Challenging 18 hole course in a nice township park. A practice basket sits just off the parking lot and a Porta-Potty is available for park patrons. A large amphitheater allows for a perfect tournament central location. Red/White/Blue Dynamic veteran baskets stand out to the thrower, while oversized (12') tee pads provide plenty of room for run ups. Nicely designed tee signs are present at each hole, attached to a painted 4x6 post. Navigation is pretty intuitive, with well worn paths or "next tee" signs" guiding players along the way. Two elevated baskets are present and help compensate for the lack of natural elevation here. Good variety of distances here ranging from 200+ feet to over 700 feet.

Course is very flat. Several holes are located close to walking paths, necessitating caution from players from time to time during peak hours. The hole 2 basket location presents a concern, as you can't always see walkers coming around the corner as you throw your approach. Some of the new wooded holes need some grooming, weeding and stump removal. Trees with wide, bushy growth detract from a couple of the longer holes here. No welcome board, lost disc box, benches or other amenities found at several other area courses.

Joe Palaia Park is a solid venue worthy of playing. It is a different course than the ones at Allaire, Thompson, OCP and Wolf Hill. At Par 64, It provides challenges as well as some length not seen at other area courses. The park is generally well-maintained, the baskets work well and the pads sturdy and of sufficient length. After a couple of years of seemingly never-ending flux, the course now shows a degree of finality, as permanent tee signs are present and several of the holes have been re-configured. New holes 6, 7 and 8 are a positive upgrade over the previous layout, rectifying a safety issue (old hole 6) and eliminating a couple of uninspiring ones while giving players some wooded options.

While it's true several holes border walking paths here, it is inaccurate to suggest the course compromises safety anymore than others at multi-use parks. Like most other places, careless, uncontrolled throws will invite trouble while a degree of caution and common sense should prevent any problems here. My experiences with park patrons have been very positive.

Speaking honestly, I do not like the wide-growth trees that clutter parts of the two par 5 holes here, and you cannot intuitively uncork a drive off the tee unless you have a cannon arm that can clear them. That said, the holes are not bad and are designed so that they are nonetheless fair. Though much better than the past couple of years, Park Grounds should continue to trim occasional branches, weed the pads and weed whack baskets/signs to maximize course enjoyment.

Plans are in place for a welcome kiosk and lost disc box to be added pending park approval. A good overall course which is worth repeat visits.

Open fairways
Mostly great signage
Clean park
Well maintained
Great baskets
Great Teepads
Friendly Locals
First tee close to parking

I think people have been a little too generous with the course rating here. I do not think it deserves above a 3 rating because this course has some unplayable holes if any people are present. 1-6 are very close to paths with a few more holes that run along paths as well. Luckily I was there very early in the morning but still had to wait a bit for some people to walk by on holes. It ultimately made me nervous of hitting someone on many holes or scaring locals. I have pretty decent accuracy but one hole in particular (6 I believe) runs directly along a path to the right. At the beginning of the hole and close to the pin, the path takes a large turn, which could cause unseen people turning the corner to come close to getting hit if your throw is off by only 10'.
This course is also completely flat. This doesn't bother me and doesn't take away from the rating, but should be noted

Overall If you're close and at a low time of people in the park, give it a shot. I drove out of the way for this course because of the rating and was dissapointed. I'd rather go to Thompson Park if I'm around the area.
With that said, good practice course and good for beginners.

Good practice on long holes
Not crowded
Plenty of parking
Good signage overall

Not many wooded holes
Poor markings to the 4th tee
Hidden baskets
Heavily vegetated trees
Not a lot of shade
Have to be mindful of cyclists and pedestrians

I consider myself an advanced beginner. This course is good to practice long shots. There are several holes that are over 400 feet. They are very open so you can get a sense of how far you're throwing.
There are confusing signs directing you to the 4th tee (4A or 4B). We couldn't locate the tee pad following the directions for 4A. We backtracked and followed the directions for 4B and finally found the tee pad. Basically it's located close to the 3rd tee, near the road.
If you tend to throw your discs high, there are several heavily vegetated trees that your discs can get caught in.

+ Nice open practice pin area right next to the parking lot.
+ Very friendly and welcoming regulars/locals.
+ Most tee pads are tesselated bricks/pavers. They are generously long and wide enough for big wind ups like mine.
+ 'Next hole' signs are prominent and visible!
+ Tons of space to wind up and explode on their truly open holes.
+ A peaceful community park serves as the grassy backdrop with a peppering of trees. I felt at ease here.

- Tee signs are just laminated paper tacked to a post.
- Some tees felt way too close to walking paths. Holes 5 and 7 jump to mind as examples of this.
- Most of the holes are different variations of the wide open and flat glide. This causes many holes to feel samey.
- The white tees are all completely missing (as of February 17, 2019.)
- Some of the blue tee pads are just dirt for now.
- Most of the course is wide open and flat with just gentle slopes here and there serving as the elevation.
- Despite the open air, several holes feel ironically claustrophobic with the park's very many walking paths winding every which way around you. This will definitely cause problems in the warmer months.
- I did not see a lost disc box. (I could be wrong about this.)

