Carrollton Park is an 18-hole disc golf course constructed on part of the remnants of a neighborhood that was bought out by the city of St. Louis for noise abatement. The buyout was for the newest runway at the airport, which sits just a few thousand feet from this course. This results in one of the more unique course environments you will come across.

The result of the neighborhood buyout is a disc golf course that runs along the old streets through the former yards and properties. This makes for a course that primarily has narrower fairways, requiring you to keep your drive between the streets and the lines of trees that used to separate the backyards in the neighborhood.

Being a course designed by Dave McCormack and Gateway Disc Sports, the baskets are Gateway Titans that are in great shape. The course has a kiosk and practice basket next to hole 1, with plenty of space (a whole front and backyard, you could say) to practice your putts. The kiosk has a detailed course map as well as information on the local leagues and clubs. Additional signage at the ends of the street point disc golfers coming in either direction to the start of the course. Each tee sign is very detailed with pin placements/distances, next tee directions, and have an aviation theme to them. I feel like the concrete tee pads get in on the aviation theme of the signage, because you could land a plane on the pads on this course. I've played 82 courses at the time of writing this review, and I don't recall seeing larger tee pads anywhere. There are also a fair number of benches, picnic tables, and trashcans throughout the course, especially on the front 9.

The setting of this course makes for a very unique playing environment. The former houses are gone with no evidence of their foundations, which provides some interesting terrain factors to consider. The land does have some elevation to it, but in a lot of the course, the old lots are individually leveled off. This means that a small different in height or speed in your drive can affect the distance you get to a higher level on this course. This doesn't affect the whole course, but some fairways like the ones on holes 5, 7, and 13 really highlight what I'm talking about. Hole 4 uses this interesting terrain to its advantage, starting off with a drive off the tee right above a big drop off between 2 lots.

The tree lines also add a lot to the shape of this course. Being a former subdivision that was built in the 1950s, there are lines of mature trees that run along every fairway on the course. While the land does have some upkeep in terms of grass cutting and other maintenance, a lot of the brush is still dense, providing plenty of incentive to stay out on the fairway. Some lots are also lined by trees on either side, requiring you to navigate around or through smaller gaps to get your birdie or par. There's even a couple of patches of dense bamboo along holes 3 and 13, which just adds to the uniqueness of the land.

I picked this course to play my most recent round at specifically because it rained the day before, and everyone on the local club's page said this course drains the best out of any course in the area. While there was the usual mud that most courses will have after a good rain, there were minimal puddles around the course, and the ones that were present did not factor into my round. If you're a St. Louis local, this seems to be among the best options if you want to play right after a good rain, since many of the other courses in town get saturated easily or even flood.

Each hole has between 3 or 4 pin placement options, with a lot of the holes providing a lot of variety. Hole 1, for example, has 4 pin placement options, ranging from a 250' par 3 to a 738' par 4. The variety of pin placements on this course can mean different shot selections on a given hole depending on what pin is being used, and means par for your round can range from 60 to 68. While this is one of the higher pars in the St. Louis area, the difficulty level/distances mean that recreational and intermediate level players can still challenge for or below par on this course.

Having "park" in the course name feels like a big stretch. There are no park amenities or activities on the land except for the disc golf course. Do not come to the course expecting a bathroom. water fountains, or other amenities on site.

As many reviewers have suggested, the navigation leaves more to be desired. It's obvious that the idea was to get holes 9 and 10 back to the parking area, but the layout leads to some walks between holes that feel unnecessary. I'm not a course designer, and understand there's a lot of factors to balance. However, considering the fact that there's no parking area on this land except for the streets themselves, I feel like some better flow options could have been found on this land, perhaps while even keeping the two 9-hole loops available. As it is currently designed, however, it can be vital to check the tee sign for the next tee location before you walk to your drive. UDisc is a great tool to help you navigate the course, but I feel that you shouldn't need an app to navigate a course. A lot of the longer walks do have signage, but I had to pull out UDisc to find hole 15 since it was hidden behind some trees.

