Overall, Calvert Road Park feels like a typical Florida course, except you're in Maryland. It's flat, lightly wooded, and just kind of ho-hum average. However, there are some nice things:
- Location: it's one of only 2 courses "downtown", as in inside the I-495 loop around D.C.
- Plenty of parking right by the first tee and 18th basket.
- Well mowed and maintained by the park staff and devoted locals.
- 4 tees and 3 potential basket positions at every hole provide for a surprising variety of ways to play each hole. This is impressive given the limited space here, and even better is that almost every one is well labeled with a detailed tee sign and/or with corresponding colored front corners to the concrete pad.
- The Red (short), White, and Blue (long) tees are all nice long concrete tees. There are also beginner/kids tees that are grass and marked by two neon green bricks set into the grass ahead of each Red tee. I wasn't really looking for them, but they do stand out pretty well and provide a great way for your kids, wife, or girlfriend to give the game a try from a manageable distance.
- Baskets are in good shape.
- Some intriguing, large wood carved statues clearly made by a talented artist are scattered throughout the course (a bear, eagle, hand...), in case you appreciate art or a slight distraction to talk about during your round.
- No real disc loss risk here thanks to the lack of water and rough.

- The Red, White, and Blue tees do give you slightly different layouts and distances, but honestly most of them don't differ very much. Add on top of that how the trees are fairly sparse, then playing from different tees just doesn't change your hole experience all that much.
- Lack of variety. Basically every hole is pretty straight and requires light to moderate shot shaping around a half dozen trees or so, with no elevation change. A few mando trees are scattered around (on #5, 6, 11, and 17) to try to help force shot shaping, but most of them don't really force you to throw differently than you'd like to anyway. However, #13 stands out as an exception to the straight hole design, where if the basket is at the white or blue position then you're forced to play a fairly high and significant right turn shot to get near the basket.
- No water hazards, true par 4s, or signature hole designs. I played the Blue tees to the white basket positions the day I was here, but even from the Blue tees to the blue basket positions (the longest possible combo), every hole would be a reasonable par 3 for intermediate and advanced players.
- Many of the holes parallel each other very tightly/closely, especially on the front 9, which on a busy day could make for a lot of waiting and potentially dangerous situations.
- Navigation was pretty intuitive except for finding the 10th tee, but you could get confused a bit by the wealth of tees scattered everywhere. Also, from the tee on #13 the basket you see straight ahead of you is actually the one for #15. That was a bit confusing.

- Generally seems like a great course for beginners and intermediate players that I'm sure is very popular with local UMD students and busy during the school year. Would make for a fine home course, but for a traveling course bagger it will probably feel kind of "Meh".

- I enjoyed my round. Playing here is definitely worth the time if you're in the area. Most memorable thing though is probably the impressive wood carvings!

-nice, clean park with no underbrush
-lots of mature trees to shape fairways
-three sets of tees (red, white, blue)
-multiple basket positions on every hole
-next tee arrows under each basket
-detailed tee signs showing all tees and pin positions
-a few benches throughout the course
-practice basket
-easy access from the Metro

-a few crossing fairways
-many holes are too close together
-no standout holes
-completely flat
-can be a bit repetitive

Calvert Road Park is the oldest course in Maryland and while it shows, it is still a fun recreational course. The park is clean, free of underbrush (no lost discs), and easy to navigate. The shots make their way through the mature trees that are fairly widely spaced throughout the park. Most tee shots give you options to run straight at the pin or attack with a wider hyzer BH or FH. Most of the pins are fairly straight ahead of the tee but there are a couple of holes with more of a dogleg (15 comes to mind).

The myriad tees and pin positions give a lot of options. It's great for appropriately challenging a range of skill levels or just creating more interesting replay value for locals. The different tees usually add a little more distance but some of them give you access to different lines through the lanes of trees.

The tees are nice concrete, the baskets are well-used but serviceable, and the signs show all the tee and basket positions. There is a newer practice basket near the 1st and 10th tees (next to the parking lot).

The main drawback for the golf is the general lack of variety but the real problem for this course is how packed it is into a relatively small area. It's nice that you can bag a round fairly quickly but if there are a number of other players out, you really need to pay attention to your surroundings. Shots on other holes can easily end up coming at you.

