I've tried to play this one a few times, and both previous it was closed due to being the week before the tour championship once and construction the other and I finally got to play it.

I played from the longs, which is a mix of the blue tees and the DGPT tees. It was a great mid of semi open and park style shots on the front including the iconic island hole 2.

The back is multi shot par 4s through the woods that make for some interesting shots as well as a couple of tough mandos and rolling elevation shots. That were a mix of fun and anxiety inducing.

Pads were mainly large concrete pads but they did have a couple of smaller ones or partial sidewalk ones in a few spots.

Signs were beautiful and flawless, some of the best I've seen.

Baskets are disccatchers and look good even if some of the bands are a bit stained(many are white ads so they stain more easy than the yellow powder coating).

Super fun, unique and complete course.

As far as play goes not a lot, the biggest flaw is the navigation, super long walks across sometimes roads or parking lots. 1-2 and 6-7 I think were the worst.

A few of the pads could have been better but were overall not bad.

Some of the mandos were a bit tight but I understand it's a gold level course from the long pads.

I would have like just a little more polish on the transitions from a course of this level.

It's really fun and I loved it, but it's not quite as epic as I had hoped. It does have some really nice moments but nothing where I went "oh wow" like the genius hole at Milo or the shot over the lake at Winthrop.

Hornets Nest is an awesome course in Charlotte that is a big fan favorite. A calming layout that provides lots of fun will forever be a great course.
-The course features three different layouts: Nest, Web, and DGPT. A lot of the holes have three tee pads, the shorter one being Nest, and the longer ones being Web and DGPT.
-Perfect variety of hole layouts. There are short, technical holes, there are doglegs, there are wide open holes, you name it. Hornets Nest has it all.
-Good use of elevation. The park's land seems relatively flat, which made me surprised by some of the elevated holes. The designers did an excellent job of locating these areas to be a part of the course.
-Basket locations were amazing. There were many baskets perched up on the side of a hill and multiple raised baskets.
-Navigation/Routing was very well done. There are some long transitions between holes, which could have caused some serious navigation issues. But the routing signs present were very helpful and easy to read.
-If time is short, playing #1-7 and then holes A and B is a good nine hole loop that leads you back to the parking lot.
-Maintenance is beyond great. I'd say about 1/3 of the holes play in a grassy area, which was cut to perfection. Fairways are very defined, and there was no trash on any of the holes.
-Good course amenities. Baskets seem old but they catch well. Tee pads are a good size and have good texture. There were benches on most, if not all of the tee pads. Hole maps are the standard CDGC design, which are very nice.
-Interesting how there is a regular practice basket, and a raised practice basket. I've never seen that before, so I thought it was worth mentioning.

-It can be tricky to find the first hole. There are three different parking lots, and there is no indication as to which one I should park at. First timer issue only, though.
-As I mentioned before, some transitions between holes are long. This issue didn't effect me, but it could definitely effect others.
-Pretty much the whole front nine plays in and around other areas of the park, which non-DGers are actively using. Also, holes #5-7 play alongside the park's road.
-Although navigation was great, the only hiccup that I had was finding #8's tee. After playing the two extra holes (listed as A and B), you pretty much just got to follow the path and hope you find the tee pad near the parking lot. That's what happened to me.
-The transition from #11's basket to #12's tee pad was weird. The first tee pad you see is the DPGT pad for #18. You got to walk across the field to find #12's tee, which is used for all layouts.
-When I played, the basket for #17 was in its short position, which disappointed me. I think playing to the long pin would have been awesome, but the short basket was the only option and it felt like a filler hole. Same thing for #18. I think they should just keep the long position active on both holes all the time.
-Obviously, it sucks not being able to play the island #2. There must be some way that us casual players can be regulated from swimming in the lake to retrieve discs.

I had a particularly good time at Hornets Nest, and I can't wait to return. After playing the Nest layout, I think Web will be even more fun. The park itself is very nice, and it has countless amenities to keep the whole family active. A must play for all DGers in the area, and hopefully we can play the island #2 one day!
-To me, this course does not quite earn a 4.5 rating. I just don't think that Hornets Nest meets or exceeds the quality of Nevin, which I recently rated as a 4.5. If 4.25 was an option, then I would choose that instead of 4.0.

+Free to play. Charlotte takes their parks seriously. Hats off. +Discatchers, the Charlotte standard! Great baskets for a free city park. +Excellent variety. You will get beat down by tight woods in Charlotte. Same thing at Hornets Nest but some more open and technical shots than some other courses in the area.+So many layouts. Multiple pads on most holes.+Challenging. From the DGPT pads, this course will verify your amateur status. It will also help beat in those new discs you just bought.+Nice rolling elevation. Uphills and downhills in abundance. +History. An old course all things considered. Big name recognition. It feels cool to be playing Hornets Nest.

