Ellis Park features an 18 hole course that has a decent mixture of wooded and open holes. The course features DISCatcher baskets, tee signs that indicate par and distance, and natural tees. This really is a tale of two courses, as there are the old holes (1 through 6, & 16 through 18) which have a completely different feel from the new holes (7 through 15).

This allows players the chance to choose a 9 hole loop that fits their time needs and course preferences, or play the full 18 holes. The new holes are actually full of some good hole designs that make great use of elevation.

The old holes were likely designed for beginners or Rec level players, while the new holes feel like they are more suited for Intermediate players.

Holes 7 & 15 both feature fun gaps & tight tunnels. Both were fair and shaped well to allow birdies, but without being must-makes.

Holes 9, 11 & 12 come in the middle of this technical section of disc golf, and allow players to see their discs fly. Hole 12 was a little short to be a Par 4, but it's nice to have an easy birdie out there to grab.

Hole 14 was probably my favorite hole on the whole course. It was an extreme uphill shot, that was just a treat to throw! I'll admit that if my drive had rolled back down the hill, I would have been frustrated, but it would still be a good hole.

The natural tees are starting to show signs of age, through erosion, and could probably benefit from a bit of work. The tee signs would also benefit from having maps on them to designate potential OB. The only bench I remember being on the course was at the tee for Hole 11. Some of the tee pads are too close to the previous holes basket.

Unfortunately, the biggest issue with this course is the sheer amount of variance in terms of quality of Hole design. The new holes are mostly a lot better than the old holes. I think Hole 8 is hard to love due to the sheer amount of disc loss potential, but the design would be fun - if you weren't likely to lose a disc if you tried for the birdie. Hole 13 however, I am not a huge fan of. I think there is a cool hole there, and if you have a Grenade, or an overhand throw in your bag, it might be fun, but one of the benefits of downhill shots is to watch the flight of your disc. A hole that does a 90 degree turn into a tight gap, before twisting the rest of the way into a U-shape is just awkward for most players.

The old holes are just not at all the same level of quality. Too many holes play or finish close to the park's property line, with barbed-wire fences. This is terrible enough on its own, but Hole 1 playing along the 12' tall fence, with a barbed-wire ring at the top, is just blatantly asking for trouble. You can still see signs where people likely make their way onto the Fire Departments reservoir property to retrieve discs, and I just can't imagine this bodes well for anyone.
How is Hole 17 still a hole? I am not sure which came first, the disc golf hole, or the Basketball court, but why Rowan County allowed this (and the horseshoe pits) to all try to coexist in the same space is beyond me. Sadly it's not the only disc golf hole in Salisbury that throws over a basketball court either.

Hole 6 could be an okay hole, even though it's a bit boring, if the property line wasn't within 10' of the basket, and it's fairway didn't cross Hole 7's.

The rest of the holes are either bland pitch-&-putt holes, play too close to the rest of the park, or (more likely) both.

Ellis Park is a strange bird. It's a course that you really need to play to fully understand the comments you hear when someone invokes its name. At the end of the day, what you really have are two separate nine hole courses that have been slapped together with tape and a glue stick to create an 18 hole course. The "wooded course" is actually a fun little 9 hole course that has one or two question marks in terms of hole design, but overall great quality! The "open course" doesn't have enough redeeming qualities to warrant existing, other than to make Ellis Park a full 18. For now I am going to give the course a 1.5 rating. I think if the original layout were just removed from the park, and some work went into fixing up what remained, this could be a beast of a 9 hole course.

Favorite Holes: 9, 12, 14, 15

This is basically the only 18 hole loop in the surrounding area so the course has that going for it. What was once a 9 hole loop (from what I understand) has been expanded into a demanding 18 hole loop.

There are a ton of great amenities at the park.

Course maintenance is overall pretty good.

The covered bridge between hole 8 and 9 is very pretty.

Holes 10 and 14 were really fun holes that were uphill opportunities for fun tomahawks.

The baskets at least help give navigation aids with signs to the next tees

Buckle up...here we go.

Starting at the first hole there is a kiosk. It mentions the rules of disc golf, and what to do when a disc is OB. It also does not mention what is considered OB at this course, and there is no water. There are a ton of fences (see below), but nothing is marked specifically...so that kiosk is basically useless for anyone but a complete beginner

Hole 1 is a terrible design. A huge 10+ foot fence surrounds the hole to the left and back. It is topped with barbed wire and razor wire. It is terrifying to look at and with all the space available for the course to be placed in, it has no business being in play. I actually used the back fence to bank my upshot off of...this hole is simply poorly designed.

Hole 2 comes out of the woods and runs up to one of the baseball fields. The left field foul pole is on the green...that is not really a safe idea. If baseball is being played on this field, then part of the course is out of business.

Hole 4 sports a covered picnic area and park benches which are in play. Oh, by the way the green is in the middle of some horseshoe pits. Once again, that is not safe.

Hole 5 tees off and throws across the volleyball court. Why? There is no reason for that. The tee could have been placed many other locations and this wouldn't even be an issue. The green is also near the tennis courts so a wayward upshot could be an issue.

After that, you cross the road to a completely different section of the course. The problems don't stop however.

Holes 6 and 7 sport crossing fairways, with a necesssary backtrack from 6 green to 7 tee that is right in the line of play for both holes. 6 green also has a nasty fence to its left.

Hole 7 is a long par four up the hill. It starts in a field and goes into the woods. There really isn't an opening anymore. It was originally about the size of a SUV, but they put up a yellow pole in the middle to keep vehicles out. It is a really poor design flaw.