Overall, this is a pretty average course but it's easy to play, easy to access for visitors to DC, and has more playing options than the typical park-style course. It's tempting to give it a 3 for a rating since it has all the extra tees and basket positions but the safety concerns and lack of any real standout holes just doesn't warrant it. The airfield next door to the park is the oldest in the world and the Wright Brothers flew there. It's a cool historical spot and may help players sell a round of DG to the family since you can stop at the Aviation Museum before or after your round (they also sell discs there).


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Calvert Road is one of only a couple courses inside the Beltway (and the only 18-hole track). Due to the scarcity of courses, it's one of the only options if you're in DC and also worth checking out. It's a trip back in time with old school pars and 18 holes crammed into a small, park-style property.

+ East navigation for newbies: tee signs with layouts, yardage, and tee/basket combinations; Next Tee signs; holes are so close together, it's pretty tough to get lost anyway

+ Big mature trees are the obstacles on every hole

+ Decent mix of lines needed: hyzer, anhyzer, flick, Dead straight

+ Good use of mandos to make the course more challenging and to attempt to help with safety (close proximity to other holes)

+ Excellent concrete tee pads

+ Pretty, park-style course and well maintained

While this is a fun time machine course and one of the precious few tracks to play in DC, it's pretty limited and would not be a standout in most cities with more options.

- Old baskets, tough to spot from the tee

- Huge drainage issues. Try not to play after rain as the mud is universal and there is standing water on much of the course.

- If you play here on a busy day, have your head on a swivel. Holes are jammed in here and errant shots can easily skip a fairway...or two...or three.

- No elevation to work with

- No standout holes

- This isn't really a negative, and some reviewers have even listed it as a positive, but the old school pars are kind of silly. I played a below average round and finished with 7 birdies and 4 eagles! Hahaha. This is really a par 54 course with a low 40s SSA...not a par 67 course. lol

Fun course. Worth playing if you're in DC. It's a time machine to early 1980s disc golf. It will challenge beginners to intermediate players.

The park had taken an obvious beating from a huge storm a few days previously, but the course was in good playing condition when I visited. Some very large mounds of fallen trees and branches, but nothing that hurt playability. Congrats to the folks who did all that work and keep the course in good shape.

Good tee pads, easy to navigate. Fun for a very quick round. I played my first 18 from the whites in about an hour, and never got off track from one hole to the next.

Good use of the trees to add variety. There's no thick woods to shoot through. Almost every hole is short and semi-wooded, but I don't agree with the impression that most of the holes feel the same. The targets often require a specific angle of approach. Several baskets are well-placed to make you think about your throw from the tee. A few examples:

• the huge tree that can block the basket on #8

• the line of trees that run along the left of #9, and eliminate any use of my typical forehand anhyzer

• the low-hanging branches on #10 that beg for a low trajectory

Favorite holes:

3 - plays a little longer, with the fairway and basket favoring a straight shot through an alley of trees

13 - curls slightly right, following the angle of a slight depression

14 - a more pronounced and protected curl right; trees well-used to frame both the fairway and the basket

16 - one of the shortest holes, but the trees are well-scattered to threaten the drive/approach

18 - enough open space for a longer drive, with the basket again well-placed among a few larger trees

Overall the course is short, straight, very flat, and crammed into a tight space. Very little challenge for better players. The course suited my hacker's game just fine, but this is far removed from a championship-level test. Not much variety in play between the white and blue tee boxes overall.

The mandos can get incredibly gimmicky. 17 is an extreme example. The gap between the double mando is very tight and far left of the natural trajectory of the hole. Even worse, it's about 15 feet from the tee, and nowhere near in line with the angle of the tee box. To get any hope for a successful drive, you have to throw a banana anhyzer across your body, and just hope you have the arc peaking at the right moment to both shoot the gap and avoid the branches beyond.

Not a scenic layout. Almost the entire lay of the land is visible from the parking lot. And even though the setting is clean, the baskets and signage are showing their age. It can be a fun course to play, well suited to beginners, but I don't see much reason to go out of your way to find it.

Nice 18 holes. Good tee pads. Multiple pads on each hole. Good signs. Next basket arrows help a lot. Benches on many tees. Zero trash on this course. Kudos to the locals for keeping it so clean despite a lack of trash cans. Plenty of trees here. Holes are laid out well using the trees to define fairways. There are many huge stumps of very old and very large removed trees. Many good, solid medium trees and a number of small today, later to be big, trees. Nice eye to the future. The course plays through well despite the look, at first glance that there is a pad and a basket sort of randomly everywhere. As I played it I was surprised to see it actually made sense. A few mandos marked VERY clearly sprayed on the trees dictate some shot placement.