My favorite hole here was hole 3 because of the nice winding fairway it follows through some woods. It felt the most technical to me and, therefore, the most challenging. For a least favorite hole, I might have to go with the hole just before it. Hole 2 seemed the least interesting to my mind with its straight and wide open layout.

As for the course as a whole, Joe Palaia DGC is setting up to be a strong addition to New Jersey's disc golf scene. It will definitely earn a higher rating from me once it is completed, but it is not quite there yet.

I have to start this review by mentioning that right off the bat I was approached by two locals who enthusiastically offered to play the first few holes with me and tell me about the course in general. You know that you've chosen the right sport when complete strangers can walk up to one another and play as though they are friends. Joe Palaia disc golf has some good folks.

They did warn me about the course's downsides, though, which ought to get fair representation. They told me ahead of time that there are OB walking paths pretty much everywhere at this course, and they were right. Except for some spots in the back nine, the player is always either throwing towards or teeing off next to a footpath. I played in the middle of chilly February, and there were still dozens of people walking about. I can only imagine what kind of problems this might cause in the summertime. Throw with caution, but don't be afraid to wait for the right moment, folks.

Also, some of the fairways were permanently saturated. The locals I met said that hole 4 in particular had to be completely relocated because the woods through which it used to play were utterly mired.
The course is mostly flat, after all, which doesn't allow for much drainage. In the interest of fairness, it has been an unusually rainy winter for New Jersey, but flatness doesn't help the course in any case.

What does help the course, however, is variability between holes. The designers of this course seemed to understand that they had very little in the way of elevation to work with, so they kicked up the course-specific challenges in order to compensate. This was executed to great effect.
My favorite example of this is hole 14. The planners could have left it all alone and made it a wide open hole like many of the others. However, they chose to raise the basket at the end to add a bit of drama to the putting AND force the player to obey a bottleneck mando between two trees for an extra garnish of challenge to the driving. Working with what you have and polishing the experience is what makes a great disc golf course.

This course, as it is still quite new, does not have any of the short tees installed yet, but it does have 14 out of the 18 long tees planted and ready, so it is perfectly playable. And when I played, I had a very good time. Yes, the course it mostly flat and open, but the variability between holes and their features bumps it up a bit. The trees are not to be ignored here. They may seem off to the side, but don't let their apparent distance trick you into getting complacent. I look forward to playing here again in the future to see what kinds of additions are made and how the short tees play...!

Bottom line: The flat and mostly-open format is broken up by a fair few curve balls that make it more pleasant to play. No short tees (yet) mean that new players may feel a bit frustrated, and this course definitely favors the power players out there. However, Joe Palaia DGC has some fun holes to offer the disc golfer. It dares you to throw as far as you can and then smacks you with devious hybrid-style hole. It is on its way to being a core course of NJ.

Some significant change I experienced playing the course in early 2022. The biggest change is the creation of three woods holes (#6 - #8). They replace the original #3, #7 and #12, so a lot of the existing holes have been renumbered. In addition to adding more woods holes, the redesign improves the course flow, and removes a hole that was notoriously slow and dangerous to park walkers

The new holes #6 (200') and #8 (249') are straight, flat, pretty narrow, with a few trees in the fairway. They add birdie and ace opportunities in addition to the novelty of being in the woods at this course. The new hole #7 is a 550' par 4 with a curling right dogleg. Much of the middle 300' of the hole is turning right, and climbing up a small hill. The hole still needs some stump clearing in the fairway, but it's already a gem. With the fairway lined by removed tree trunks, and the rough covered with laurels, the hole reminded me of what you'd find at Stafford Woods (and that's high praise in New Jersey)

The course continues to be primarily one set of (Blue) tees. The new permanent signage indicates White tees on the two par 5's (#9 and #15), but there are no tees in the ground yet. It appears the only difference to the "White" layout will be shortening these two holes and reducing the pars to 4

**************


+ Although mostly flat terrain, the designers have done great work shaping 18 distinct holes out of this large park.


+ Baskets are red/white/blue Patriots.


+ There's a practice basket next to the parking lot.


+ This is a fairly open park, but the designers have found ways to carve out distinctive holes by creating placements with guardian trees, and by incorporating berms on a few holes


+ The 5's are long - but they also require shotmaking. Just being able to bomb 'em won't help you through all the obstacles.

- I think Joe Palaia has the chance to be among the best challenges in NJ, up there with Stafford, Doc, Allaire and Tecumseh. They're all different, but they each represent a real and fair challenge. We are raising our game in the Garden State, and I'm grateful to all the designers and people who care for our courses.