+ The course plays mostly in a peaceful wooded part of a much larger recreation area. Before or after a round, a player can enjoy tons of activities.
+ Several wooded fairways force the player to plan and consider.
+ Most tee pads are made of solid and sturdy concrete.
+ The tee signs have colors that stand out from the green of the course and tell the pars and distances, but...

- ...They have no diagram of the fairway ahead. Plus, they are just laminated paper stapled to trees or posts. Some were on the ground or missing altogether.
- With two notable exceptions, the grounds are largely flat.
- The pamphlets and info board show some kind of old 9-hole layout.
- The baskets are misnumbered. All of them. Misnumbered.
- Very few 'next' indicators.
- No lost disc box or practice basket that I saw in late June 2022.

To my mind, holes14 and 15 have the best optics. Those are both shaded and deep quiet woods far away from everything else. A disc golfer can feel at peace there. Hole10, meanwhile, plays in a flat wide open field. It is featureless and easily the most boring hole of the course.
Contrast that to hole9! The tee pad is at the very top of the dam that you drove over to get to the course. It may be about as wide open as hole10, but that steady steep drop over the 790-foot fairway was such a shot of adrenaline after so many ho-hum holes. Also, I played hole10 as my first hole because I didn't know where hole1 was. So hole9 was the perfect finale for my first time playing Cave Run. It's just a shame that the road is right next to the tee pad. One bad breeze or slight griplock could spell trouble.

The rest of the course at Cave Run poses little to no danger to the public. You're either in a field throwing away from people or in the middle of woods with nobody else around. As it is part of a larger park, a lot of effort has gone into making the grounds presentable. I played here just as summer was starting, yet the grasses were short, and the dense undergrowth was kept at bay as much as possible. Within the woods, the roots and rocks underfoot have been dealt with. Safety is well-managed here. And the fairways do a fair job at testing your throws that finish right and left, even if it is all mostly flat.

Infrastructure is a little different. The tee signs are flimsy laminated paper without diagrams. The baskets are misnumbered, which caused me a great deal of confusion for the first few holes that I played. There are only a few 'next' signs, which I've always said is one of the key features of a disc golf course outside of tees and baskets.

Aside from hole9, hole17 is another downhill giant-- about half the size of hole9 but still an impressive look. Just be careful walking down those hills, of course. Yeah, hole9 is no joke.

The other holes at Cave Run don't match that kind of energy and presence, though. I liked the overlapping shadows and peace found in holes5 through 8 and again from 12 through 16. Their tree-dodging challenges were all fun in the same way. Yet still, a grand downhill tee off always sticks in a person's memory more easily than a string of familiar wooded holes. And it has the unfortunate side effect of dwarfing the other holes, making them seem lesser than they might otherwise be. (The larger the crown jewel, the smaller the other gems appear.)

If you are a course bagger like I sometimes pretend to be, then this course is worth one visit. If you live nearby, then it is a perfectly suitable course to train and practice on. Really, some of those wooded holes are dense enough to cause many players to stop and think. And the two giant wide open downhill throws have the kind of terrain I wish I could play on more often because I've got a soft spot for downhill throws.

But, in closing, Cave Run still has things to do. Infrastructure improvement would be a great start. Get those basket numbers and tee sign numbers to agree, and upgrade the tee signs. A lost disc box couldn't hurt, either. As for the disc golfing side, it's neither great nor grotesque. Holes9 and 17 might not be enough to compensate for most of the other holes that are grindy and similar, but that just means it's still maturing, right? I've got a good feeling about this course, but only time will tell.

This is a great addition to this area. Really nice views and great hiking.

Mostly wooded; but the open holes are fun. One long downhill throw is a good one to test your distance without bad consequences. Baskets are nice and it's simple finding the next tee.

I played in October, so the course was not maintained at all. It was pretty swampy in the open fields (would be better in the summer). There were logs in the path. I feel this was added and then forgotten about by the parks department. Needs better upkeep.

I think this location has great potential for expanding to 18 holes. Its a nice area. If the park would invest in upkeep for the holes in the wooded areas, and cut the grass regularly in some of the early holes; this is a great course for summer play. Play some disc, then go for a swim in the lake.

