Not being from this area, it's really interesting to see a course where an errant shot can leave you tip-toeing through cacti and loose gravel. I view it as a positive, because for me, it's unique.

Holes 7, 8, and 9 use the elevation changes in the terrain very well.

Hole 8 is particularly cool, with a very difficult pin placement, set on a ridge with prickly plants perched in every direction.

Hole 9 is a scenic downhill shot. Too bad the throwing area is so nasty.

The teeboxes are poorly designed. Pea gravel with a horseshoe of railroad ties. The area where most tees would allow a follow-through past the end of the box, is a serious tripping hazard, as a railroad tie blocks your footing. Simply removing these would improve the course vastly.

This is particularly problematic on holes 8 and 9, where tripping would send a player down a steep hill riddled with cacti...yikes.

You'll notice an area either to the side of, or behind each tee box, where people are throwing from the ground to avoid the issue. Which is what I did.

Some of the "pro tees" are set in ridiculous areas. I'm recalling two of them in particular, where there's a large tree with sprawling branches 5 feet in front of the box. It's literally impossible to throw from those, unless you want to take a HUGE anny route around the tree. Literally, you'd be throwing perpendicular to the tee's direction.

Bring either some really tough socks, or some boots if you're going to play this course multiple times. Twice I found myself pulling beaver tail cactus needles out of my ankles.

As with any course in this kind of terrain, be sure to know where you're stepping. This is prime habitat for a lot of animals/insects you don't want to mess with.

The course design finds the interesting parts of land that the campus is limited to. There are good sings on one of the tee box locations for each hole as is circles the campus. There are a few distinct characteristics along the way; terrace walls, a dry wooded creek bed, and cactus covered hills. The interesting locations are sewn together with a series of very long holes. The last three in my opinion being the most fun, a 200 foot hole, 50 of them up a crazy cactus covered mound. Then the course takes you under power lines to another mound and next to a small pine tree both being tantalizingly dangerous ace runs. Finally a reachable bomber to finish out the round from an elevated tee spot. This was the first round I had played with Gateway Titan baskets and I was surprised by their quality, much better than their various plastics (imo), they have three layers of chains and catch pretty well.

For much of the course you are just be chucking into the middle of a prairie in the hot high arid weeds. If you are looking for a nice cool shady round, you wont get it here. Sometimes the signs are near the reds and other times the sign is near the blue locations. Both tee-pad locations are marked with a set of colored flags and illustrated on the hole signs but since they are natural the location that is not by the sign is not always easy to find. For example number two's tee, I wanted to throw blue which I guess is up three terrace levels and would have been much more fun, but since I had already walked about 100 plus feet to the sign by the reds I ended up throwing from there because it didn't seem worth walking back up. I ended up just throwing from whatever color was next to the sign throughout the round.

There are ants everywhere it was hard to find a good spot to set my bag down and I learned to kick my bag to knock off the ants. I would not recommend playing in sandals and shorts here, this terrain made me glad I always wear jeans. Sometimes I had to go on scouting missions for the basket locations and other times the next tee wasn't evidently clear to me. I had some confusion finding number six, after the five basket. Printing out the map that is available here was very helpful.

I'm still very conflicted with my feelings of this course. I would have to recommend it for hardy golfers who do not mind trudging through tall weeds and climbing around cactus in the hot summer sun in altitude. After the first few holes I wasn't sold on this course but as you make your way to the last few holes the more interesting locations reveal themselves to like a pleasant surprise that left me with an overall positive feeling about this very new course. The course is very new and I imagine as it ages things will improve and the paths will be more worn and all the kinks will be ironed out. I would play this one again if I'm ever back in town, it's on a natural setting and I love em that way.