Beautiful park in pine forest around a beautiful lake
Lot's of elevation change
Water Hazards
No interference from non disc golfers
perfect amount of challenge with short and longs

A bit of poke and pray on a couple of holes with no reasonable / clear path

This is in my top 5 favorite courses. It is awesome and beautiful course with a nice challenge. Every time I'm in town for business this is my must do course.

Buckhorn DGC is a wonderful disc golf course. I liked the variation from hole to hole. Mainly wooded, but with reasonable fairways and moderate elevation change on several holes. Mix of short and long distance, with 3 par 4's if you play the blue tees. Both left and right turning shots are represented, with a couple of serious doglegs, as well as some straight shots. Really good layout that keeps the shot making interesting and minimizes walks from one hole to the next. There is a warm up hole between the practice basket and the first hole. It was nice that most of the course is shaded on a hot summer day. There is water in play on a few holes. Equipment was excellent, and you can see the staff of the park crew takes their work seriously. Scorecards were available near the first tee. Tees were large, level concrete pads, with good signs. Baskets all looked to be in good condition. The course was bone dry when I played, but wooden footbridges had been installed to get across areas that tend to stay muddy after rain. I saw no trash on the ground. My favorite holes were 8, 9, 10 and 17. All have water to contend with. 8 is a short birdie opportunity, down hill with the lake lurking just behind the pin. Making the turn by the lake, 9 & 10 both play along the shore, with tall reeds punishing bad drives or unlucky ricochets. 17 is a longer hole, downhill, with a pond before the green. I would like to see someone going for it off the tee, but I chose to lay up a mid range on the landing zone in front of the pond and play it safe.

May be unfriendly to new players, due to water hazard on several holes, and some kind of thick woods in areas. Signs prohibit swimming and wading in the water, so retrieving those lost to the water may not be possible. I was not able to play hole 15, because there was a crew installing a bridge over the fairway in an area that held water after rainstorms. It looked like a fun hole, kind of the opposite of 8, shorter and uphill with a basket atop a dam and the pond directly behind it. There were not any trash cans on the course, so pack out what you carry in. They are available at the parking lot. I don't remember seeing benches at the tees, but there may be a couple.

Buckhorn is a real beauty, I kind of felt like I was in Springfield as I looked at the massive nuclear cooling tower across the lake on hole 9. I almost wanted to drop a fishing line in to see if I could pull Blinky out. A fun and well maintained course that you should absolutely play if you get a chance.

Its a beautiful course with a lot of terrain and elevation changes. A good mix of short and long holes. Easy to score under par on every hole. Good for any skill level.

The swamp, its nasty and will eat your disc.

If you wish to play classic North Carolina wooded golf without the punishment of Castle Payne, look no further.

Both the blue pads and white pads offer challenge and fairness. No hole is too easy or too difficult. This has become my home course. It is difficult enough to make you a better player but fun enough to make you want to come back for more.

There are straight shots, left to right shots, and right to left shots. I don't understand why people call this a lefty unfriendly course. Admittedly the two over the water tee shots (Hole 10 blue and Hole 11 white and blue) are righty hyzer shots. Other than that, lefty players have just as an advantage as righty players. As somebody who throws both RHBH and RHBH about 50/50, I throw about 50 % BH and 50 % FH at Buckhorn.

The course maintenance at Buckhorn is phenomenal. CADL and Harris Lake have a great partnership which has turned Buckhorn into a must-play course. Local player Royal is a course regular and keeps the place free of garbage. You won't find many courses which look better.

Hole 0 was installed to replace Hole 11 when the water is high. The practice basket installed last year also has a great green to practice all the putts you'll see at the course. All the baskets still catch very well for being as old as they are. I putt decently hard and I do not have any spit-outs or cut-throughs.

That said, Buckhorn was my first NC course played when I moved here in 2012. It is still my favorite even though I have played some of NC's finest. I keep coming back for more. If you're in the Triangle area, this is the course you need to play.

