappointed at the lack of a course map. There were dirt bikers camping on the red tee so we used the yellow one and completed the first hole. We then got a bit confused and ended up shooting for the red course hole one basket from the yellow course's second tee. After remembering that there are two courses, we started over and played the red course from the beginning. This type of shenanigan could easily be minimized by installing a sign explaining the two course situation and how to navigate them. Also causing confusion was the almost total lack of signage aside from a colored number on a pole notating the hole number. With some holes being over 500ft long and two courses intertwining, the signage needs to be spot on. It took us a few holes to realize that the hay bails that dot the landscape are actually directions, and that the hole is usually in between the two you can see directly in front of the teebox you're on. Once we had that figured out navigation was a lot easier.
Hole design is where this course really shines. There was not a single boring hole and the woods holes are spread well enough between the more open shots to keep things from getting repetitive. I found myself grinning while walking up to some of these holes and realizing what the course designers wanted me to try. Highlights on the red course are hole 3, a mighty drive from approximately 100ft over the fairway, Hole 7, a shorter wooded hole with the basket on top of a 30ft. sheer cliff, and hole 16, a drive straight up and around trees on a very steep hill with a 5x5 tunnel shot at the basket for those feeling spunky.
Now I'm all for risk/reward, but the rough simply devours discs. The course is very long and when we added in disc searching it took us well over 2 hours to play a round. Hole 17 in particular is quite disc-thirsty as you are shooting along a high ridge and between the constant wind and the curvature of the land it's incredibly easy to send a disc 200 - 300ft off course into the long grass. My buddy lost his new opto flow on that hole, and while we were searching we found an unmarked Orc someone else had lost. Never found the flow though...
All in all, this is a course that could easily be a 5 star champion level facility with some upgrading. The land usage and course design is superb, but the lack of amenities and confusing set up is a real downer. Even with caveats, this is still a must play course in New England so check it out and be ready to be amazed.
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6 0
dsm767
Experience: 20.9 years 16 played 12 reviews
3.50 star(s)

Long winded Course Near Sebago Lake 2+ years drive by

Reviewed: Played on:Sep 20, 2010 Played the course:5+ times

Pros:

Lots of variety in this course and just down the street from The University of Southern Maine, Sebago Lake, and The Maine Mall in southern Maine.

THE COURSE-
This course sports two holes over 800ft including the first hole shooting almost blindly downhill openly into the field, then uphill on the approach to a basket, which if overshot you will run the risk of rolling down the back of the hill.

The course mixes it up a bit especially when you take grade into account every shot counts and if you mount up birdies and eagles on the easier holes your in for a good round even if you don't have a bomb of an arm to get less than par on the 800ft holes.

The technicality of the course really is what the score is based on, there are a lot of places to make mistakes at this course, and a skilled player will thrive. There are just some holes here where they try things that I have not seen on any of the other courses in the area. There is even one shot that the basket is almost vertical on your approach up a 10ft high slope above you.

INDOOR COURSE-
Yes thats right! They have an indoor course in the barn. I know that they also have a league in the late fall that they run thats just played indoors well into the winter so you can hone your skills in the off season. It located in the barn next to where you sign in. There is also a small pro shop with limited discs in the barn as well, however, often times the barn is locked and no one is around to run the club house so I have only been inside on the course a few times and haven't kept score. But if you see the owner at around ask him about it he'll show you the course.

The course is set up with all types of obstacles on the bottom and 2nd story of the barn. They use everything from nets to tires to make the indoor course accessible and technical. There was one shot I remembered that started on the 2nd story of the barn and shot down to the first floor to the basket but you had to shoot through a set of tires to get down to the bottom, a perfect shot could be an ace.

Cons:

Some of the par fives can be a game breaker if your not capable of driving 300ft or more uphill, and downhill.

Some times the wind can help you here, but more often then not on the back nine there's a lot of uphill shots and holes on the side of hills its hard to manage sometimes if your not use to the course.

The first time I went to this course I spent A LOT of time looking for discs. The grass was overgrown to sometimes chest height on a lot of the longer holes and on both of the 800ft holes, thats a lot of space for a disc to go AWOL in, and accidents can happen. Since then there has been pretty good upkeep haven't seen it like that in 2 seasons.

I wish I could say call ahead and ask about conditions but the clubhouse is rarely open in the middle of the day and off-season. Just pay in the box next to the barn when you pull in.

Other Thoughts:

A lot of fun def put this course on your wish list if your from the area or live close, or even if your going towards to Sebago Lake for the weekend.

The course takes longer than most of the 18hole courses that I have played in New England due to the hilly terrain and long holes, my personal advice on this one would be leave the kids and wives home on this one.
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2 0
xphelanx
Experience: 17 years 21 played 3 reviews
3.50 star(s)

Soaked shirt 2+ years drive by

Reviewed: Updated: Played on:Jun 26, 2010 Played the course:2-4 times

Pros:

Two courses in one, I played the red course the last time. Good variety of holes and some very challenging ones at that. The pro shop had just received an Innova shipment in when I went, and I picked a couple discs up for a -very- reasonable price. $6 to play for the day is great for a place of this caliber and size.

Cons:

Lots of walking involved. When I played last, it was very humid and I was sweating like a pig (not really, because we all know pigs don't sweat, but you understand) Lots of ups and downs, sometimes it's not all that clear where the pin is (is it over that hill somewhere or in the woods? I don't know, just grip and rip!)

Other Thoughts:

I did manage par this last time, which was a drastic improvement over my previous attempt. The owner keeps a supply of bug dope and sunscreen on hand if you arrive unprepared.
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