- Deming Park is a bustling downtown park in Terre Haute, IN. From the main entrance, take the road counter-clockwise around the park about 3/4's of the way. #1's teepad is located directly next to the road. I didn't see any obvious parking lots, so I just parked alongside the road (which seemed to be allowed). The course is a mix of open with a few semi-wooded holes thrown in on the edge of a small strip of woodland running the length of the course. There're plenty of trees here for line-shaping but lots of space with which to work around them as well.
- Rolling elevation throughout the course gives this old-school park a lot to work with, and mostly it's put to great use. Most holes have some sort of up or down, often smartly incorporated with large trees to force certain shots that aren't possible using just elevation or just trees. Hole #2, with its short downhill low-ceiling trouble-behind the pin shot, is a perfect example. The low branches and short downhill nature really make you stop and think about shot selection here. #18 is another shot that effectively uses trees and hillside in conjunction with each other.
- Decent enough amenities. Old-school but effective signage. Dual pin positions. Benches added to a few of the more nature-y spots. Concrete tee pads in fine shape.
- Good, but not great, mix of distances. Enough length here for more experienced players to not get completely bored, but nothing in the 500'+ range. This is park-style, collect "Dem" birdies golf.

- The signage could get updated to reflect the dual pin positions, and a few tee signs were missing entirely, but it really didn't detract much (if at all) from my rounds here. The flow is pretty obvious in most instances, with only one or two areas where brief confusion might pop up.
- Not much to object to here, really, other than the missing signage. Everything felt really well maintained, the grass was freshly mown, and the course was fun and engaging without ever really kicking the "awesome factor" into overdrive or anything.

- I liked Deming Park more than I thought I would, which typically seems to be the case whenever I play old-school 80's courses. This course does hold up well, though, for modern golf as well as for putter- or mid-only rounds. I had a busy day of course bagging scheduled and Deming was first up to bat. I enjoyed myself so much I ended up circling around and playing a second round. I wanted to take another stab at several of the holes (I'm looking at you, #2...) I thought were easy-peasy but ended up botching first time around.
-Public service announcement: the fuzz pulled the "slow roll-by" past me no less than 5 times during my two (fairly briskly paced) rounds here. Apparently even white, middle class, mid-30's dudes look suspicious in Terre Haute.

Deming Park is a nice "public" park course that really reminds me of Bradley Park in Peoria, Illinois. Its easy to play (though when I played the course it was 100 degrees) and the chance of losing a disc is very low. I would classify the course as an easy course for an advanced level player and a good course for a new player to get started. Here are my pros:

1) It seems that more and more of the new courses being put in the ground are super challenging gold level courses: this is not one of those courses. This course had some age to it (apparently its been here for 30 years) and I was okay with that. Sometimes its fun to just come out to the course and play a quick round and not worry about looking for discs or being crushed by a long par 5 in the woods. Deming Park has a feel of the "oldie" disc golf courses, where the typical course was in a public park and didn't even flirt with the woods. Its a nice, easy play.

2) Rolling Hills: This course actually has some nice elevation. There's a couple downhill shots and there's a nice uphill shot on hole 11 (which I aced!). The elevation definitely adds some "intrigue" to the shortness of the holes.

3) Course Features: The signs are very descriptive and show the lines of the hole and everything you need to know. The pads were nice and concrete and the baskets caught well.

4) Multi-Use Park: This park is actually a very nice park and not just used for disc golf. That's okay, because the park had some nice features outside of disc golf. It contains an arboretum, gardens, playgrounds, pool, lakes, and gazebos with concrete floors.

5) The trees in this park were truly stunning. They were majestic and old and really provided the main obstacles the course featured. The trees also had massive branches which over arched into most of the fairways, causing a lot of low ceiling shots.

5B) Design: Going along with that last point, the design of this course is actually really strong considering the land that was available to the designer and the fact that it was designed so many years ago. As stated above, the main thing this course has going for it are the trees and the hills and both are great obstacles. The HUGE trees and branches (like Lord of the Rings "Ent" trees huge) force some very specific shots and a lot of low-ceiling shots.

