Pros:
- Irving Park DGC boasts 27 holes ranging from flat, open, park-style holes to technical exercises that make the most of moderately wooded elevation. Letter holes are interspersed fairly randomly with the numbered holes. The layout allows for just the numbered holes or a mixture of both. While working its way through a multi-use park, the course avoids most other activities (a walking path comes into play on the first several holes but shouldn't be too much of an issue during play).
- The wooded holes do a pretty good job of elevating this course from "one-dimensional park course" to "balanced and fun." There's enough variety with the elevation, the wooded sections, the more open areas, a bit of water scattered here and there (albeit without any true water carries or real danger) to keep things interesting. Some holes are short aceruns while others will make even experienced players work a bit harder. Nothing approaches "super challenging" but there are some solid golf shots here.
Cons:
- This course is fairly bare bones when it comes to amenities. If you require perfect tees, Google Earth level accuracy on tee signs, next tee markers, benches, etc...then this is NOT the course for you. There are a ton of tee signs that are missing or inadequate. Not much (if anything) in the way of "hey, some lettered holes are hidden over that way" or "next tee signs." I actually kind of enjoyed the challenge of finding the lettered holes, because the course is decent enough in layout to not make it a super hassle or anything. I did not locate A and B (I realized too late that they were interspersed almost from the beginning) but found C on out...some people are going to HATE trying to track these down without a guide and signage. F was especially weird.
- Tee pads were a mix of short concrete tees (serviceable enough if a bit "pygmy") and lumpy rubber mats (which did the trick for my round but could cause issues in non-ideal conditions).
- A bit of trash scattered about and goose poop in several areas. I can deal with most course issues; but man, I just really dislike having to two-step it around lil' piles on the fairway. Only affects a handful of the holes closer to the water.
- There are a couple of spots where the course plays awfully darn close to some busy roadways.
Other Thoughts:
- Overall, I liked Irving Park well enough. The park is fairly pretty in places, while a little bit trashy in others. Battle Creek has a nice enough downtown area, and the surrounding buildings add some visual interest to parts of the round. The wooded, elevated holes made this course.
- Typically, having to "track down" 9 holes that aren't labelled is going to piss me off. For some reason, I liked the challenge of finding them on this course. It never felt like I had to walk crazy amounts to locate anything, and every time I took a guess as to the next tee, I seemed to get it right. So, despite a really terrible lack of signs, the flow's pretty darn intuitive.
- FYI, I don't believe the listed course info re: distances, water, or hole number is correct. Also this course could really use pictures (I didn't realize it only had two or I'd have gotten some during my round). Some local needs to get on it and update course info and pics!!
- With all the "warts" I wanted to rate this course at 2.5-discs; however, there was just enough variety, elevation, and wooded holes to make this a 3.0 because of the 9 extra lettered holes. Some decent tees, signs, and a juuust a lil' love in a few areas and I see this course threatening to crack into 3.5 range.