Santa Barbara (Isla Vista), CA

Isla Vista Peace Course

Permanent course
1.445(based on 17 reviews)
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The Katana Kid
Gold level trusted reviewer
Experience: 8.4 years 184 played 56 reviews
2.00 star(s)

World record holder where most holes were played in 1 day 2+ years drive by

Reviewed: Played on:Dec 7, 2017 Played the course:5+ times

Pros:

See Other for world record...

Hole 1 (246) forces a RHBH since there's trees and a road on the left.

Hole 2 (220) is blocked by trees in the middle of the fairway forcing a big RHBH hyzer.

Hole 3 (188) has trees in the way, but they leave you a line to shoot through.

Hole 4 (144) is the shortest and easiest hole I've ever seen. This is a classic ace run and my first ever ace! The sign by the tee says it's a par 2, but that can't be right, can It? Did I only get credit for a birdie with my ace?!

Hole 5 (195) plays around bushes and trees on your left to a basket out of view. Again your forced to throw a RHBH.

Hole 6 (180) is across the street with more trees so you need to hit a line using a RHFH since it plays to the right.

Hole 7 (201) is across another street and mostly unobstructed allowing whatever throw you like.

Hole 8 (192) has large trees on the left leaving you to throw RHBH, but there's also trees in the middle and on the right you need to avoid.

Hole 9 (207) is back across the street and if you can throw a low RHFH you can hit the line between the trees and get under the tree's low canopy to reach the basket. This is one of the more challenging holes.

Right down the street from a popular trail along the ocean and 5 minutes from the 101 highway for easy access.

Cons:

It is hard to find baskets 6-9, unless you're told where to go since you must walk past the basketball courts and cross Estero Road. I thought the course only had 5 baskets the first few times I played it. Finding 6-9 was a pleasant surprise.

Estero Road, where hole 1 is, draws a homeless crowd. I never feel unsafe around them, but I wish the city had a porta potty so that the smell of urine was not so overpowering in the area near the 2nd and 4th tees. Whew!

To get to 7 and 8 you must cross Sueno Road to a little field referred to on the map as Sueno Orchard.

Other Thoughts:

A local guy told me with pride that the Isla Vista Peace Course has the world record for most consecutive birdies at 22. I did not know there were such disc golf world records so I looked and found this cool article:
https://www.pdga.com/world-re...-college-team

The distances listed here aren't right so I added the 3rd set of distances based on my stepping them off. I took pictures from each tee. On #2 there's an obvious shorter tee in the ground with #6 on it, which makes no sense according to the current layout. Number 3 also has a shorter tee that you can see from the longer tee.

Rating - I agree with TVK that this is a fun little course worth 2.0 (especially since a world record was set here!) but I only rated Lake Cachumna (a newer local course) at 1.5 in my first ever review. These two courses are not in the same league. In all fairness I need to go back to Lake Cachumna and upgrade that rating. I had a bad experience there and was probably too harsh. I'll make another trip at some point and give it another chance.
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12 1
The Valkyrie Kid
Diamond level trusted reviewer
Experience: 45.9 years 1562 played 1507 reviews
2.00 star(s)

Scruffy Little Course In A Scruffy Park In A Scruffy Neighborhood! 2+ years

Reviewed: Played on:Aug 28, 2016 Played the course:once

Pros:

Isla Vista Peace Course sits in this odd, scruffy park in Santa Barbara. The park seems to exist on three or four seperate sites. The biggest and main area contains basketball courts and two soccer fields. Another semi-connected area houses holes 1-5. A third seperate area has a community garden and holes 6 & 9 and then crossing the street and you find holes 7 & 8. One thing all this areas have in common is a general scruffiness. Not quite, ghetto, but mostly a needs clean up type of scruffiness. The neighborhood is scruffy with scruffy dudes hanging out. Once again, not ghetto or threatening but not UC - Santa Barbara students. The kind of scrufficans who bring a portable punching bag to the park to practice on.

The course is your basic scruffy, older, unkempt one with old scruffy baskets, old school fiberglass tee signs which have been altered and these strange tee pads which are made of patio blocks and set in a square pattern. There is sometimes a small hill just in front of the pad. Run-ups are frowned upon here in Sruffiville.

The course is a short pitch n' putt, excellent for beginners but you know, I found it to be pretty enjoyable. There are a few simple ACE runs in the 150' range and a couple of interesting holes with a bit of challenge.

# 3 is maybe 200' and gives you the option of threading your disc through a 6' wide gap in the trees or just throwing an easy hyser around the trees. Want to make this hole way more difficult? Make it a Mando through the small gap in between the trees.

# 9 was an interesting little gem, too. It's maybe 200' but needing an anhyser throw through the trees. Then the basket is set behind three large trees with low hanging branches. You might want to try rolling your first or second shot here. Fun little hole!

Cons:

The tee pads are pretty uncomfortable to throw off if you want to have any kind of run up. Most of you probably don't require a run up on all these 175' holes.

The tee signs have been marked over by someone attempting to help. They did, in fact, help me navigate the course. I was in a rush and didn't have the luxury of looking around too much, so just having the hole # on the signs helped me quite a bit. But as a con, they don't have the distance, which I miss.

Park is scruffy!

Convoluted design which takes you all over the place. Luckily, there was one other group on the course and they pointed me in the right direction.

Course design has been changed but on-line map still shows the old layout. This would be fairly confusing if you were just following the map.

Other Thoughts:

I enjoyed this little course. Some neighboring scruffies invited me to join them in their beer pong game. I had to decline as time was of the essence but it was a nice gesture on their part. A written invitation would've have been most appreciated.

It seems as if no-one does any maintenance on this course. On one hand, that's readily apparent but on the other hand, I'm amazed that the course has held up as well as it has. No vandalized signs, no baskets appear to have been jumped on. They are scruffy but they are resilient and solider on.

This is no destination course but I found it kinda fun. I wouldn't mind throwing here on a regular basis. I might even join in the beer pong games!
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3 1
spencervh
Experience: 7.9 years 4 played 4 reviews
2.00 star(s)

It.... exists 2+ years drive by

Reviewed: Played on:Aug 10, 2016 Played the course:once

Pros:

as mentioned in the title, it exists. it's nearby my house and if you are within ~30 mins, it is a playable course. i wouldn't drive from further for it though. some holes require planning, most are pretty straightforward. a good spot to take a first-timer or improve as a beginner. nobody is around so you could just use it as a practice area.

Cons:

overgrown and unmaintained. holes are marked differently in person than they are on the map provided by the city's website, which makes navigation very confusing and could result in people playing the course opposite ways and colliding in the middle (however people are very rarely ever playing)

Other Thoughts:

nice neighborhood course. i know it's 15+ years old and i don't think that anybody takes care of any part of it, so it's acceptable for what/where it is.
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