Here are Elver Parks "Pros." Elver Park is situated on a massive hill. The course starts out working up and across the hill. The first 4 holes use elevation well, then the middle holes are fairly flat with slight elevation changes here and there and then hole 18 is a downhill hole where your essentially throwing from almost the top of the hill to the bottom. Elver Park has short and long tees on every hole except hole 14. Also each hole has a short and long pin position and the City of Madison keeps both pin positions in all the time, so you can choose if you want to play short or long pin positions. The course is always well manicured. Elver Park also has a good mixture of open and wooded holes with the course being about 50/50 with wooded and open holes.

The unfortunate "con" Elver Park has is the massive hill it sits on is really popular with people doing workouts on it. It is not uncommon to see people running up and down the hill. Hole 2, 3 and 4 go directly across the hill where people run up and down it, so it is not uncommon to have to wait on people that are running up and down the hill. Other than this Elver doesn't have any major "cons".

Elver Park is a great course to play if you like courses with a good mixture of open holes and wooded holes. Elver is also a great place to play if you like a good mixture of short and long holes. Also important to note that Elver can get busy on weekday afternoons after 4 pm and on the weekends here and there.

18 unique holes. Every hole has two tee pad options and two baskets on each, for a possible 72 holes!

Makes you use a wide shot selection.

Everything is well maintained and taken care of.

Play through some woods and yet there are mad put woodchips to make it easier to find your discs if you go off course.

Pay to play (only $5).

Very crowded.

Bugs can be bad in the woods.

Navigation can be tricky, as after some holes you think you are walking to the next one but you end up being 6 holes ahead of schedule and you need to back track.

Going a second time would make your life a lot easier. I had to walk to the holes a few times to see exactly where I was aiming from the tee pad.

- 2 sets of Level Cement Teepads for every hole
- Multiple Pin placements (I played MCO layout)
- FUN!!!!!!!!!
- Challenges your short game heavily
- Several holes to open up a bit and crank a good drive out.
- Beautiful views and scenery
- Many well guarded and tricky greens
- Good tee signs (I believe every tee had its own sign but I may be wrong)
- Wind plays a big role on some holes
- Line shaping and shot placement are key for good scores.
- Great use of the land
- Good lines have a chance at Aces
- Several shots are required for really good scoring
- Its Free and better than the pay-to-play locally

- Long tees are not all that interesting. I like the long tees to feel like a entirely different course. These long tees for the most part just make the hole longer. There are a few holes that the pro pads make a for a different hole.
- Lots of chuckers - watch your disc, walking back up that hill after a chucker who picked your disc up sucks!
- Lacks garbage cans
- Use a spotter on hole 9 (not holding against the course)

I'm really disappointed in myself for taking so long to play this course. It is definitely more fun to play the Hiestand shorts, but not quite as challenging. Between the 3 18 holers here I'd rate this second to Hiestand and a distance second over Vallarta-Ast.
This course is more aimed at the REC to INT level. The longs would be good for developing ADV players. It will offer little challenge to most ADV and Pro players. Basically if you can make your putts smooth you will do very well, getting to the hole for the duece putt isnt hard.
Many of the holes require you to accurately place your disc both in actual landing area and angle. Holes like 2-4 can be very dangerous if not hit correctly. The greens on most of the wood holes are well guarded but have lines and options for every style of play.
I think the main reason I enjoyed the course is because it required me to think my shots through even though the holes were easily reachable from the tee.I could only wish this course (or one similar too) was my home course.
If your traveling to the area I would reccomend you play this course. It is most definitely worth your time. It only takes about 15 min to get here from Hiestand. If you only have time for two courses i would chose this and Hiestand before playing Vallarta-Ast.

This is another fun course in the Madison area, and makes use of a large hill to really challenge you with elevation. You start out playing steeply uphill to the top of the ridge, then play through rolling terrain with a good mix of ups and downs, then finish with a really fun downhill bomb. There is a nice variety of hole shapes through the woods, there aren't any holes that are wide open, even the more open holes have some sort of obstacle.

