PARK DESCRIPTION - The park, if I may use the term very loosely, is really just a nasty overgrown area sitting between the tennis courts and the back area which contains a track. There is a small creek running through the area. All this wooded area slopes down to the small creek. It's almost impossible to walk through as there are so many downed trees everywhere.

VARIETY - There is currently no variety as there is literately not hole where I could actually make out a line.

ELEVATION - As small as the area is, there is some steep elevation here.

CHALLENGE - Well yeah! Right now, with the overgrow terrain and all the down trees, this might just be advanced level. I'd say it's intermediate level just walking the course.

EQUIPMENT - The baskets are green Prodigy models with a number on them. I did locate a few of the rubber tee pads and a couple of the simple metal, tee signs.

AESTHETICS - Currently, it's just an overgrown area which the homeless population would pass over.

FUN FACTOR - It wasn't even fun trying to hike through it.

ROUTING/NAVIGATION - No way it's navigational at this time.

OTHER THOUGHTS - I wonder who this course was designed for? is this a course for middle school students? Or is this a rec course which happens to sit on a middle school campus? If this is a rec course for public use, it might have been, at one time, some fun. However, if someone was thinking that middle schoolers would be using this? There is no possible way. # 1 plays across a bridge, 140' and the basket sits down in the ravine to the right. No-one would want middle schoolers wandering down into this gloomy, rough ravine.

Area is wickedly overgrown and the downed trees are a menace.

Prodigy baskets are badly deteriorating in this overgrown environment.

Mostly impossible to navigate in its current state.

Short recreational distances of around 100 feet.

If I lived in the area and was in the process of planning and installing a course, a trip to the school district main office or to the Hopewell principal's office to inquire about the availability of these baskets might be worth a shot. I can't imagine that the administration is too excited about having this course here on middle school grounds. The way it sits now, I see it as an attractive nuisance.

If, however, the local club has any interest in keeping disc golf alive here, then a few hours of serious work party volunteers might be able to restore the course to its formal glory. It appears to have at one time been an interesting, enjoyable little course, well worth saving from the scrap heap.

This little 9 at the back of the middle school property is a pretty walk down by a little network of deeper than they look creeks and ravines.

Very nice prodigy baskets which are in great shape. Rubber throw mats Mark the tee on most holes and the tee signs are nice to give some direction and are usually pretty good.

Honestly some good lines here and it could be a 2, 2.5 with a decent amount of work, but the lines and the thoughts are solid.

Not much upkeep and at least two dozen downed hardwoods have made this a difficult and somewhat unsafe play.

The creek isn't deep for the most part, but the ditch of it is and if you get a disc down there it's going to be hard to get out and not terribly fun.

Some of the lines, especially for school age kids have way too much possibility for intense punishment, and the navigation is poor. Not because you can't tell where you need to go, but you just may not be able to physically get there without a hefty back track or going down a steep 10ft deep creek bed.

The walk from 7-8 should be a straight forward line, but you can't. Because there is a huge ditch and 4 fallen trees blocking the way.

Some signs show the basket in a different location than where it currently resides.
No amenities to speak of really.

This should be a fun little course that it looks like the weather has gotten the better of. Work could fix it, but you would need a bunch of chainsaws and wood chippers

Beautiful property with a creek makes for some pleasant holes.

-Scenery: By far the best thing this course has going for it. The holes wind through a beautiful little forest with a small creek (no disc loss hazard) figuring on almost every hole. As lovely a course to walk as any place absent breathtaking views.

-Amenities: Chains are shiny Prodigies. There are rubber mats to mark tees, and fairly helpful tee signs for 8 of the holes.

-Aceability: All holes are under 200 ft, so there will be plenty of chances to tickle the chains on the holes that do have a line.

-Terrain: Lots of up and down and rises and ditches. Enhances excitement of throwing as well as beauty.

The land needs to be adjusted more to make for good gameplay.

-Navigability: As in, whether or not you can walk to the basket. The course is hilly and has the gully of the creek to go along, but very little has been done to create walkable paths from tees to baskets. Hole (1) throws over a stream and then presents no way to get to the basket except going straight through the streambed, soft sand and 3-foot drop included. I truly have no idea how the designers envisioned players getting into the gully with the basket on (7), but I didn't see a way other than just climbing in. If you don't land in the circle, you'll probably have to climb up or down something to get to your disc. Expect a lot of scrambling around, like kids in the woods when they're 10 years old.

