Bicentennial Park is a short, wooded 18-hole course that uses much of the wooded land in the park. Don't let the 4,156 feet of total distance fool you, as this course will test your accuracy and punish you if you forget it at home.

Location of Bicentennial is convenient if you need gas, food, or are trying to make a full day out of slinging plastic. This park is fairly close to downtown Belleville as well as multiple highway routes, making it relatively easy to find. Make sure you use the entrance on Belleville Crossing, as the entrance that's located in the adjacent neighborhood will put you further from the disc golf course. If you want to make a day out of disc golf in the St. Louis area, Belleville and Swansea is one of the easier areas to do so, with Citizens, Clinton Hills, and B.I.G all being close together. My friend and I started at Citizens at 8:30am, and were done with all 4 courses by 3-3:30. Van Man Discs and Play It Again are also not too far away for your disc golf shopping needs, with Van Man's customer service and selection being top notch.

Park Amenities are straightforward at Bicentennial. In addition to disc golf, fishing, a playground and nature trails are the main attractions here. The playground looked to be in great shape for those who have kids or families with them, and there are also bathrooms and a water fountain by the parking lot.

Course Equipment is all in pretty good shape at Bicentennial. All of the tee pads are concrete and in great shape. Each tee has a sign complete with distance, par, and a graphic of the hole layout. The baskets are Dynamic Veterans, complete with handy next tee arrows in the baskets. There's also a course sign in front of the entrance/exit to the back 9 that has rules info and an overall course layout. There's also a practice basket closer to the bathrooms and back 9 entrance. Overall, the equipment on site is all in great shape.

Course Design at Bicentennial revolves around short and wooded holes that require you to hit tight lines to make birdies and pars. The distance is almost deceiving though, as the amount of elevation variance from hole to hole can make each individual hole feel either much longer or much shorter than it actually is. The layout is divided into two 9-hole areas that use different sections of woods within the park, making it easy to pick which 9 you want to play first, or to just play a quick 9 if you are short on time. Overall, many players will find this course to be a good test of accuracy, with mids and putters being the smart choice for a large percentage of the holes on site.

Variety is present in multiple ways at Bicentennial. As previously mentioned, the elevation changes add to the depth of what this course offers, ranging from touchy downhill shots to trick uphill fairways that will leave you wondering whether discing up is the right move. This course is also limited in straight shots, as many holes have turns in their fairways that you need to navigate. As a predominantly RHBH player, there were several holes that left me grabbing for my Blade or Zone to flick. Having many shot shapes is required to shoot well at this course, as just about every combination of uphill/flat/downhill/left/right/straight is accounted for here.

Course Difficulty. despite the short overall distance, feels like it fits intermediate to advanced players more than newer folks. The fairways are consistently hard to hit on this course, and newer players should be ready to be significantly challenged here. If you aren't able to hit smaller gaps, a round here will feel like a real slog.

Course Difficulty at Bicentennial makes it kind of a niche course compared to others in the area. The distances theoretically are welcoming to newer players, but the difficulty of the fairways are incredibly challenging. Three Putt described this course well: it feels like a course for Masters Tournaments, and not so much like a fun rec course. Three Putt brings up the idea of additional pins and tees increase the accessibility of this course, and I think such an addition would be very welcomed here, as the fairways are unforgiving to errant throws.

Rough is everywhere for those who do find themselves off the fairway, and will leave a round at Bicentennial feeling more about survival than fun by hole 18. Much of the rough surrounding the fairways have brush, honeysuckle, thorns, poison ivy, retention ponds, and just about everything else that's unpleasant to have next on a disc golf course. The retention ponds don't call attention to themselves, but could eat a disc that gets a bad or even slight kick off the fairway on holes like 1 or 16. Hole 4 also has a tough mando that feels unnecessary, and also makes it very easy to throw down a hill that goes from being steep to almost impossible to traverse if your disc goes too straight off the tee. Hole 8 is a hole I remember for negative reasons as well. There is virtually no fairway for the first 75% of the hole, leaving any shot that doesn't hit the tight fairway in a rough spot for you. Then, the basket had a tall vine of poison ivy right under and next to the basket, which is an immediate red flag as a person who is hilariously susceptible to getting rashes from all of the ivys and oaks and sumacs (oh my!).

