Located next to the Willamette river in a well-used community park, Bryant DGC offers a superb mix of challenging open and tightly wooded holes. One of the most unique characteristics of Bryant is the frequent shifting from relatively flat and open-bomber field holes on a soft field of grass to winding and treacherously tight fairways through densely wooded forest.

This course seems geared towards silver and gold level players and the wooded holes especially may frustrate those newer to the game. Most of the open holes require 350-400' drives with only moderate accuracy required while the wooded holes demand pinpoint accuracy off the tee and technical saves when trees are (inevitably) hit. One of the key features to this course is the constant changing from open to wooded holes. This back and forth shift gives the course a manic feel and never allows the player to settle comfortably into either driving pattern.

Navigation - Navigation has been greatly aided by the addition of small colored tape to the bottom of each basket. Although you may see a tee nearby (especially on the field holes) do not assume that it is the next tee as you may be weaving into/out of the woods for a 2 or 3 hole detour. Especially over the final few field holes, a marker of some sort might be helpful for marking the positions of the tees which are flush with the ground.

Maintenance - The park has looked immaculate both times I have played it, which were early and late summer. I would imagine that the wooded holes become very muddy with rainfall and have noted that the course experiences frequent flooding during the winter due to its proximity to the river.

The course is difficult for the first-time player because several of the ideal landing areas for the par 4 holes are not obvious at all off the tee, both wooded and open holes included. Local players are going to have a pretty large advantage in knowing the highest percentage areas to land drives especially on holes like 17 where the only high ceiling approach to the pin is obscured by early trees off the tee. New players will throw left-fairway towards the more obvious looking opening but will have an extremely low-ceiling approach to the pin. Course veterans will be able to take advantage of the right-to-left gap in the trees along the right-center of the fairway. I'm almost not sure if this is a 'con' but it is something to note for first-time players and those headed to tournaments here.

Seasonal - As the course description states, this course does not likely lend itself to winter play with packed mud fairways in the forest and low-lying land adjacent to the river.

Trim - I hesitate to mention this but a few of the wooded holes would benefit from carefully planned pruning and trimming of trees to open lines in the fairway. I am all for holes with percentage success rates rather than completely open 'guaranteed' fairways, but a few holes and approaches currently border on total poke-and-hope.

I would have to argue that, certainly according to the reviews thus far, this is one of the most underrated courses in Oregon. So far, I've played almost 80% of Oregon courses and would rank this one as 3rd best, behind only Whistler's Bend and Milo McIver.

Another nice feature of the course is its close proximity to downtown Albany which sports some nice restaurants and of course the Calapooia Brewery which deserves a special shout-out for their support for courses and tournaments in the area.