6) Even though the course is fairly short (right around 5000 feet) there were actually a few places where you could air out a disc. Holes 12 and 13 were over 400 feet and really required a long drive to get near the basket. In particular, hole 12 was a lot of fun to throw as this was a neat downhill shot.

7) Ace opportunities: Who doesn't like to have a chance at some aces? I actually hit an ace and hit another basket dead center in the same round. I like hard and challenging but if a course is going to be easy I like the opportunity for an ace. 6 holes were 250 feet and under so there were some great chances.

8) Navigation: This course was very easy to get around. I had no issues getting from hole to hole!

Just a few cons on this course:

1) Back in the 1980's it seemed that courses were designed with a RHBH hyzer shot in mind. This course is no different. This course heavily favors that shot.

2) Alternate Pins: I like alternate pins but I feel they should always be marked on the sign. Its as simple as having a screw on the sign next to the pin and then putting a washer on the specific screw for each position. That's just a suggestion but would help out of towners.

3) Some of the holes became a bit too repetitive for me. Maybe it was because of the over-abundance of low ceiling shots or the reliance on the RHBH hyzer shot but it did feel a little repetitive.

4) While I do tend to thoroughly enjoy playing "fun and easy" courses, its tough for me to rate that kind of course anywhere above a 4. If the course doesn't have a lot of challenge I can certainly still enjoy the course but if a course is too easy then I do tend to downgrade the rating a little bit. I definitely would not say that for this course but the challenge factor is lower here. Its just over 5000 feet with no wooded holes so one certainly shouldn't come here expecting to play Highbridge Gold or Iron Hill.

All in all this is a solid city course with some nice rolling hills and well placed trees. In my opinion its probably somewhere between a 3 and 3.25. If I was coming through town I would definitely play this course again. This course is a "Good" course that offered some fun holes.

Variety of shots - The first hole is a nice shot on to the side of a hill. The second hole goes way down hill to a basket that is protected by a gigantic tree and a thick woods behind the hole. There are sharp, tight turns that demand accuracy and wide open shots. Long, incredibly tight wooded holes along side short, wide open, hilly holes that punish ill placed shots.

Tee pads - All of them seemed to be in very good shape and were surrounded by mulch and/or dirt to ensure that you didn't fall off of the end and break an ankle. Some might complain that these pads were too long, but it felt good to me.

Layout - Intuitive, natural layout that led you from one hole to the next without having to guess where you were going. There wasn't any point during my three rounds there that I was wondering where I was off to next.

Signage - Good job marking the distance of both pin locations as well as the big terrain in play. Though I found some of the distances to be a little off, most of them were spot on and in place.

Baskets - I can't be sure, but I think that I counted five different kinds of baskets on this course. Of the 18 holes, I would venture to say that half of them had "good baskets". Hole 1's basket is terrible. Very shallow and the chains are laying right against the pole. There was another hole, I want to say it was #7, where your disc could literally fall through the bottom of the basket. Some of the baskets that sat on the hills were not level. How do I know? Because all of the chains leaned to one side of the target! Fixing these issues would bump this course up another half point at least for me.

This is a good course with a great club running the place. The park is beautiful and the DG course really uses the terrain well.

This was my first time playing disc golf, and I enjoyed this course. It had some easier holes for new players like myself, and several holes that were challenging (though I imagine more experienced players might find the course relatively easy). The course is well maintained and not very busy on a Friday afternoon with great weather, so we were able to play right through with no problems.

I liked the variety of holes- some heavily wooded, some with blind baskets, some making great use of elevation (both up and down). Most of the holes were pretty short, so new players without booming drives don't find themselves well behind long-throwers.

EDIT: I've now played this course three times, and the baskets have been changed each time, so I think the course gets weekly changeups.

The course could use updated diagrams/maps at several holes- marking the different pin placements, etc. including #1, where several of the signs were unreadable due to grime/age. The layout of the course was slightly confusing for someone who had never been there- it was at times difficult to figure out where the next hole started.

Most of my throws tail to the right, and it seemed many of the holes end with a left-ward bend (which posed challenges for me, but might be a benefit to others).

This course was a great start for me, and since it's only 5 minutes from home, I imagine it will become my home field. Now to work on turning that into a home field advantage!