Some tee pads and pin placements feel like real head scratchers as well. While there's understandably not a lot of traffic on the roads, Gallatin Road and WoodFord Way do get some cars driving through. I think some pin placements close to the other roads are fine since they don't get through traffic, but some pins around the through-streets feel too close to the roads to be fully safe from drives or approaches. Some hole placements, like on holes 8 and 11, also run close to the busier roads on relatively tight fairways. Given how long hole 11 is, an errant throw can easily end up on the Gallatin. I have also seen a badly shanked drive flirt with the highway during a round; please be careful. The location of holes 9 and 10 combine with the location of the course start also means that your car will be in range of a bad drive off of one or both of these holes.

A couple tees and pins especially seem off to me around the neighboring apartment complexes. 12C is pretty close to an apartment parking lot, and considering it has a distance of 295', it's well within the range of many players to reach. This hole's location already results in a longer walk to 13, but being so close to parked cars feels sketchy. Hole 14's tee is also very close to an apartment building. The hole plays away from the buildings, but even if the tee pad is on city owned land, the tee is close enough to people's back sliding doors that it feels like the course is encroaching a bit. This course hosts multiple tournaments a year as well as league play, and this course gets enough play that I imagine this could potentially be annoying to the neighbors at times.

Carrolton Park isn't a park; its land claimed by eminent domain that now hosts a disc golf course. The land the course sits on, along with more land just across the highway, once hosted 1,800 homes and multiple parks, schools, and churches. The airport expansion was more than a sore subject, especially for the people that once lived in Carrollton. Playing a round here can feel weird and unsettling for some, and for me, playing a round here feels like trespassing in a way. The aviation theme on the signage also feels like a weird choice to me given the history of the land, even if the proximity to the airport means you can regularly see low flying planes during your round. That being said, it's better to have the land being used at least a little bit rather than being completely abandoned.

Perhaps I'd feel more positive about this course if the city made the land into a park, but seeing as it's been 8 years and counting since the course went in, I wonder if such plans are or ever will be considered. The grass gets mowed at least occasionally, and the city removed trees on occasion for various reasons, so the land is at least on their radar. You won't find Carrollton on the city website though, so it's hard to say if/when more work will be seen on the land. I haven't been checked out the roads across the highway, so I wonder if that land is in better or worse shape.

Carrollton is by no means a bad course, and its proximity to other courses means you can easily make it a part of a disc golf day across west or north county. I think the current layout prevents this course from seeing its full potential, but recreational and intermediate players will a good level of challenge here. Higher level players will likely find plenty of birdie opportunities here.

If you're visiting the area, I would put other courses higher on your priority list. If you're a local and haven't been to Carrollton yet, it's worth a visit. Pair it with White Birch or Creve Coeur-Lakeside if you want some variety in a full day of golf, or with Endicott if you're a sucker for technical challenges.

P.S. - Don't plant bamboo in your yard. It's highly invasive.

The park has just a huge amount of room. As one previous reviewer noted, there is easily room for 27, 36 or two complete 18 hole courses here. With that being said, I wasn't impressed with the current layout /design. There are a lot of long walkouts when I didn't see any reason for them. The terrain is great for the kind of course you have here, that is a long demanding one.

I thought hole # 3 was a really pretty hole. The natural fairway was three tiered and just kept narrowing down to the area where the basket was set.

Navigation and flow is horrible. It made no sense. There was no map on DGCR so I was flying blind and that was exactly how I felt.

The amenities are bare bones. The Gateway baskets are fine, although sometimes hard to spot. The dirt tee pads and minimal signage are poor. And as for those idiots who think they're clever for writing little remarks on the poles, please don't. I did appreciate those locals who used their sharpies and wrote the hole # and distances on the poles. That helped a little.

This course is described as moderately hilly. I believe I would describe it as mostly flat.

It was a little unnerving being in this big sprawling park and not seeing a soul. Kind of made me nervous. It's similar to many sci-fi movie plots where someone has deserted the planet for some unknown reason and some space traveler lands and discovers some kind of alien/ape race. Only this time, it was me with my disc golf bag and I discovered a course I couldn't comprehend.

If you like throwing 400-500 foot drives on most every hole, then this is the course for you. To describe this as a championship course or to rate it a 5, I would simply say, drive across Missouri and play Water Works in Kansas City and see for yourself what a 4.5 rated course looks, feels and plays like. Water Works actually has people playing it!

UPDATED: Nine years later and I see that the course has new tee pads and signage. Well, that's enough for me to slightly increase my rating.