There are dual tees, the shorter set offers lots of fun ace runs, while the longer tees are significantly tougher and make it a totally different course. If you play a mix of both sets of tees, there is good variety of hole lengths. Both sets of tees are nice concrete pads that are in pretty good shape. There is a good map here online that's worth printing out to help with navigation.

The navigation here is tough, there are some non-obvious walks with multiple possible paths through the woods and a really long walk to 18 that makes you start wondering if you somehow got lost in the woods. There is no signage to help with the navigation, nor is there any to show you hole layout or distance or even to reassure you that you're on the right tee. There are lots of blind holes so you'll do extra walking to figure out where to throw.

There are a few filler holes, and a few holes that are a bit silly that take away from the experience here and balance out the really nice holes. After the first hole, zig-zagging across the hill several times is just boring, this is the worst part of the course by far.

This course is definitely worth the stop if you're in Madison, I put it ahead of Token Creek and behind Hiestand, but the three together make for a nice little set of courses. Beginners will find the short tees to be a fun challenge without too much length, though there are some areas of disc-eating brush. More experienced players will find some fun variety from the shorts, and a real challenge from the longs. Print a map your first trip here, I was really glad I was able to pull it up on my phone.

Concrete tee pads for both am and pro tees.

Several holes with dual pin placement.

Hole 18 is very memorable with a long down-hill throw that overlooks the city.

Great elevation change and variety of wooded/open shots.

Access to picnic shelters with bathrooms.

Despite adopt-a-hole program, there is still a lot of trash on the course.

Non-disc golfers insist on walking up and down the hill that you must throw across on holes 2-4. They are seemingly oblivious to the golfers, so it's up to the golfers not to hit the walkers.

The course is extremely crowded.

The course is maintained by the Madison Area Disc Club, not by the city of Madison. The volunteers are working hard to control erosion and trash.

If you aren't familiar with hole 9, you might want a spotter. It's just a gentle hyzer shot, but if you have no control, you could end up looking for your disc.

Nice mix of wooded holes and open grass holes. Some elevation change especially 18 which throws off a huge open hill. The first few holes are laid out well to get you up that big hill without having to wrench your arm. The course has both regular and pro tee options and multiple pin locations.

Hole 9 is a tough hole that drops off steep and is pretty full of vegetation. You have to throw OVER the trees. This hole seems like it would almost be too hard for beginners and I was really worried about losing a disk. A guy playing behind me had his disc get stuck way up in a tree. The lost disc potential of this hole has more too due with luck than skill.
I played with a map and got around fine. However, the signage was basically non-existent and playing without a map could be hard for first timers.

Overall this was a fun course. I really enjoyed the mix of open and wooded holes. Although I listed a few cons this course was still a blast and the second time I played the course I didn't need the map. I also liked how the first few holes were relatively easy on the arm and by the 5th and 6th holes you are ready to open it up. I wish more courses started like this.

This was a pretty mosquito infested round. For several of the holes I was swarmed. It is tough to concentrate when you see 10 little dots floating in front of your face and another 10 on your arm. A local told me it was worse than normal. I can also confirm that they are worse in the morning as I played another day in the afternoon and they were much less of a problem.

When I was finished with my round I felt like I had had fun and would have happily played the course again (in fact, I did a few days later!). That is a good sign. I definitely like this course and would give it a higher rating if the upkeep was better.

A variety of shots through the woods. Nice, dual concrete tee pads. The fairways are groomed and well maintained, and the rough isnt really that rough. Usually its pretty easy to see the pin from the hole (orange on top). Several holes play up, down, or across giant hillside, which makes for some interesting shots. No water at all means less discs eaten. Very pretty. A few holes have little fairway, just a maze of big trees that you have to thread through to get to the pin. All the trees make for a more challenging approach and mid-range game, and accuracy makes a big difference in driving, since many holes are not that long, just uphill and tricky. Nice mixture of long and short holes. Nice views from the hilltop.