When the water level is high, Hole 9 and Hole 11 become unplayable. Not a gripe against the course, but something to keep in mind. Long-term solutions are in the works to make sure both holes are playable 100 % of the time.

If you lose a disc in the drink and don't retrieve it immediately, consider it gone. There are quite a few disc divers in the area who do not call back. Drive with confidence over the water!

Hole 17's distances are updated on the tee sign. 340'-ish from the Whites and 405'-ish from the blues.

Technically a great course. It has a lot of good attributes; very well designed course. This is my favorite course by far.

There may be some wildlife you need to worry about. Bring bug spray and wear good shoes; I have encountered a snake on hole 13 about 30 feet from the pin. This course is long.

Things you will need: Bug Spray in the spring/summer/fall, Water, good shoes.

I have lost 3 discs here, 2 at the reservoir at the back of hole 15 off the tee, so be careful with this hole.

Great elevation changes.
Lots of challenging water shots.
Good mix of short and long holes.
Multiple tees.
Good mix of hyzer and anhyzer drives.

A little confusing to find the next hole a couple of times.

Not for beginners or if you're worried about losing discs into the water.

This course is ten minutes from me so I play it al lot. Doesn't get that busy at least when I've played it. Requires you to throw your lines and hit your fairways. You learn control and finesse at this course. Need to be able to throw a wide range of shots including different putting stances because of all the trees and where your shot could lie. Has everything I look for in a course: elevation, water hazard, technicality, concrete, dual pads. Lots of wild life.

Not a lot of bad things I can say. I would like to see maybe a putting basket close to hole one. Maybe clear out the area around there for warming up. I've seen some snakes out there one I was told was maybe poisonous but watch where your walking. The flys get really annoying out there too. I usually play the longs out here but I don't really like hole 17 long. I think it would be dumb to ever go for the green. I would also like to maybe see more risk reward on hole 16 by making a tough shot to the basket through the trees.

I really like this course and would recommend it to anybody. It's peaceful, scenic and you will leave satisfied.

great advanced course. techinal and over bearing ruff. tight water nasty alge covered ponds well in the wood. pins placemets are great as well as the pads. felix will fish your disc out of the pond, so if u see a guy of asian decent ask him about your disc he might hav it in his car

in the middle of nowhere

bring your walking shoes, longest walks in between holes ive seen yet

Awesome course. Elevation changes,water,long shots,a couple of short shots,multiple tee pads,excellent location and setting. Relaxed area very courteous players generally. Fantastic fairway upkeep as well as course maintenence do to the regular work of volunteers.

Alot of water on four holes but this is mostly a mental problem as all shots over water are very birdable.extreme rough and bugs in warm months but nothing to keep somone away as the fairways are constantly groomed it seems

This park should have at least two courses with such a nice piece of property to work with.

DISCatcher Baskets, Concrete Tee Pads, Multiple tee pads for skill, Great variation of hole layouts, Very well groomed, Good use of water.

Blue Tees near impossible to Birdie on certain holes.

Overall not much could be done to improve Buckhorn. Very challenging with beautiful scenery.

Course makes excellent use of the terrain and lakes with a wide variety of hole layouts and shot types. The lake holes always make me nervous about losing a disc but they provide great views and fun shots.

It is a heavily wooded course that provides a good sense of isolation because it rarely has a lot of people playing. The woods make for a very tight course that can be pretty punishing if one strays from the fairways, especially from the blue tees. The positive here is that, from any tee, a good score is an accomplishment.

Baskets are in good condition, there is little to no undergrowth, and almost all holes have signs with blue and white lengths and hole diagrams (as of April 2009 several signs are missing from their posts though, stolen?). There are red, white, and blue tees that (unlike many courses) are appropriately scaled for the skill levels associated with them.

The lakes provide beautiful scenery. However, the inlet around the middle of the course is very swampy and smells terrible. The smell also goes for the pond that the last few holes surround (it is also covered in moss) and small streams that are around.

