James A. Jackson is a fairly new course with good tee pads, decent signs on every hole, and good baskets and even benches. It's always easy to tell where the next tee and basket are, and it's a solid place to have a quick round.

There aren't many obstacles, but they do a good job blocking certain lines on some holes. The variety is there on the first four holes to have both left-to-right and right-to-left holes, which isn't easy given the land there was to work with.

Even though the area is mostly flat, there is some soft elevation that will make distance control and distance perception tricky. There's just enough distance to force most people to bust out their drivers, making this a decent warm-up course if nothing else.

Every hole is pretty open, and the last five holes have pretty much nothing in the way other than some grass. Only holes 1 and 4 are holes that have significant trees, and even then, there's a lot of room for error.

The rough looks like it can get a little tall. It's still easy to find discs most of the time, but it is annoying to walk through if your accuracy isn't on point. There's enough grass now that mud isn't an issue, but it wouldn't take long for the grass to be too tall. It looks like the fairways that are mowed shorter are pretty narrow, so putts from tall grass might be common.

Because of the distances and lack of obstacles, many holes become tweener holes really fast for some skill levels, with drives difficult to put in putting range but easy to put in upshot range. While it's not a horrible beginner course, some more variety would give more scoring opportunities for everyone.

You have to walk a bit to the south from the parking lot to get to hole 1, then walk back from a different direction from hole 9. As a result, since there's no practice basket, there's not an easy place to practice putting before your round. If you're playing multiple rounds, it'll be another long walk to get back to hole 1.

Looking around, there are several trees that don't come into play at all. They could have been used, just weren't. A treeline blocks right-to-left shots on holes 3 and 4, but if the tees were closer to it, the holes would be much better. However, there are property lines to stay away from, and some of the other trees are on top of muddy areas.

While there is not a whole lot exciting about this course, it is good that the city spent some money on nine tees and baskets, and since there is some legitimate distance here, gives it an advantage over some other niners. It just doesn't have the challenge to give it a higher rating. Hopefully some trees are planted soon.