This being a Johnny Sias designed course, I was expecting hole lengths to end in an 8 (he said once that became his lucky number when he kept managing wins by that stroke margin early in his career), but I wasn't expecting the nine holes at Cave Run Tailwater park to be quite so accessible or level. I was expecting tightly wooded, and hilly. He likely accommodated the park folks by designing for their needs: a good, competitive course that could still be enjoyed by casual family park users.

The course has variety in distances and lines, allowing bigger arms to really air it out on the wide open 1st & 9th, and the top of the world 8th. Line shaping plus distance is needed to score well on 2 & 3, with the possible course highlight being the S-shaped second, which also ends with a tightly guarded green to the left at the end of the fairway. The woods holes (4 through 7) are very short and dastardly tight, but a good, clean, controlled tee shot can reward you well through that stretch.

The amenities include new, level, concrete tees, DisCatcher baskets, basic tee signs (usually visible as you walk forward after the previous basket), and a nice course sign. The park has tons of parking, trash receptacles, restrooms, playground, shelter, and spaces to keep non-players mostly safe from the errant shots possible on the course (see below). The first and ninth holes tee off from sidewalks, the 8th plays from a paved maintenance road, and the seventh plays along an old asphalt trail. In all, this new course, just starting to get some play, will appeal to the Recreational to Intermediate player for its balanced use of woods-technical and open shots, and will play fairly quickly around.

It's really new, so I'm guessing the excellent park maintenance and mowing you'll find on 1 & 9 hasn't gotten into a routine yet on 2, 3 & 8. Some of the grasses and wildflowers on the second fairway were grown above waist high when I visited in early May, 2015, so you need to keep a close eye on your shot all the way to the ground if these aren't mown frequently. The woods holes are just beginning to weather in, which means the usual small stumps, so watch your step. There is a huge amount of ponding in the spring left of the 3rd tee. Some of the flats might get a little muddy in the spring, and I can see the field near hole 8 being a little marshy after heavy rains.

Take the map your first time. It's really accurate, and will help you in the couple of spots that could use next tee signage (after 2, 6 & 7).

The tailwater spillway at the ninth tee is quite a spectacular 'show', and there will always be park patrons checking it out, so you need to throw carefully on hole 1 and be patient with non-players on 9. Some non-players will occasionally also go over to check out the bridge on 3, so you need to be careful there, too.

I've heard rumors of more holes being added if the public accepts the first nine well. When you play hole six and seven, you might glance up the hill to your left and visualize some of the hilly woods lines Johnny is probably itching to help them put in.

First off I did not play, I just walked the course to hole 3!!!! Rating is based on tee off confusion and what was observed walking by #9 t-pad.
I have played disc golf since 1989, I have seen them all.
This course is not finished or cleaned up. Please take this into consideration when reading this, please.
The number one thing I see is the teepad for 1, it must be on the walkway and has no markings for infractions. There are no numbers on the baskets, which is a must for newbies!!!!! There are no hole layout diagrams so take a photo on your cell phone to navigate. This course has a lot of anhyzer shots from what I saw. By the time I got to t-pad 4 I just went home, it was windy and muddy. Hole 9 is a handbreaker, you are up against a fence and the walkway/T-pad is unmarked, again. It seems to be the t-pad anyway. This probably bothered me the most!!!!!!. Just lose 15 feet and walk to the end of the fence and walkway, you will save your hand!!!! The signs for the T-pads are nice and easy to see in the late winter/early spring. There is a beautiful map and information sign at he beginning of the course. Go all the way to the end of the tailwater recreation area and you will see the baskets.

#1 to #2 you are walking directly into and on top of #9 t-pad.....WTH was that!!!!
Not knowing where to be to t off on #1 and immediately walking onto #9 t pad/fairway to get to #2' t-pad gave me the initial feeling of a poor design and made me feel it was not worth the effort today.

#1; tee of sidewalk, I guess, throw to basket toward/close to spillway.
#2 throw up to obvious fairway, from that point it is a conventional shot, basket is at end of that fairways opening on left.
#3 Basket is hidden in the woods to left of the new bridge, just land by the bridge, as getting thru that line of trees seems very difficult, another thing that needs to be fixed. I can play like that in any ole woods. I went home. This course does not seem finished but appears to have some exciting potential!!!!