This course showed signs of recent renovation when I was there, which I suspect to mean they put in new pin positions, which is great, because every hole on this course has multiple pin locations, marked with red flags, as are the baskets themselves. An impressive THREE pin locations per hole seems to be the norm on this course, though a few holes might've just had two. Every hole has a single flat concrete tee in great shape, and a tee sign with a decent hole map and distance. The listed par is such that it comes out to 72 for the course, which is great for rec players. I played them all as 3's, which I suspect the local die-hard's do as well.

The course is set on a strip of land that generally slopes downhill from the meandering park road to the wooded area through which lie the train tracks you must cross to enter the park. The course is on large hills with scattered mature trees, as well as the aforementioned strip of woods.

This park reminded me of Anna Page West, in Rockford IL, but with cooler terrain and more overhanging branches. It has fewer trees and very little shule, but this park makes every tree count. Many of them have branches close to the ground that seem to grow out sideways, giving many trees wide profiles, and/or creating windows and/or low ceilings on many fairways.

I freely admit that I am biased towards heavily wooded courses, and often not impressed with fields of scattered trees, but this course really does it well. The unique profiles of many of the trees create much more intriguing holes than even many thickly wooded courses, where you are merely dodging between tree trunks. This is a different game entirely.

The thick canopies on this course add a vertical element to it as well, combined with some really cool terrain. A few of the best courses I've played (Justin Trails) have terrain that singularly creates interesting holes without much in the way of trees or water, and this course sports a few holes like this as well.


A good example of the canopy is the surprisingly-hard-to-deuce 208 ft Hole 5. You shoot slightly uphill to a flatter spot where two trees form a small, low window, through which you see the basket up the much steeper hill beyond the twin guardians, framed between the archway of their branches. The trees are wide and tall enough that its hard to spike hyzer around them, and its hard to get a skip up the steeper area for an easy deuce. Not to mention the elevation makes it play significantly longer than the sign says. Looks simple, but its not.That's how this park is, in a nutshell. They keep the baskets well protected, and other than 16 and 17, are are few gimme's here.


The elevation here is some of the coolest I've played on, and the course design maximizes it for many unique and memorable holes, including several blind pins, long hilltop-driving holes, and a variety of curves.

Because there is not much shule, many holes lend themselves to several possible lines to play on any given holes. However, the size and girth of the trees here keep players honest, and do punish errant shots, as does the steep terrain.

This course will get you to think about your shots, and especially where you want them to land. It will also have several holes that will stretch most arms, WHILE forcing control, both in direction and height.

Though hole 12 is the "signature hole", my personal favorite is hole 7. The fairway plays up a steep hill, with the wooded area on the left. In the middle of the fairway is a gigantic thing that appears to be several trees growing out of the same stump. Its pretty wide, and only gets wider the further above the ground it gets. Past it is another tree or two, and behind that is the basket, either slightly left or right of center (depending on the pin placement). Either way, totally hidden from you off the tee. You are forced to choose which way to bend around this behemoth in your way. Its tough, because you need all the distance you can get to make it up the hill, but if you clip a branch, you are looking at a 4. Spike hyzers are dangerous due to rollaway on the slopes, and more branches up above, so you have to find the right height to maximize distance up the hill, which is a delightful challenge.

The first 12 holes here flow down the hill to the edge of the woods, and play back and forth, working their way along the area in a clockwise direction. The wooded areas in play, if any, are usually on the left side or back of the holes. The last six holes of this course play up closer to the road, and work their way back to the start.

This course opens up with two holes that are interesting, purely terrain holes. One tree total, on both fairways. Hole one is on the edge of a raised sloping ridge, and two is a blind downhill shot that forces you to curve around a lone tree on the crest of the next hill to a pin hidden in the low area just before the edge of the dangeous wooded dropoff. The first chunk is a good mix of short-medium length holes (mid-high 200's) with a 300+ ft-er thrown in periodically. Deuces are attainable but well-earned on this section. Starting at hole 12, the course delivers the knock-out blow with three long, fairly technical holes in a row, two over 400 ft, that can wreck your score. After that, there is a longish tunnel shot, and 16 and 17 provide back to back birdie opportunities, before finishing with the interesting hole 18 (which is either fairly clever or dastardly cunning depending on where the pin is)

This course is a fun time, and thanks to the terrain, has good drainage and variety. The gorgeous park itself will wow you more than the course, but this one is definitely worth playing if you are in the area.