-Navigation: As in, finding where the next tee is. Usually it was no problem, but I had trouble between (4) and (5), and the transition between (7) and (8) requires you to re-walk most of the course.

-Throwability and Shot Shaping: I would say only 5 of the 9 holes have clearly defined lines. The others either have a hopeless number of trees blocking the basket from reasonable lines, or, in the case of (7), completely dispensed with fairways. The shapes that do exist are all RHBH hyzers, except for the very straight shot on (8). Lack of length also makes the lines pretty uninteresting. Youngsters learning to play here will learn how to throw hyzer shots and how to poke and hope.

-Rough: I saw traces of poison ivy. There are thicker patches that have thorns in some places, including inside the circle on multiple holes.

Hopewell MS has a very beautiful tract of woods here, but they haven't adjusted it enough to be good disc golfing ground. Adding stairs or paths to get from place to place would be a great start, and a few trees have to come down to make the throwing lines believable. In the meantime, you'll probably get as much enjoyment out of walking through the course as playing it. *Update: Having now played 100 courses, I have the same things to say about Hopewell but have adjusted its rating down to Bad from Poor. In the context of the wide world of disc golf courses, this one ranks near the bottom for the utter lack of throwing interest.

The Hopewell Middle School DGC is a nine-hole, par 19 layout ringing up at just 1125'. The course is short, as the length and par let on, but the heavily wooded holes help make up for where distance lacks. While the course is open to the public during non-school hours, one would assume that the intended players are kids and non-traditional disc golfers. In that regard, the distances make sense and are appropriate. For the experienced golfer, even recreational tournament players, this course could be compared to a putt putt course for the stick golfer. Taking all things into account, I had a reasonably fun round here.

Hole one was easy to find (behind Basketball courts at the foot of the bridge) and the layout, being so short, was easy to follow. The rubber tees were in good shape and did more in the way of identifying the next tee than anything else. After all, you'll find a run up is never necessary. The green prodigy baskets are bright enough to spot in the woods and of course they are in near brand-new condition. The course loops around with nine ending near hole one.

Over all, despite the heavily wooded and short layout, the course offered all the diversity it could muster. Namely a few left and right turning shots with a little elevation here and there. There are a few holes where a creek comes into play, and with it a couple deep ravines that you'll definitely want to stay out of. Hole eight might have been the most remarkable with a tunnel shot following a concrete retaining wall that can be used to your advantage if playing the bounce off towards the basket. As might be expected, hole seven, the only par 3 on the course, is probably the toughest hole. There you'll find the most obstacles and quite surprisingly for a 171' hole, the potential for a youngster to get in whole lot of trouble.

Like I said, I thought the distances for the course were appropriate given the audience. But I think for the intended user, the course could be cleaned up a bit. There is a big difference between a challenging fairway and one that is not suitably cleaned up at installation or properly maintained. Most of them did have passable lines but others were sketchy. But if nothing more than for the sake of aesthetics, safety, and at times clearer site lines to the basket, some thoughtful pruning would have been welcomed. There's some briars off the beaten path and several areas where you need to look out for barbed wire, both on a fence near a basket and random strands on the ground.

Speaking of safety, I thought hole 7 was something else. I am not sure of the level of experience or skill of these school kids, but this hole was rough. For a new DG playing kid, I imagine it must be like a stroll through a morgue or watching genuine autopsy footage, only satisfying those with a grimmest of appetites. For those of them that are not gore hounds, they'll be looking out for the tee pad that greets them with a 15' deep cliff just off the front of the pad. The hole continues around the rim of the gorge playing down to yet another shallower gorge to the basket. Nothing most folks can't handle, I just know how parents can be with kids involved.

Kudo's to the person/folks who made this course possible. I think it's really cool that DG is available to school kids on their school grounds. I wish I was introduced to the sport sooner and had a chance to play at PE, etc.

The neighboring Northwestern Middle School, just 10 minutes away, is the Polar opposite wide-open cousin of Hopewell. But being so close to one another, if you are looking for some short holes to introduce kids to the sport, you might as well hit them both. Moreover, a little farther away is the par 2 course in Woodstock, Dupree Park, with a balanced mix of hole types but keeping with the short hole theme.

For the more serious golfers, I found it worth a stop to play it once to add another to the "played course" list.

Like the few other short school/church courses I've reviewed, it's always tough to give it a fair rating. After all, for what it's designed for, it would probably rate higher than a general rating that users look for in a course on this site. For that reason, I am going to rate it as a solid 1.5. For a school course, I'd give it a 3.