Overall: This course has the potential to act as the more technical, varied counterpart to The Rez course just up the road. With its great variety of distance, technicality, shots, and landscapes, Center City will demand your all. Being within earshot of I-20, the course is accessible to locals, as well as visitors. Hopefully, with the new renovations, attendance will continue to climb to drive further improvements.
Hole 1 - "Welcome to the Jungle" - This course greets you from the parking lot with an uphill, tunnel leading to a basket perched on the precipice of a red clay canyon.
Hole 2 - The tee is set in a clearing, but players must navigate a narrow window into a downhill wooded clearing, where the pin is located.
Hole 3 - Players return to the red clay to face a slightly uphill, pine-lined fairway that leads over the red clay canyon. On the opposite lip of the canyon, the basket sits in a clearing a few feet from the edge.
Hole 4 - "Field of Dreams" - The tee is set just off the side of a practice soccer field. Just off the tee, there is a window for players to navigate as they attempt to cross the soccer field in preparation to approach the pin. At the opposite side of the field, players must find a way to attack a pin that is at the peak of a steep hill that is well-guarded with trees and brush.
Hole 5 - Players get to tee off of the large hill back out over the same soccer field as before. The shot sets up for a large RHFH. The pin is nestled into the woods just off the end of the field.
Hole 6 - Here, players enter the wooded, technical section of the course. This hole is a short, uphill shot into a small washout to an elevated, suspended basket. The shot is there for the taking, but a missed putt will make you pay.
Hole 7 - Caution: this tee box is not marked. The tee is set on top of a hill, where players get to navigate a tree-lined fairway that doglegs to the left at about 250 feet. Once in the opening at the far end of the fairway, players must navigate an obstructive cluster of trees and glide over a low-lying wetlands area to find the basket.
Hole 8 - "The Beast" - For being less than 500 feet long, this hole is one of the most challenging holes I have played. Once on the tee box, players are immediately confronted with a berm that is about 6 feet tall and runs across the width of the tree-lined fairway. This makes players want to elevate their throw height and inevitably hyzer into the rough. As if this was not enough, the fairway itself steeply slants from left to right, just waiting for a disc to find an edge. If you happen to find the rough, good luck. Your disc will likely be swallowed by thick underbrush that is laced with thorns and briars. If you successfully navigate the fairway, you will begin the ascent to the basket. Unfortunately, you are forced around the side of an even steeper hill, where the only opening to the basket is deep and to the right side. If you still have discs to throw once you summit the hill, the basket is nestled among a few trees.
Hole 9 - Players are rewarded for conquering the beast by throwing off a fairly high drop-off, down another wooded fairway to find the basket perched on top of a mound. When I got this one in three strokes, I screamed out loud from joy.
Hole 10 - This hole has the least elevation change of any hole thus far. Players are expected to navigate several windows before they toss an approach over a small hill to a basket placed on the downslope.
Hole 11 - This wooded hole doglegs hard left about 100 feet off of the tee and continues on a gentle downhill slope for about another 150-200 feet before locating the basket placed perilously close to a small drop-off. Aggressive putts are tempting but punishing if off the mark.
Hole 12 - Players will find a narrow fairway along a ridge that will dump to the right , where the basket is set among a few trees.
Hole 13 - This hole is very similar in shape to the previous hole, except the fairway is wider because you are throwing down a service road. The largest difficulty here is finding good footing on the tee pad.
Hole 14 - "Beulah Land" - Holes like this are what make disc golf so fun. The hole is set on the lane of an industrial gas or power line (I think). Players tee off on top of a large hill and get to watch the full flight of their fastest disc as it travels down the hill away from the tee, over a valley and small tree line, and back up to the slope of an adjacent hill, where the basket sits nestled in among an opening in the trees.
Hole 15 - This is a unique, S-shaped hole. Players navigate a ~200 foot long fairway out of the woods and back into the previous gas or power line. Instead of watching their disc majestically soar from peak to peak as on the previous hole, they are forced to heave their disc uphill and against unusually strong winds (the pipeline acts as a sort of wind tunnel) before they are forced to approach the basket through a window in the opposite tree line.
Hole 16 - NEW PIN POSITION - Previously, this hole was very short with the basket nestled on a small plateau between a chain-linked fence and a vertical face. Recent updates have cleared a new fairway along the previous red clay, vertical face and pushed the basket into a cove of trees approximately 100 feet beyond the old location. Despite the addition distance, the new hole location is more easily reached with a strong RHBH hyzer with a fairway driver. Very much appreciated modification.
Hole 17 - Here is your ace run. The basket is fairly short (sub-200 feet) with very little elevation change. The fairway is narrow and wooded but fits a RHFH very well.
Hole 18 - One last bomb. Players hike to the top of the hill holes 4 and 5 involved and cross the soccer field one last time. The tee looks through a narrow window, but successful shots are rewarded with the wide-open field. The basket is situated on the far end of the field on a small ridge in a cluster of trees.