All concrete tees, dual tees on all but one or two holes. About half the holes (2,6,7,8,9,11,15,17) have an alt pin placement that I know of, and they do occasionally switch one up here and there, so check before throwing.

No signs at the teepads to tell you the hole layout. The few blind shots are hard because you dont know where the pin is. (Hole #9 especially) Discs can be easy to lose in the long grass uphill from front nine, so watch for ticks in june if you go in after an errant throw. Bushes and terrain make discs easier to lose than you would think, so use a spotter.

Also, course navigation is confusing at points, and without a local, its easy to get turned around in several places and be unsure of where to go next.

Here's a guide to navigating the confusing spots:
Hole 1 is the basket uphill on the wooden tier. Both tee pads for 1 (pro and am) are in the raised flat area between the drainage field and the giant open hill past the soccer fields.
Take a left through the trees for hole 2.
After hole 7, walk down the path. Go past the first tee pad you come to. The second tee pad is hole 8, which plays to your left, around the giant pines.
After hole 12, walk up the hill to the small path to the left into the woods, NOT the wider path to the right.
After 13, Tee 14 is to the right.
After 14, take a left through the woods to get to 15.
At 15's basket, tee 16 is a left through the woods
At 16's basket, cut through the woods to your right to get to 17.
At 17, past the basket, in the back left corner of the area of scattered trees bounded by shule, is the path to hole 18.

In general, one of the things that holds Elver back has been maintenance. Compared to the other two Madison courses, its a little careworn. However, in Spring 2009 they are making great strides to correct this, adding terraces, hauling away trash, and laying down course sand on the walking paths between holes, and around tees. The course is getting a facelift that will continue throughout the year. Once that's done, along with new tee and navigation signs, this course will be a 3.5. It's every bit as fun as Heistand, and alot closer if you are on the West side.
UPDATE 08/2010- This year, Elver has gotten a serious facelift. Terraces have been added for erosion control around many baskets and tees. Sand has been put down on walkways between holes, and around tees. Teeposts at every hole, hole maps should be added soon. All very nicely done. Also, rough has been cleared on many holes, most notably hole 9, on the hillside and to the left. This makes it a better course, so Ive bumped it up to 3.5 from 3 as a result.

Found myself using only half my bag on this course, for several reasons. Most holes either long or short, so I either threw a driver then a putter, or the driver twice, then a putter. My midrange and hard hyzer discs only came out of the bag once each, and i didnt use my water disc at all. So bring a max d disc, fairway driver, tomahawk disc and a putter/approach disc, and go to town on this course. The layout is not too tricky that you cant play the whole course with those four easily.

Not to say that this course is not challenging, just that its the kind of challenging that has a definite learning curve, ie. the constant hilly terrain and trees just took a little getting used to for someone like me used to three varieties of dg course:
1)desert courses with some terrain
2)wide open flat with few trees.
3)wooded flat

This is none of the above. Welcome to Wisconsin DG.

Print a course map and take it with you, and you will have a great time. Overall a nice, pretty course with a good replay factor, but nothing amazing, and not super tricky, though there is definitely a learning curve. Players of all skill levels should be able to enjoy this course, assuming the beginners are focused on finesse, not distance (if you bomb every throw w/ no control, this course might frustrate you, ie. bring long pants, bright discs and tick spray)

Gets really crowded once it opens in the spring, like the other two Madison courses do, so if you come on weekends or afternoons, expect to wait around a bit. Also, on holes 2-4, watch out for random people running around or sitting on the hill before throwing.

Dual tees for each hole. Multiple pin placements on holes 2, 3, 7, 9, 11, & 15. Garbage cans on each hole.

Course can be very congested during peak times.

Course is undergoing extensive renovations beginning in the Fall of 2007.