-Concrete used for pads is very rocky. Or it\'s just worn down? Might beat your shoes up a little quicker but didn\'t have much of an effect on footwork. Many of the long or gold pads were pavers and played smooth. -Very busy park. Pedestrians found their way to some fairways at times. Happens in a city park. Give them the right of way!-Some may be bummed to miss the island position on hole 2. Go play, you\'ll see why it\'s impossible without closing the park. The permanent hole 2 definitely stands out as a "filler" hole. Like the awesome disc golf plan was to always have the basket on the island and a desk worker for the city said "I\'ll give it to you for 3 days a year."-Water hazard pretty much only in play on a terrible hole 2 shank.

Would be tough to play Hornets Nest and not have fun. When you take this and place it next to the difficulty level, it speaks to the quality of the course. Most holes are long, all of them with their own challenge. It is in a city park so nothing too crazy or DG-centric can be permanent, buts it\'s about ideal city park golf. In the young game of disc golf, this course has the allure of history. I have heard about some major renovations and redesigns through the years. Seeing efforts of what I assume to be mostly volunteers is always a plus for me. You can feel the care in places like this and it shows. Imagine your most played local course, change next to nothing about the layout and imagine top pros having a hard time going low and gushing about the course being great. Lucky residents of this city get that with this park. If you\'re reading this review you know about Hornets Nest. It\'s worth it, get out and play!

My rating is based on how a I, a traveling player, experienced this course.

This is an excellent course. Most of the hole layouts are fantastic, It is a mostly heavily-wooded course that requires varied shots from the tee. There are holes that are more open and in a park setting, but all are designed well with distances, at least from the short tees, well-matched to the tightness of the fairways.

The course starts with a wooded hole, moves on to a hole that had alternate baskets and tees (this will be addressed below) and is either an short 209' forced water carry or an exceptionally tight 200 ft hole near enough to the waters edge that a kick off a tree can lead to a lost disc. 2 is back into the woods for a right turning par 4 that keeps turning right for the entirety of the hole.

This is followed by a long, right-turning, downhill gem in the woods. and is followed by several more open holes before going back into the woods for hole 8 and finishing up with several holes that play in and out of the woods and a power line right of way.

The course is spread out with plenty of land to keep holes from interfering with each other and with other course activities. There is a medium amount of elevation change with some tees on slopes to increase putting degree of difficulty.

One of the things that I especially liked about this course was the balance achieved through the use of holes that require right turning throws. Hole 3 is a great example of this. If you don't know how to throw turnovers, you'd better have a decent forehand when you play here.

As a traveling player, one of the most frustrating things about courses is attempting to navigate a course whose caretakers have been inconsistent about marking for navigation. Add 30-45 minutes to your time to play here because of an apparent redesign that did not include the tee signs. On multiple occasions we had to ask how to play a hole (eg. a hole with three tee pads, one not in regular use that the signs take you to). On hole two, there were two tee pads, two baskets (this was the day before a tournament). We were trying to play the gold layout and the signs clearly pointed players to the water carry, but some locals told us that the "real" tee box was the non-water carry clearly marked as a red tee. This hole was also a long walk from the previous one.

Two holes later, we walk to a tee box that isn't marked correctly on to have two locals tell us to play a different tee box that was also not marked consistently. The course looked as if it had been re-designed, with some of the old tee signs not replaced and which used different color designations for different level tees.

When we finished hole 7, signs pointed us across the #1 fairway after which we found ourselves near a parking lot with nothing pointing us to another tee pad. Another local (locals are very friendly here) pointed us to number 8, a great hole but not the easiest to find.

After a few more holes, we found a tee box with two signs describing playing the hole in different ways, one of which was clearly incorrect, leading to throwing at the wrong opening in the woods, at the wrong basket, backtracking and starting over after, you guessed it, another local told us what basket to play to.

These navigational issues ultimately cost my group another round as we finisned much later than we anticipated. The navigational issues, to my eyes, is the primary negative, and a pretty big one.

TO PEOPLE WHO CARE FOR THIS COURSES (and the other courses in Charlotte), PLEASE UPDATE ALL THE SIGNS WHEN YOU CHANGE THE COURSE CONFIGURATION. I come from an area that is notorious for having a local tournament director screw with course layouts and not care that players not familiar with the course may have difficulty navigating it. This is apparently what you has been done here.

The tee pads are poured and well textured but seem to be inconsistent in size. Some were noticeably shorter than the rest.

The only other negative, though minor, is that there are several of the more open holes that are just more open holes with nothing special about them. Most courses have these, of course, and Hornets Nest is no exception.

