-Its a full 18 shots which is nice.
-Its a lot of fun trying to avoid the trees
-Theres a mix of woodsy and open fields

-Poison oak is literally everywhere right now.
-Easy to lose disc on the first 10 holes.
-Hornets are around holes 5-7. I got stung 4 times on hole 7

All in all its a really fun coarse but just need to watch out. If you throw bad just one time it can be the end of your disc. I recommend having a spotter for some of the first 10 holes. If you cant throw the disc that far then do the alternative route for hole 12 cause you have to cross a pond.

- Challenging but not exhausting
- Excellent variety of terrain (woods vs. fields)
- Excellent variety of lengths and shot types
- Pretty good flow; can be followed even without a map

- No hard-surface teepads...yet
- Poison oak & stinging nettles
- Disc-eating ferns and other underbrush
- Some wooded holes are really a crapshoot
- Poison oak (it's worth repeating)

Keizer Rapids Park sits on a swath of undulating terrain on a bend in the Willamette River (although you never actually see the river from the course). About half of the disc golf course is in a thick fern-filled forest of maple, fir, and alder, and half is out in the gravelly open, with scotch broom, cottonwoods, and willows for obstacles. There's one water hazard, which shouldn't be much of a hazard for anyone who can throw 200 feet. A few holes have minor elevation changes, but most of the course is flat.

The holes have a great variety of distances and layouts, although I think many people will find a few of the wooded holes to be a little frustrating. Some of those fairways are very narrow or nearly non-existent, and for most people, there's going to be a lot of luck involved in getting a good drive through there. The good news is that the worst of them (#3, #4, and #7) are fairly short.

While I don't usually enjoy wide-open sections much, I think Keizer's "meadow" holes are different enough from each other to keep it interesting. The pond adds some variety, and a few well-placed trees and shrubs can get in your way. The longest hole, at 460 feet, is not ridiculously long.


Note that the course was first worked on in June of 2009, and baskets were only just installed in July; the teepads are still dirt rectangles marked by simple toe boards. A map is very helpful, but even if you don't have one, you can still follow the course; look for spray-painted arrows and red rocks on the ground.

While lot of work has been done to clear the big plants and small trees that were in the fairways, the underbrush is still very, very thick. Few, if any, of the big sword ferns have been (or will be) removed, and those fronds are very good at hiding discs -- even when you think you made a pretty good throw to the middle of the fairway (this is especially true on #9 and #10). And poison oak is EVERYWHERE. In the open areas, it forms a border around the trees and shrubs; in the woods, it grows as small plants and also climbs as a vine 50 feet up the trees. Hopefully the Keizer Parks Department has plans to eradicate more of it.

I think that some day this will be a 4-star course; it's both challenging and fun, and that's what you want in a disc golf course, right? So I'll give it a "4" for the layout and the nice new baskets, and a "1" for the current rough conditions. (I'll update my review once the brush gets cleared, the poison oak gets sprayed, and the concrete teepads get poured.)

- Brand new Mach III baskets
- Free

- Uneven natural pads
- Thick undergrowth even in the middle of fairways
- Poison Oak and Stinging Nettles are everywhere, including fairways and greens

This course is brand spanking new.