The course plays through a very pretty neighborhood park with some holes in a stand of scattered mature trees, and the rest on mostly open small hills with small trees dividing the fairways of a few holes. The small elevation is used well to make some more interesting uphill and downhill shots. There are some short ace runs here, and some where you have to pull out a mid to reach them.

The park is impeccably maintained. The grass is well-mowed, there is no trash or vandalism, and all the course equipment is in great shape. The baskets seemed to be pretty much new and caught well. The tee signs were basic, but informative with distance and hole layout. There is a course map at the parking lot, but the flow is fine so you won't really need it with all the tees easily visible from the previous hole. The tee pads are rubber over some kind of crushed stone in nice wooden boxes so they were very level and made for good footing.

The course just doesn't have much going on design-wise. All the holes are short and straightforward, with no real obstacles to define any lines. The holes in the mature trees are still pretty open and are reachable on many different lines, and the holes out in the open are just short and straight ahead.

There are some minor safety issues here, with holes close to the road, parking lot, houses and a baseball field. Most are out of play unless you really shank a shot, but it certainly is possible to bring them into play.

This is another entry on the list of short and boring 9 hole courses around the Chicago area. It's a very pretty park and the course is very nicely maintained, but it's just not challenging or interesting to throw. It's a good course for beginners to try the sport, with some trees but short and straightforward holes. Anyone else will find the course lacking in any kind of difficulty or variety, so don't bother with this one unless you just want to add it to your personal list.

What I personally like and how this course stacks up in my list of 9 hole courses:

1) Holes with good risk/reward. Fair, but harsh punishment for bad decisions or execution. == D (It is basically impossible not to get at least a par 3 on every hole - no punishment, no decisions)

2) Holes that have rewarding birdie opportunities for me. I throw 300' accurately, 360' max. == D+ (Too short to be rewarding for me and not enough obstables forcing one to throw any particular line.)

3) More wooded than open - lots of variety of shots required caused by hole shape and topography == C- (There is slight shot shaping required on several holes and some slight elevation variation, but below average.)

4) Natural beauty (Appalachian beauty preferred) and seclusion. == B+ (This is by far the most impressive aspect of this course. Nice mature oak trees at the beginning, beautiful shrubs and small white birches sprinkled around, nice grass, new rubber tee pads built up with well constructed 8x8's, very nice tee signs with hastas planted at the bases - very nice touch! Seclusion is not great, but you do feel pampered to be sure!)

5) Bonus points for multi-throw holes with defined landing zones, good risk/reward and multiple options to play them. == N/A

It's all about feeding the addiction, so I ranked this course subjectively based on my own "personal addiction factor". The grades above tell how well the course will draw me back to itself again and again and again. Since I have played a decent number of courses (125 18-hole, 64 9-hole as of mid 2009), my hope is that players/explorers who have similar addiction tastes will find my ratings list helpful as they choose courses to play and explore.

I fully expect others with different tastes/philosophies to disagree with me....that's the fun of things here. See my profile for my rating philosophy.