The fairly standard signs only displayed one pin location and distance, though there are obviously several pins, which means on some holes, especially the longer ones, you arent sure whether its 360 or 440.

Rust. Several of the baskets are showing their age? and starting to rust, as is the sign for hole 18, which is half rusted off. It appears there are baskets of mixed types here, and some seem lighter duty than others. A few of the rusted ones, with fewer chains, are in need of replacement.

In a few cases, partly due to the somewhat open nature of this park, it was difficult to tell which pin you were aiming at. In particular, hole 4 is confusing. Your pin is a blind shot off to the left. The pin that's visible from the tee is NOT pin 4.

Though it offers diverse pin locations, which presumably are changed often (I didn't encounter any locals whose brains I could pick about this), this course has only one tee at each hole. This could be seen as a con, since the lack of dual tees of any kind could hurt the replay value of the park. However, looking at the way the course is set up, many of the holes are really too short for a shorter set of tees, and a longer set would be impossible without crossing fairways. On many courses with dual tees, the course is designed to be shot from one set (usually longs), and the location of the other set seems like an afterthought, or is just boring (good example- the short tees at Crystal Lake Park in Beaver Dam, WI)

I can't see a way to possibly install alt tees here, so the dearth of alt pin locations seems like a good (and inexpensive) alternative.

No doubt the locals have some crazy hard alt layouts known only to them, but for the rest of us, the course flows well and is fairly easy to navigate, even with rusted tee signs.

However, I felt that on some holes, the other alt pins all sucked, hole 3 in particular. The longest pin, next to a tree, was in when I played, but the other two are both shorter and out in the open, further from the woods edge, which makes it a much less interesting hole, still over 300ft but wide open. I hope the add another pin placement to the left of the long one, tucking it between the second tree and the woods. That would be another interesting location instead of the two bland alternatives currently in place.

This course is a fun experience. Overall, its fairly challengin, maybe a bit higher in difficulty that the short tees of most of the Midwest courses I've played with dual concrete tees. Since there's no long tees here for the option of a tougher round, and this lack of variety is one mark against this course that separates it from the elite courses. However, its very well designed to maximize the benefits of the land its on for a fun and challenging experience that doesn't get boring. Never have I played a park that used so few trees so well.

Despite the somewhat run-down and basic nature of the course baskets and signs, this course is still a Quite Good (3.25) course. Lots of fun, but not super hard. Rec and experienced players alike will enjoy this course, though its baskets aren't all in the best shape. Worth checking out, lots of fun, memorable even, but not Excellent. If I am back in the area, I will definitely play this course again, but it's not among my treasured favorites.

On a side note: Though this park has many indoor bathrooms spaced throughout it, they were locked when I tried to use them. It was 7am Sunday, so that could be the reason, but worst case scenario, there are gas stations nearby with unlocked facilities.

Deming Park itself is gorgeous. It contains an arboretum, gardens, playgrounds, a swimming pool, several lakes, and several picnic gazebos with concrete floors and four picnic tables in each. Also, there were signs pointing to nature trails that led off into the woods in other sections of the park. It's clear that this park is a busy place, a center for the Terre Haute community. The weekend I was there, the park was full of High Schoolers having their prom pictures taken. There must've been at least a hundred of them, yet they never even came close to interfering with the DG course. That chould give you an idea of the scope of this park.

This park is so enormous, they put 18 holes off to one side of the road, in one corner of the park. There is space here to put several more 18 hole courses in this park. However, with all the other activities that this park is used for, I can see why they don't. Better to keep disc golf out of the way, and worry about pedestrians.

Though I think adding a second permanent course here wouldn't work, a temp one for special occasions would be fantastic. If they wanted to throw a big tournament here, they could plop down some rubber pads and temp baskets across the road from the current one. Theres probably enough space over there to make 36 temp holes, or definitely 18 long ones. The rest of the park is a little more open or less hilly at points, but the prospect of bringing some of the lakes into play is pretty exciting, and with SO much area to choose from, given free reign you could for sure find at least 18 amazing holes throughout the rest of this grand expanse of green space.