The best parts of this course are the tee pads, parking and some of the hole maps.

As many of the reviewers below establish, this course has a lot of TREES which lowers the skill involved in your drives and approaches. Many holes there are no way to go except through full forests of trees. When I first played this course I though hole two would be the only real hazard. Not the case. Be CAREFUL on holes: 8, 14, 15 & 17. These holes for the inexperienced RBHT can be a problem. I lost a disc on 8 to the left of the tee. Thats a complete abyss of overgrowth.

Additionally, most of the hole signs are currently outdated. Thus some players have resorted to amending the maps themselves, buts not always that accurate.

This course has so much potential. To bad the layout contains many holes of dense trees. If you're in Portland, Pier Park is far better.

-Mostly decent tee pads (hole three is an exception!)
-Decent Tee signs
-Baskets acceptable
-Nice variety of tee shots
-Fun in winter & early spring (before things grow)
-Good variety in hole length
-Good variety of woodsy tight shots
-Fair for lefty and righty
-Plenty of trash cans to dispose of beer
-Fun events to participate in
-Multiple pin positions add awesome variety

-Too many shots where luck is the biggest factor
-Even with the trash cans everywhere, ppl still feel a need to throw their beer cans in all over the course
-During spring, summer, and early fall, I don't suggest playing this course. The stinging nettles grow rampant all over, up to six feet tall, the blackberry bushes mask any possibility of finding a disc that ricocheted off a tree. The "gorge" on the last few holes is inaccessible and even if you can get into it, you won't find your plastic.
-Car vandalism is a big problem at Dabney. Cars are often broken into and the thieves steal everything inside they can take. This is a problem for all Oregon State Park parking lots, but Dabney is worse than most.

Dabney is a fun course in winter, if you're accustomed to Oregon winter golf. For the summer, I avoid Dabney like the plague. I don't enjoy throwing excellent drives, that somehow knick a tree you didn't see, and then soar off into nowhere land, never to be recovered. I don't mind losing discs, but losing discs from good throws is really frustrating.

The overall course design is decent, there are some really fun tee-shots, and the greens are all well protected, sometimes a bit too much.

If I could give this course a rating for how it plays in the winter, I'd give it a 3.5. For summer golf, I'd give it a 2. It's a Dr. Jekyl and Mr Hyde kind of scenario in my opinion.