Canary Disc Golf Course plays through dense northwest foliage inside Al Borlin Park. Designed with the best of intentions, this course never truly had a chance due to poor planning and execution. Intending to be a challenging nine hole course, it unfortunately never saw past six due to an endless amount of clearing, upkeep, and what appears to be transients. However, of the holes that were finished, a few presented challenging and intricate lines both on and off the tee. Hole one is the course's only par 4 being that it's 486', with the rest of the holes ranging from 267-326'. Although the course was not long per say, the amount of obstacles increased the amount of skill and accuracy needed. There is definitely potential!

Memorable hole(s): #1,3, 6

As mentioned by the other trusted reviewers, I too agree that the course has way too many flaws from start to finish. I won't go into too much detail since the others have been quite thorough but to list a few...

*Safety: The amount of transients and drug paraphernalia throughout the course. Homeless camps are spread throughout parts of the course. Not family friendly. Or, anyone for that matter! Not until its cleaned up.
*Safety: Located on the other side of the train tracks in an isolated area at the edge of town
* Design: The course is unfinished, leaving players stranded in the middle of the dense forest with no clear way out. Players must backtrack.
*Equipment: Nice kiosk but VERY misleading. Also, the course has cheap baskets, poor unlevel tee pads, and missing signage.
*Maintenance: Garbage and dog poop everywhere! Some trees are spray painted, too. Why?!?

Least Favorite Hole(s): #2 - seemed to be a filler hole with little challenge

I truly believe Canary DGC could have been terrific if the money was better allocated and more manpower was available to assist with clearing of the remaining 3-12 holes. Hopefully, the course can be rejuvenated by the same people who support Tall Firs, allowing the brush to be cleared and the transient population relocated to Monroe's local shelters (wishful thinking). I hope to someday come back and play a full round in a thriving park but my gut tells me it may become extinct sooner than later. I hope I'm wrong and will be sure to fix my rating if I am.

Well, the main pro lasted for a very short time. Canary finally brought disc golf to the Monroe area. Snohomish County needs more courses, and this area sorely lacked one. Then Tall Firs appeared, and everyone forgot about this course... For good reason. I'm going to have a hard time finding pros for this place (it's marked as "unplayable" on this site for a reason).

Equipment: No pros to list.

Navigation: There's a nice map at the entrance to the park, and there are tee signs on every tee. (See cons please).

Design: The holes that are here do provide some interesting looks. Hole 1 plays between a river and some rough. Hole 5 forces you to hit a line that doesn't even seem to exist to most players. The fairways are wide enough to play placement golf, but it's still fairly technical.

Other pros: I don't know. It's not crowded? There are sponsors? There's a toilet on the side of the road as you leave the park? Yep. Just a toilet, sitting on the ground.

Okay, good. I don't have to struggle to think up pros anymore.

Equipment - The person who got this place set up got sponsors for every hole, but then they used that sponsorship money to buy cheap practice baskets. 2/3 of them are Westside baskets ($180 price tag up at Tall Firs), and the remaining baskets are cheap Innova ones. I'd almost rather bring a pop-up basket out into the woods somewhere and pretend it's a course than waste sponsors' money on these. The teepads aren't teepads either. They're just wheelbarrows of gravel dumped on the ground. At least there's that...

Navigation - The signs were all in terrible condition. They're just laminated pieces of paper, and they were water logged. They were also inaccurate (just like the map at the entrance that shows a full 18 hole layout). No way hole 2 was anywhere NEAR 300'. The one thing one might almost call a pro is that the trees are marked to guide new players, but they took a page from Lake Stevens and painted giant numbers and arrows on beautiful trees with hideous fluorescent paint. Gross.

Other cons - It's been stated by the other reviewers who had the misfortune of throwing discs here. It isn't done. For some reason they only cleared six holes and then stopped. After hole 6 you follow the tree that guides you to 7, and you walk directly into an impenetrable wall of thorns. That's it. You're done. But you have to walk back up most of the other fairways to get back to your car.

I do feel like there's potential here. It's an area of a park that nobody uses, and it could be built into a far more technical course than Tall Firs can ever be. But they just quit on us. Maybe it was because Tall Firs took everyone's attention and money, but I don't think so. I just think this was poorly done at every turn after they got the sponsors. The money was used on cheap equipment, the teepads were clearly an afterthought, and the paint on the trees was a horrendous idea. Add in the fact that it's a technical course in a park that makes you want to try heroin for the first time, and you can guarantee that no families or rec players will ever come here.

I hope this course becomes a cautionary tale to those who want to open a course. It started right. They talked to the city, secured sponsors, and started clearing fairways. But that was it. They used the funds poorly on cheap equipment and gravel. They "opened" the course after just installing 1/3 of the holes (2/3 of the baskets). Don't do that. Clear everything. Use your sponsors' money. If it's not enough, ask for more. Or get co-sponsors. Get local disc golfers involved with work parties and such. Finish the course. THEN open it to the public.

This is the second course I've played that will just fade into oblivion because somebody came at it with good intentions but not enough smarts... It's sad, really.