Variety on this course is nice in other ways, but with distance and difficulty, this course is one dimensional. Pretty much all of the holes are short, save for a couple like hole 3, and pretty much all of them are challenging tight lines. There's no break on this course, leaving you no opportunities to catch your breath mentally or to just air a driver out. Not all courses need to have easy holes on them, but one on a course like this one would be nice.

Short wooded courses are typically among my favorite disc golf courses to play, which makes Bicentennial an anomaly for me. A lot of the shots are creative and good disc golf shots, but despite the variety on this course, it started to feel repetitive after a while with all of the touchy downhill and steep curving uphill shots. The unforgiving nature of this course kept it from being more fun for me, and will likely keep it from being one I return to very often at all when there are other options nearby that are challenging with more forgiving fairways. The amount of thorns and poisonous plants in the park, combined with the amount of opportunities to go off course, make for a combination that is not desirable, and this is a factor on the majority of the course.

If you have your mids and throwing putters dialed and like a challenge, come try out Bicentennial. Newer players nearby might want to start off at B.I.G. or Citizens before attempting Bicentennial. My friend and I played all 4 courses in Belleville and Swansea, including the long pins at Clinton Hills, and I found Bicentennial to be the most demanding course of the four be a fair margin.

If you like tight challenging woods courses, stop by Bicentennial. If you're wanting a chill round of golf, I recommend looking elsewhere.

Great elevation changes, good tees, excellent signage and new baskets.

Wood litter from brushhog creates trip hazards. 'mulched' garbage all over the course. Non-existent or essentially impossible lines to the baskets.

As the first review said, the course designers may need to remove a number of trees from the fairways to change the course from 'impossible' to 'challenging'. As it stands now, a large number of holes require a huge degree of luck to make clean shots.

The teepads are all in, and are great. Navigating the course for the first time was very easy. The course itself is a pretty decent up-hill/down-hill hike, making this more of a workout than many courses.

The path from the end of 9 back to the parking lot crosses a stream, and up a steep bank. That bank needs actual steps cut into it. In wet weather, it will be a mess. I found the layout somewhat monotonous, with multiple 'uphill hole, downhill hole, uphill hole, downhill hole' repeats.

I'm not sure how the fairway surface will stand up to repeated hard rain, considering the steepness of many. Also, sad to report, I didn't see any trash receptacles, and already a number of dude-bro leftover beer cans scattered around the teepads.

The course seems to have potential, and will likely improve, but won't be on my frequent play list, at least until some fixes. The previous reviewer's comment about no big bomber holes is true, but with some steep uphills, there are some holes that require pretty big arm. But, no big open shots, that's true. Some might not like that, but I'd say it's a bit of an equalizer for accuracy over power players.

New course, still in the construction stage.
Plays along several water spots- pond and a creek which gives it a bit of scenery (though the water is not a factor)
Current pros: Excellent signage, new easily visible white baskets with flags on top and next tee arrows in the disc catcher.
Tee pads are currently marked with orange flags where it is obvious concrete pads will be laid eventually.
Flow of the course was easy to follow and the course made good use of the elevation.
Course was 18 holes totally wooded with a mix of both left and right bend shots needed. If you like wooded courses, this will be the one for you!!

Too new to pick any at this point as the course is still in construction.
The only thing I'll list here is there were no holes where you had the opportunity to let loose any long throws. That said, if that's what you want, this course does not offer it, so know that going in.

It' s a wooded course that is getting it's start in the winter. Once spring comes and the leaves start blooming, the designers may want to reassess some of the fairways.
I felt even in it's current bareness that a few more trees could be pruned from several of the fairways. While I have learned to enjoy wooded courses, I felt that the throw lines were more random than thought out and hitting an early tree was very likely.
All that said, I did enjoy the course.... played it on a beautiful Sunday in Feb with my wife and three of the kids. We had a fun time..... the trees in their current configuration made it a great equalizer.
For now, in its current state, it's 2.5 (decent).... would like to venture back out here in 6 months and reassess.