I also played Renaissance Gold, Canaan Riverbend and Chester State Park on this trip and noticed some of the same issues on all but the State Park course. I'd have rated this course a 4.5 but for the annoying navigation issues. Of course, if I played this course often, that would not be a problem, but I don't so it was.

Hornets Nest is a course that I have been hearing about since I started browsing this site, and I knew it would be a must play during my trip to Charlotte, even if I only had time to play a few courses.

I'm glad I did. This course is a fan-favorite for many years, and for good reason. With two distinct layouts, this course has stuff for everyone. The Nest layout is the perfect park course, at 6534 feet and a par of 58, the holes average at just around 362 feet. This is a perfect layout for a newer player looking for a challenge or an experienced player looking for a fun round in the park.

Charlotte's Web is another beast. 9015 feet, Par 70. Holes average a touch over 500 feet, and these aren't your open hyzer holes either. These are the S-shaped fairway, double bogey maker holes. The holes that make local pros quiver with fear. This layout is a beast's beast.

This course has excellent tee signs, those shiny yellow discatchers that everybody loves, and some of the best concrete tee pads I've played on. Navigational signs help on the longer walks, and everything here was super well-manicured. Somebody is putting a lot of care into this course and the park as a whole.

While this course isn't set in the mountainous regions of North Carolina, the designer(s) used every hill and valley to create dangerous greens and rolling fairways.

Other than the pond on hole 2, there isn't much opportunity to lose a disc here. The rough is well-groomed, and there aren't many places where the disc will get too far out of sight. This is very helpful when you don't have a spotter, or are having an off-day at the course.

There is a great mix of the tight wooded holes, and the more open ones, something that I picked up on as rare in the Charlotte area. I threw most of my discs in my bag in order to navigate this course, and I still didn't score as well as I would have hoped!

I think Hornets Nest is one of the best park-style courses to have ever been done. A park course should have the ability to serve every type of player, and this course fits the bill. However, making the perfect park course comes with some cons.

There isn't a hole that would make my dream 18 here. No real downhill bomber holes, the water shot is a putter or midrange, and it's only playable during tournaments for unfortunate, but reasonable, circumstances. For a course this long in total distance, the longest hole is only 727 feet. There wasn't a 1000 footer that a lot of courses at this length have. Just a lot of middle distances.

The wooded shots were a lot of fun, and there were quite a few that I really liked, but some of them were a tad repetitive, forcing a single line down the middle of the fairway. Not that this is a bad thing necessarily, but sometimes I like to think about what line to take when standing on the tee, not just grab the straightest disc in my bag.

Some of the walks from hole to hole were longer than I would usually prefer, but when the walk is to get to another fantastic hole, I really don't mind. Navigation was well-marked, but with this being my third course of the day, I got a little tired.

Some of the holes played close to other park activities, mostly a parking lot or a park road, where cars aren't going over 20 miles an hour. In most places, I don't think this could have been avoided, but I wanted it to be noted. I can also see this place being very busy on a nice day, so backups may happen.

I think the course at Hornets Nest Park is one of the best home courses that anybody could have. It's not the most grueling, even if it's super long, it has multiple layouts to create a myriad of courses for a local to play, and allows out-of-towners to pick and choose their favorite shots.

There were a lot of fine holes, and it was a fantastic way to end my day of disc golf. While I didn't think this course was the most challenging, or breathtaking, it was one of the more relaxing and fun rounds I have played in a long while!

To get an experience of both Hornets Nest and Charlotte's Web, I played the 2018 Amateur Worlds layout. I would recommend this to all players who can only play here once.

-Nice signs and tee pads
-Different distance tee pads
-Good combo of wooded and wide open holes
-Good combo of long and short holes - 17 killed me, but there a couple shorter par 3's that I had birdie putts on
-Very accessible parking lot directly beside where the course begins and ends

-Odd transition between 1 and 2
-If you get off the fairway on some of the wooded holes you're score is done - took an 8 on 17 and I didn't even think I played it that poorly
-I remember being worried about hitting cars and people on 5-7 because they are so close to the road and a few picnic shelters

I played this one in my first tournament ever last weekend. I really enjoyed the course, but I wouldn't say it is my favorite ever. I had super high expectations coming in because of things I'd read about it. It does have a nice balance of varied hole types, it is well kept, it isn't too hard to navigate, but it didn't amaze me. I would definitely play it again, but I think I'd rather play RL Smith.

-Glad that the course is finally back after course renovations. It hasn't changed by too much, but if you haven't played the old layout, you wouldn't be able to tell because.......

-Many trees were removed. Some land was stripped away, so the place itself has gotten prettier. I love the looks on hole 15 on the Nest layout. It's just cool to throw a driver out into the open.

-Nice new concrete tee pads, the tee signs are awesome too. The Nest signs are red and the Web signs are blue.