Very open course with long holes that demand a good approach shot. A drive is a drive but the approach will make or break you here. Private feeling as you play through an old neighborhood that has been completely grown over.

Most every drive is to a pin you cannot see so you may waste a lot of time scouting the pin. Bring a map. They have several online if you image search.
Needs updated tee markers. Hard to navigate. Would get a 4 if there were tee markers/pin map distances.

Please make this course what it should be. A little TLC, pin placement signs, next tee signs and benches would create a disc destination. Start with 18 pads.

Some cool guy posted a map on the course directory board and some copies in the 1st tee mailbox. Share them. Take one and return it after you play.

Very challenging and fun! This course is in a very isolated park with hardly any traffic at all. It has great land for a disc golf course.. actually, it is great land for a couple courses. It is techincal and long.

While I enjoyed this course, I was also very annoyed playing it for many reasons:

1. Navigation is TERRIBLE. It needs a better flow. There was a few times where my friend and I were lost and it took 5-10 minutes to find the next tee.

2. This bad navigation would have been a little more excusible if there was a lot of empty boring space.. but there isnt. I saw a lot of great lines that were not being used between holes. A lot of land is not being used, I see no reason why there can not be at least 27 or 36 holes here. A few can be shortened and still be very tough and some do not need 3 placements... some of them needed only 1 placement because it was the perfect placement.

3. Tee signs are very necessary for this course. Most of the holes are blind shots... and since most of the holes are par 3.5-4s, it takes extra time for you to run up and look where the basket is.

4. Some of the low branches hanging in front of the tees could be manicured just a little bit better. But this is pretty minor... most arent bad at all.

5. Teepads please... St Louis Disc Golf Club is pretty good size.. I am not sure why they arent able to raise the fun
ds to put 9-18 teepads in a year on these newer courses that have natural teepads.

This course has a A LOT of potential to be a 4+... but I am giving it a sad 3. I love disc golf in St Louis. Most courses are great here. I expected great things with this course.. but I am pretty disappointed with it overall for how much potential it really has. It just seems very incomplete.

Very unique course. Built on an old abandoned neighborhood the airport bought out. The fairways are mowed and it is fun to play. Very cool to let them put a course on something like this...

The layout of this course is... challenging. It is also tough to find the baskets as the theme for this course is "Line of shrubs/trees with baskets behind them..." Par is pretty tough and the course seems loooong. Lots of poison ivy!!!

Bring a map or be lost. Par is sometimes questionable. Natural/dirt tees, no signs for holes, just the # and an arrow. This course is fairly new, we are going to just have to be patient!

A really fun course. It's set up to allow for a few grip and rip shots, and there are quite a few really technical shots.

It's really hard to understand where you're headed at times on this course. After finishing up hole 8 it seemed like the natural place for 9 to be was right in front of it, but instead that was the tee for hole 11. It's really hard to figure your way around, so make sure you keep your eyes peeled for the little flags that point you in the direction of the next hole.

It's a fun course overall. It feels like you're playing Disc Golf in Fallout 3, which is cool. Some of the holes are a little repetative--I only played it once, but there were quite a few that felt like the same layout on a different hole. I noticed this in the first 9 holes most, but it's not really a detriment. I'd love to see some course maps out there, or some larger signage so you can tell the distance of the holes and the placement of the tee. I think it was hole 7 that I never would have found if I wasn't playing with someone experienced with the course. It was fun overall though. Totally worth playing a couple of times.

This will be a great addition to many existing course already in the StL area. With multiple pads (soon to be installed) and multiple pin placements, this has the potential to be the best in the area (36 holes). A challenge with the up/down hill placements. The par system is consistent with other courses I've played.

The distance from pad-pad on 7-8 and 15-16 left me wondering about trekking around. Note: Until the signs are in place, bring a map.
Only real negative I could find was 18 and 15 are in close proximity. I didn't realize this and I threw to "18", it ended up being 15, and so I backtracked. Also from 18 you walk in the path of 15 back to the parking lot.

This is a brand new course that has taken a few years to come to fruition. Thanks to those in River City Flyers for making the happen. I realize that improvements will happen over time, some sooner than later. For example, the pads themselves and/or better paths will be established.
I look forward to playing this course many time a year.