Just a bit boring. It felt like all the holes were about the same length. Every hole just sort of felt like every other hole. The baskets are pretty much in front of you and there are trees to thread, go round or pass by... and after a while all the trees, all the baskets and all the holes look and feel the same. The packed in layout uses the space very well... but it does not make for much distinction. Even with 3 pads on nearly all holes... all pads play pretty much just like every other pad. Maybe one pad is a bit longer or shorter, but the shot line is pretty much the same. There is zero elevation change on the course. I get the feeling it is muggy and buggy here in the height of the summer... would be a con later in the year... but not on my visit today. Lack of a course map was a disappointment on the GDCR web site... and after playing through I would love to have a birds-eye view of the course due to the ziggy-zaggy, wanderiness of the layout

Every hole here can be an ace run if your arm is big enough. It is really a par 2 course all the way around. If you can set up and land a drive within 30' of the pin you can get your long putting game dialed in and drop deuces all day. I am rating the course as solidly average... which is O.K. Average golf is still good, worthwhile golf. I just doubt I would play here a lot of I had other area choices due to lack of variety. I try to pick a signature hole on every course... and this is really the problem with this course. Except for the nice, deeper hyzer on hole #1 and the mini tree tunnel in which the hold #1 basket sits, every other of the 17 holes looks, feels, and plays exactly like every other hole. None of them stood out in my mind as memorable. When I try to picture any hole I see every hole. One way I was thinking the course could be tweaked would be to alter basket placement using some of these trees... the problem is that with the 18 packed tightly into this area there is little lateral space for alteration from where the baskets have landed. I think the attempt here must have been made to provide variety using all those tee pads... But, as mentioned earlier... there is not real difference in the pads locations relative to the holes. I played Bluemont this weekend as well. I liked that course a lot, compared to this one. I read reviews from another player of both courses and his comments were exactly opposite of mine. He loved this place and really disliked Bluemont. Go figure.

it was a fun challenging course. the trees that were everywhere weren't overwhelming but there were plenty of them to challenge yourself

very flat and condensed. every throw you had to check to make sure you didn't hit someone

This course has long holes and is well maintained. There is a museum that sells a good selection of innova discs and small bag. Had a 20% off sale on discraft, may not be selling discraft anymore

Dishonest people all around you! I forgot my disc and person called to tell me he left it under info. station. I was 2 minutes away but that wasn't quick enough. People constantly speeding threw the park. No elevation change.

WOW, the most disc players I have ever seen playing a one time. Very Nice park with multiple tees for every basket. Open wooded shots

I dont believe a map could have helped me find the tee boxes. The course was very confusing to follow. If not for the friendly players in the park, I would have left after the front nine. I joined a group and played on. There were a lot of holes that ran right beside each other. Very Tight.

I visit College Park every year for The East Coast Championship Footbag Tourny. My disc will always make the trip with me. I like the course enough to come back for more. My suggestions would be the little arrows on the bottom of the baskets, pointing to the next tee, They should point at the middle tee.

Overall- Great course.

concrete tee pads, the legacy of being a great course when we were throwing 141's and 165'2. Shady, easy to follow, good parking. Closest course from DC and fairly easy to find.

Both times I've played early AM- much too much dew and wet grass. My towel got soaked in no time (I hate wet discs and poor footing) Little variability and no change in elevation.

A good course to practice shaping your lines. I will have to try it dry sometime. Maybe next time I'll bring my old Whamo

- Very beginner friendly.
- Large trees make for an easy shady walk in hot weather
- Three sets of concrete tees, and up to 3 pin placements per hole make for nice variety.
- Adequate Parking
- Discs for sale across the street
- Local doubles and monthly events make organized/inexpensive play accessible to anybody
- Right down the street from U of MD
- Just a couple miles inside the capitol beltway makes it easy to find / easy to get to.

No elevation - being all flat makes the course not overly challenging, and it gets a little swampy when it rains.

This is the course where I learned to play. I probably played 2-3 rounds a day for 4 months straight back in 1987/88 when it was just Mach I baskets. Tree density is such that control is at a higher premium than distance, but not so dense that errant shots are punished (they are not). A fun course to play, or to introduce someone to the sport on.