Hole #15 is particularly frustrating for me. The basket is up a large and very steep rise (10 feet above the ground from the direction you're coming). This would be fine except the rise has only about 6 feet deep of landing area before the pond starts and part of the landing area slopes into the pond. So it's too easy to either have the disc somehow bounce or roll back down the rise or into the pond. The pond wouldn't be terrible if it didn't immediately drop 2 feet or so. It is extremely murky so it's hard to find a disc, and considering the depth, extract it. With a deeper landing or a shallower pond this wouldn't be such a con, but as it is I just never have a good feeling about throwing at this basket.

This is a very expansive park with plenty of walking/hiking/biking trails, fishing, and picnic areas. Nice place to get away for a while.

Take a really good course and then add beautiful North Carolina scenery and you've got Buckhorn. Single use course, and I was there most of a Sunday afternoon and never had trouble with traffic. I met a group of 3 locals who I played doubles with- they were very cool. White tees were reasonable for most skill levels- I imagine the blues would challenge very skilled players. Very memorable holes, including lake shots and a shot over a pond that forces you to decide to go for it or lay up.

Wooded holes could use more obstacles in the fairway to shoot around- maybe some trees should have been spared. There are cattails (big reed like plants) by the water on the lake holes, so even if you have a floating disc or are willing to swim you may not find an errant shot. Red tees are not concrete, just a red rock marking the tee.

Although I'm fairly new to the game (~9 months), I have been traveling recently and this is the best course I've played so far- I played 3 rounds in one afternoon, about half of that with 3 locals. The difficulty and layout of the course itself is as good as any other I've played, and when you put the lake shots and scenery on top of that it is the best course in the Triangle.

Be careful if it is windy- myself and my doubles partner saw our Beasts turn over into the water.

WARNING: Don't think a floating disc will save you on all the water holes- some of them have vegetation that will make your floating disc irrelevant (I lost a Dragon).

I've only played 42 or so courses, but this is the cream of the crop for me. I live just north of Charlotte and have numerous courses to choose from, but I loved this place.
-Water holes. This course has some great water holes...8-11 are great. 8 has the water not 5 or so feet from the back of the basket with not much fairway to land. The hole is only 168' but when you step on the tee you will realize you need to land perfect. 9,10, 11 all play around Harris Lake. It's nice and if you can throw a disc to fade a bit left you can have the thrill of watching your disc fly out over the hazard and landing safely on land. The course has an easy layout that is easy to navigate. The previous reviews about finding the first hole have been resolved, there are signs once you park telling you where to go.
17 and 18 are 2 really great finishing holes. If you like a walk through the woods, and a tight but fair woods course this is your course. It has 3 tees for all levels of play.

A couple of the holes have issues with having the next tee being a walk through the fairway you just played. But this course has not had alot of players the 4 times I've played it. So I don't see it being a big issue.

Prior to playing this place Fox Chase was the best course I had played, but this one goes above Fox just for the water holes alone. I will play this course again and again.

Very well marked, Tight wooded holes without being too tight. Seldom crowded, beautiful scenery. Three sets of tees make it very fun to play with all of my friends who all have different skill levels.
#8, #9, #15, #17 are some of the most interesting holes around and prove that a hole doesnt have to be 400+ feet to be difficult.

A few of the holes have quirky tee shots that make it easy for a beginner to lose a disc... #11 from the white tees is awkward for a novice player who doesnt throw it 200+ feet... no lay up area.

Wonderful well maintianed course.... a must play for anyone visiting the Raleigh area. Make sure you make the time to play twice!!

-The water holes, especially 9-11, are among the best and the most beautiful in the Triangle. Even from the White tees the drive over the pond on 17 has high risk vs. reward.
-3 sets of tees: Blue, White, Red that will cater to many playing levels.
-The Blue tees are one of the most challenging and difficult courses in NC!
-The 3 sets of tees make this a complete course. With the water holes, this one of the top 2 courses in the Triangle area; many would say it is THE best.

(I can't think of any, and that's extremely rare!)

There is a picturesque view of the cooling tower of the Harris Lake Nuclear generator. You may leave the course with "a certain glow", but it makes night golf much easier.