• Discover new ways to elevate your game with the updated DGCourseReview app!
    It's entirely free and enhanced with features shaped by user feedback to ensure your best experience on the course. (App Store or Google Play)

Gatesville, NC

Gates County Community Center

Permanent course
0.75(based on 5 reviews)
Filter course reviews

Filter reviews

Filter reviews

Gates County Community Center reviews

Filter
11 0
lee76007
Gold level trusted reviewer
Experience: 4.7 years 112 played 111 reviews
1.50 star(s)

No. 5 has the Spotlight 2+ years

Reviewed: Played on:Dec 11, 2020 Played the course:once

Pros:

-Theirs a paved trail all around the course, that you can tee from. Only 5-6, and 9 tees are sprayed painted on pavement. No. 4 a choice from 3 basket on grass or walk back up to the pavement.
-Excellent navigation on paved trail, the course works counterclockwise. The fence and woods are always on the right until No. 7. At 7 stay on the trail that turns left towards 8 and away from woods. Makes a particularly good course flow.
-The course is setup for beginners, recreational, and a few holes for intermediate. The course is used as another activity for the community center.
-The baskets are DGA, it is the second course I have played them on, and the disc tend to stick on a putt hitting chains or even off C1, so I like this type of basket.
-No. 5 is a unique hole, throwing off the tee. It is a doorway throw. I have now played 7 nine-hole courses and No. 5 has the most difficult throw out of the 63 tee throws. Out of the 14 eighteen-hole courses I have played, No. 5 is more difficult to get off the tee pad than any of the holes on ten of those courses.

Cons:

-The course is on a community center property with so much activity and equipment crammed on it, including fairways 1-2, 5-9. Activities such as a children's playground on No. 1 and 2, horseshoes right in front of the basket on 1. 5-7 football practice for the high school next door. 8-9 softball stands for the two fields, a skateboard ramp behind No. 9 basket. A few other activities as well. Disc golf is just another activity at the community center. The community center on a warm day could be crammed with people, and it is possible to show up to play, and have access to only 5 holes, and during football practice just two holes No. 3-4. Best time to play here during the warmer months, would be at sunup.
-8 and 9 were comical with all the chain link fences for other activities, I was wondering if this what it felt like to play disc golf in a prison yard. You must take it easy from the tees.
-The paved trail you follow is also a walking trail, so you need to watch out for walkers, there were 5 when I was playing.
-Theirs a park map at the start of No. 1, but no information about the disc course.
-No hole signs at all. With no hole signs and only marked tees for 5-6, and 9. It is likely the paint has worn off on the other tees. I walked along the trail until I spotted the next basket and threw from that spot if I thought the distance was close to being correct.
-With the fence and woods along the right side all the way from 1 to 6, there is lost disc potential for any errant throws.

Other Thoughts:

It is a risk taking a long trip to play the course, it's going to be possible your round is going to be interfered with from other activities. There were a lot of Huh? Moments playing for the first time looking down most of the fairways and seeing clutter. It was a reminder why I tend to play a new course early morning on a weekday when its likely not to be any type of unknown interference. There were too many holes that just seem to be thrown here and there to make a course. Without No. 5 which made the trip worth it, the overall rating would only be a half point. There is some help for No. 5.
Notable Assist Hole is Number 3 at 280 feet. It is a longer Par 3 than most of the courses I play on in my rotation from short tee to short basket. It slopes downward and the right side is wooded with lost disc potential for a bad throw. You can have a roller past the basket into the woods as well. Nothing unique about the hole, but sorely needed to assist No. 5.
The doorway for the No. 5 tee throw is dominated by a tree on the right side with over hanging branches on top of the door. The left side is an outfield fence. If the tree is left alone, No. 5 keeps its distinction as a difficult tee throw, and a 1 point towards my overall course rating. If those branches are cut down, the distinction and point go away. For the first time in my reviews, No. 5 has the title of both Signature and Trouble hole.
Signature/Trouble Hole No. 5 Par 3, 202 feet. From the pavement an elevated tee pad of about 12 feet. On the left of the tee pad is an outfield fence that stands about 6.5 feet tall and very intimidating from the tee pad, the fence is the left side of the doorway. To the right of tee pad is woods, and the right side of the doorway is the tree that holds the branches for the top of the doorway. The doorway is 20 feet in front of you, the width 6 feet, and height 6.5 feet. 4 feet past the doorway are rails to a bridge that are 3 feet high, that cuts your doorway down to a four-foot window past the doorway. The fairway drops down, and you use a bridge to the bottom of the fairway. Theirs a 7-man blocking sled at the bottom of the fairway a little more than halfway to the basket, which I hit. The fairway slopes back up to a basket that sits 3 feet high on a knoll and is a roller. The hole is scenic and would be more so when the foliage returns. With return of foliage the doorway closes some.
By the time I reached No. 5, I pretty much thought there would not be a return visit to the course. So, after my first disc I threw 3 more disc with no limits on the throws. Two hit the right side of the doorway the tree, with one rolling down the hill, 1 the upper doorway branches not advancing far. No. 5 tee pad had its way with me. It is one of a dozen tee pads throwing the first time that had me pause "What to do". The hole by itself I give a rating of 3.5, and if it had more distance a bump up. Hopefully the community center leaves that tree and branches alone.
Was this review helpful? Yes No
Top