Hole 8 is worse. It is a 300 foot downhill snap curve to the right which is blind. There is a field of kudzu to the left. Somehow, the designer made the finish of the hole an S curve which is basically an impossible line. I really don't understand what the thought process here was. The terrain could have yielded a cool hole, but it unfortuantely ended up a mess.

The tee on hole 9 sports dangerous roots and no runup whatsoever.

Holes 11 and 12 (with twelve actually being a decent hole) sport fairways with large amounts of horse manure because of the nearby show ring for the horses. It seems this part of the course is often closed due to showing horses.

Hole 13 is one of the poorest designed holes I have ever seen. It is a U shaped hole that starts up a hill, and plays to a fairway that is literally aimed 90 degress from the eventual basket location. There is absolutely no disc or throw that can navigate that narrow 5 foot wide snapping fairway, at least not with the currently established laws of physics. That leaves the shot of choice as a blind tomahawk over the trees, into the trees, and basically off of a cliff. This hole truly has to be seen to appreciate it.

After hole 15, the course comes out of its wooded section and crosses back over the road. We now resume the series of problems that plagued the first few holes.

Hole 16's fairway is deep center field of a second baseball/softball field, and the basket is very near the left field foul pole. About 5 feet past the basket is another barbed wire fence.

Hole 17 plays down the 3rd base line, and plays to a pin tucked to the right into what seems a nice green in the trees. Again, however, the fairway plays over another set of horseshoe pits and the barbed wire fence that was on the back of 16 green runs the length of the hole on the right and is about 4 paces from the basket.

Hole 18 again has a barbed wire fence that runs the length of the right side of the fairway. Luckily for golfers, that fairway really doesn't exist as there isn't a way to feed it through those trees the way they have grown in. This does however force play to the left up the first base line of the original baseball field and around. This hole is also confusing because hole 2's basket is seen from the teebox and looks like the correct one to play, whereas the real basket is tucked into the brush on the right.

Finally, the tees are all dirt. Some of them are very slick as they are tightly packed and dusty in places. They are marked by small yellow discs, and some of them were buried by dirt and diffiicult to find. They are near the tee signs, which are present, but offer no navigational aid. Some sort of hole map would have been nice, especially on some of the more confusing holes on the woods side of the road.

This is the tale of 2 courses. The first is the roughly nine holes on the site of the main part of the park. They are largely short, bordered by lots of barbed wire, and throw in and around basically every other park activity making this layout both dangerous for disc golfers and other park patrons.

The other side of the road, while definitely being the better wooded side, suffers from some severe design flaws, the most serious of which being holes 7,8, and 13. Those are really headscratchers, and not in a good way.

It pains me to see a course where so much work has evidently gone into the design and maintenance, but the result is so poor. There is a whole lot of untapped potential here. But when I objectively rate it, I look back at my list of pros and cons, and think back to the fun I did not have while playing it. When the pros of a course are that it has 18 nice baskets, 2 opportunities for a fun tomahawk, and a pretty bridge between 2 holes; that speaks volumes to me.

I played this course on my trip through Salisbury. All in all I would say it has potential to be an ok course with a little work. The pros are most of the holes have decent length and require a lot of technical throws. The baskets are in good shape and are in decent positions. 7 - 18 shows the courses potential. The holes follow the walking trail and have alot of nice elevation changes.

Where do I begin. The course design is horrible. The first 6 or so holes are in multi use areas. If there is any kind of gathering going on you would not be able to play them. Hole 1. Lose your disc over the fence an its gone forever. I had a difficult time finding the tees, in some cases had to walk over 100ft to find the next one, alot of needless wandering went on. Fairways are very tight through 7-18. 6ft at best.Give or take. Bees were everywhere on the back 9. If your allergic definitely bring your epipen lol.. Over all a bad experience.

This course has potential to be fun... It needs to be redesigned to where all the holes are across the road, the land is there. The fairways need to be opened up to allow the disc to fly. And I would recommend putting in some rubber or concrete tees. Also an illustration of the holes on the signs would be very helpful.

Very Nice DiscCatcher Baskets

Navigation was very easy and the teesigns were very nice.

The new holes 7-15 are well designed and have promise to be solid buuuttttt(see Cons)

I really like holes 9-12

No Trashcans or benches.

The original 9 holes are still there and I know that there was little to work with in this part of the park but that does not make it a good course. The issues with holes 1-6 &16-18 are that they throw very close to many other activities in the park.

4- Over a Horseshoe pit

6- over bocce courts and close to a parking lot.

17- the basket is right next to a fitness center and there is a sign for that center only 5-10 feet away.

There is a large razerwire fence that means a stray shot on hole 1 can lead to a non retrievable disc. Also while on the topic of barbed wire there is more that is right behind the basket of 16 and to the right side of the fairways on 17 and 18.

Now for the new holes 7-15. Most of these holes look like someone took a bulldozer and ran it through the woods and didnt follow up with trimming or anything. The holes need Major trimming because limbs are now encroaching many of the gaps and fairways.

The rough is very bad and there are very large drag piles practically on the fairways in many places.

Hole 8's entire green is covered in what I believe was poisen Ivy.

I had been told about all of the improvements that the new 9 had made to the course and that it was sooooo much better(including one claim that it was better than Charlotte courses) however I was VERY disappointed.

The course has been shown little love and is in a very poor state. I had very little if any fun due to the fact that the lines on the new holes were nonexistant and I had to search for my discs forever in the nasty rough. The original 9 wasnt that great in the first place and it is still a part of the course.

The Design of the new part of the course has lots of potential but the course needs major work

This course is in my opinion the second worse Complete 18 hole course I have played thus far(behind Fun Junktion.) I would not recommend that anyone go out of there way to play this course unless they are a courses played junky.