Kalamazoo, MI

Knollwood Park

2.395(based on 37 reviews)
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Knollwood Park reviews

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davetherocketguy
Gold level trusted reviewer
Experience: 19.8 years 114 played 105 reviews
1.50 star(s)

Deucey Heaven meets a Scene from the Labyrinth 2+ years

Reviewed: Played on:Apr 26, 2016 Played the course:once

Pros:

- Innova Discatchers old but in decent shape with their famous yellow top bands hideously graffitied up.
- Tee signs are gorgeous. Looks like they were put up this year. Too bad the vandals have already had their way with a few of them and too bad not all of them are on every hole.
- Pleasant elevation changes throughout the course in amongst the rolling hills. Not too many going uphill or too many going downhill.
- Fantastic use of water hazards on #11. This was far and away the most memorable hole on the course. Too bad the water looked as if it were infected by E Coli, diphtheria and every other stagnant waterborne disease known to mankind.
- There were some benches here and there but with a course this crazy short a bench on every hole really isn't needed.
- I really liked the evenly used left and right holes. While I didn't count how many went left vs. right Knollwood did not seem to favor righties or lefties.
- Concrete tee pads seemed a little on the small side but well constructed. I'm not going to deduct anything for their size because I mean...do you really need a 20' run up for a 180' hole? Nope.

Cons:

Um...wow...quite a few.

- First and foremost the erosion is WAY out of control here. I have never seen a course this badly eroded. It's so bad I think it's a serious environmental issue. Those little water hazards are going to disappear and the wetlands to the south of the course have to be suffering because of the crazy amount of silt washing off of this course.
- If I stood on the bank of the little pond in the middle of the course and closed my eyes I swear I could easily picture in my head a large red furred creature repeatedly saying, "SMELL BAD" with other assorted Jim Henson abominations running around as I proceed through the bog of eternal stench. (If you get that reference your childhood was pretty cool.)
- Trash...Good googly moogly there was A LOT of trash even though the park is technically closed.
- This course is unbelievably short. I'm a lowly Am3 and really wish I would have kept score. This is the first time playing it and I wasn't even trying very hard and I'm sure I scored in the high 40's as I am pretty sure I deuced about 12 or 13 of the holes. I can't imagine playing one of the tournaments here. That has to be deuce or die hell. Then again, there are advantages to playing well on such a short course as it kind of makes you feel like a disc golf God ready to take on the likes of Klimo, Lacastro or heck, even McBeth. Seriously though, this teeny tiny plot of land should not have 18 holes. It's absurd. There should not be more than 12 holes and even that would be a tight squeeze. Although, it could be rearranged to be an absolutely epic 9 holer.

Other Thoughts:

This course has obviously suffered under the abuse of hordes of WMU students with woefully underfunded or mismanaged disposable incomes. When they can't afford anything else there's always that free disc golf course down the street. As a result, this place is suffering badly and I don't have a clue how to stop it to make everyone happy. The City of K-Zoo could fence it all off and charge an entry fee but then the locals may take to the streets with burning couches and futons al a MSU.

I think drastic steps need to be taken on some of these eroding fairways. Terracing would go a long way here and so would the creation of wooden walkways and stairs going up and down the hills.

It's a fun course to be sure but for only once or twice through. Even my noodle arm is going to get bored here.
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