The Canary DGC is currently being developed in the very thick brush that is currently Al Borlin Park. This park looks as though it has been the home of the local homeless population for quite some time as the park is littered with areas with mattress's and make shift shelters. Actually the park in general kinda gave me the "willies." It's pretty grubby and strewn with litter.

Someone has gone to quite a bit of work cutting out the first six fairways out of this dense underbrush. Six baskets have been installed as of late August. They're not standard heavy duty and I fear they will soon get vandalized here. Six tee signs were installed but the first three have already been destroyed. The signs were present for holes 4-6. They're pretty, giving the usual information, Par, distance, hole # and sponsor information. Unfortunately, they're made out of rather thin wood and are easy to vandalize and will get quickly destroyed. Same with the poles they're attached too. They're just not vandal proof!

There was a Bobcat parked by the future # 7 fairway so I see work is currently being done on this course. Good luck. I wish you well. Just remember that everything you build out here in the woods has to be industrial strength strong in order to last. Simple metal signs are better than pretty wood signs.

As my fellow reviewer "sillybiz" noted, there is litter everywhere. I agree that I'm not sure whether it's from the homeless or the disc golfers or the teens who frequent this park?

The tee pads are terrible. Just dumping a wheelbarrow load of gravel down on the ground does not make a tee pad. The ground must first be cleared of ALL roots and then it really must be boxed in. And then gravel is probably my least favorite tee box material anyway.

The fairways here are perfect traps for having these little pieces of branches sticking up to trip you. Watch out for them!

If I was building this course I would absolutely do everything I could to place the # 5 tee pad on top of that 8 foot concrete bunker thing. And then again the # 7 pad on that bunker. I'd figure out someway to get players up those bunkers to tee off them. Build ladders! Have someone attach bolts to the concrete. There is a way! They would be the WAY Coolest features of this course, hands down! Make it work!

I feel like Krisopher Blackman, Course Designer here, might be Monroe's most unluckiest citizen. No sooner than he officially opens his course here, Tall Firs DGC, designed by legendary course designer, John Houck, opens to great fanfare and seemingly unlimited funds just 1.4 miles away. Don't get frustrated Kris, the folks at Tall Firs totally support you and the Monroe area disc golfers can and will support both courses. You're off to a nice start here. Keep plugging away and I hope you're getting some good support in your endeavor.

I'll be glad to upgrade my ratings as improvements are made in the future

Canary is a course that is brand new and not finished yet. Currently only holes 1-6 are playable. Holes 7-9 are drawn on the course map at the course but look like they haven't even been cut out yet as the whole area is still a forest/swamp land. The baskets that are here just went in two weeks ago as I type this. The course is still VERY rough, looks like they just went through it with a tractor of some sorts.

The course starts in this little turn around where there is a big course kiosk with maps, sponsorships, etc. written on there. Each little tee sign shows the business that sponsored the hole, flight path, distance etc. on it and show both tee pads on it. The alternate pads are a different looking shot compared to the first which I like rather than just 20 feet of added distance.

Hole one is the only par four but before you gold players get excited remember that it is intended for lower skilled players/newer players and it is the most open fairway on the entire course.

The biggest con right now is that the course needs to be beat in/beat down, both on the ground and in the air. There are several interesting dual route opportunities here if some of the brush, tree limbs and in a few cases entire trees were trimmed down to almost nothing or out taken out entirely. Sadly right now the fun routes I can see on several holes (3-5 especially) are just not feasible at this time, this should improve with more work and course traffic.

The tee pads are just gravel at the moment with a bunch of roots in the middle of them. Not a good idea for any type of run up but not really needed either. I'm not a big fan on concrete pads because they are semi permanent; I'm thinking right now that some old carpets laid down would do wonders, I've seen this at many other courses and it works really well.

Navigation is mostly simple, just follow the foot path leading out. They have gone and spray painted the trees up with the next tee sign with is a pet peeve of mine considering there are so many other ways to lead people to the next hole without making the beautiful forest an eyesore! Seatac DGC has those nice metal 'next tee' signs build into the bottom of the basket and Terrace Creek DGC has the yellow tape on the baskets in the direction of the next hole, something along those lines would have been nice before they ruined all of the trees.

When you get done with the six holes that are in right now you are kind of left in the middle of the forest and with your options being follow some foot path for a while and hope it leads back to the car or completely retrace your steps through the course again. Luckily I found a path and followed it through a homeless camp and found my way back.

LITTER!!! I'm not sure if the beer cans and other litter is coming from the disc golfers or the homeless living out in the woods here. I'm thinking it is a mixture of both as I am finding litter everywhere here. I saw one group while I was here and the usual 'chucker' stereotype came to mind, looked like they had bags for beer instead of discs. This is also a popular picnic/grill site as well FYI.

This is going to be a fun course when it's finally finished. There is a lot of room for improvement since the course isn't even finished yet. If you don't like searching for discs or tripping over things in the fairway while you throw or walk you might want to skip this one and head somewhere else. If you don't mind that too much and want to play a fun little course carved out of the trees with a multiple fairways and a variety of left/right you should check this place out.