-If you've played the Old layout, you should remember the elevated baskets on holes 8 and 9. Well, those two holes are the same still (which I'm happy about.) The baskets are still elevated but construction has been done. They are now on platforms that you can walk up.

-If you haven't been here at all, you'll probably be goodly surprised. But aside from some holes being the same, there are some newly designed holes. Starts off interesting with a newly designed hole that's very narrow all the way. And I really love hole #11. The short pad is a sweet downhill par 3 that is 312' long but plays maybe 275'. The long pad is a difficult par 4, even though it's only like 472'. The drive is quite technical with a few small routes available. I birdied it because I hit the gap and it faded a bit left.

-The deck on #16's short pad is also cool to tee off on. The deck may not have been NEEDED, but it seems like they really wanted to push the old tee-pad back to make the hole even more challenging, so they made a deck to give stable ground. Love it!

-Love the "next tee" arrows. Navigation is really easy here.

-#18 on the Nest widened up a little bit, making this an awesome anhyzer crush. And you still have that fun island hole that you have to love.

-The worst thing is probably what happened to hole 2. It has hardly been there and they already had to move the basket. The hole was over the pond an onto a peninsula green. But people kept landing in the pond (probably because of a bad tree on the peninsula) and would go into the pond. While I wish that we were allowed to go in the pond to retrieve discs when they are barely in, it's very frustrating that the hole had to be redesigned because some people went in it. But it always happens in disc golf, people go in ponds. And at other courses, when people go in, the course designer doesn't have to redesign a hole that is a lot less appealing. I strongly hope that one day the basket will go back on the peninsula.

-Remember the old #14? "The gauntlet?" I miss that hole. Many trees were cut down so it looks pretty bad. It's actually hole #16 from the long pad now. There are a few small openings, making this hole very frightening, and it's only a par 4? There is absolutely no way this is a 4. You are playing the old #14's tee-pad to the old #15's basket. I think a few trees could be cut down on this hole, but it should definitely be a par 5. We know it's under 600', but I've played shorter par 5's on difficult courses. If this WAS a par 5, it would still be tougher than #17 long at Nevin.

-The removal of so many trees may not have seemed quite necessary. Some were removed when they didn't need to be. #8 opened up in some places, and the strip cutting was a little too overdone. But it may just be how I feel about too many trees being cut down. This is not a con that brings down my rating. Just an opinion.

-It definitely feels the same as the old layout, because the newly added holes are of appropriate challenge and they blend in with the rest of the course. You still get to play the old #12, except for the tee pad being to the left instead of the right side. It's now a very difficult par 4, I think it's the hardest hole if you play the Nest layout, but it won't be if you play the Web.

-If you remember the old Nest layout and how it had short pins and long pins, well it's different now. Many holes from the old Web are on the new Web layout. But there are now very many new tee-pad placements. #10 is the old #1 on the Web layout. But the short pad is angled straight at the basket, being a challenging par 3 that goes into the woods and over the big hill. Brilliant idea for a hole. May be my favorite hole here. And #12 on the Web is the old #10 Web. #12 has a short pad playing to the old #10 web basket. Very unique new ideas for holes. This redesign proves that there are so many holes to choose from when you design a course

-You'll love many of the aspects of this course. I remember in the eighth grade when I DESPERATELY wanted to play Hornet's Nest, and when I did, I was more overwhelmed than I expected. I was no good then but still fell in love with the course. There are many elevated baskets, and some of you will be annoyed by them, but they can be useful for practicing putts that are more intimidating. Most of the holes here are hard, but a few of them are pretty easy birdies if you can stay in the fairway. Otherwise, you'll have to fight just to fall back only a little. My review of the old layout (which I wrote a LONG time ago) was my only really bad review. So hopefully I redeemed myself.

-Kept most of the best holes from the old layout.
-Most of the new holes are fun too.
-Just as challenging as it use to be.
-Hole #2s island shot is a nice addition.
-Navigation is top notch (with the exeption of the transition between 1# and #2 or #9 and #10 but I don't think anyone should have a problem).
-Both front 9 and back 9 end at the parking lot so if there is a big group on hole 1 you can start on hole 10. Also good if you're short on time.
-Nice concrete tee pad and a really cool wooden deck on hole #16
-Maintenance has made this course as clean as you could ever want it

-CROWDED (this could change as since I came on the week it opened)
-Gets pretty muddy in some places after rain
-Maybe a little too many straight shots on the new holes
-The "Gauntlet" is no more
-Charlottes Web seemed to have changed a lot more, but I can't say much as I've played neither the old or the new layout

If you were worried that the redesign would be too drastic I have good news for you. The feel of the old lay out is still here and just as present as it's ever been. Still a great course with the same great challenge. This is more of a review for the people who've played here before but, if you haven't i'm not sure why your not playing it right now.