Manicured, professional setting, varied layout.

Get a map, or prepare for a bit of wandering and confusion.

Note: This review was written before La Mirada went to its current, consistent front 18/back 18 layout. I last played here in the summer of 2008.

La Mirada is a beautiful and flexible course set in the heart of the SoCal sprawl. In its usual configuration, the course features 18 par 3 holes on one side of the course and then a "back nine" of generally long and rolling holes on the other side of the course. Perfectly manicured grass, enough trees and shrubbery to keep you honest, and gently rolling hills are consistent throughout the course. The first 18 also plays around a pond, but the water does not come into play. All 27 holes tend to reward big arms and those who can throw rollers, as is typical of SoCal courses.

Flexibility is key for the local course maintainers at La Mirada, though. The front 18 can be moved around a bit, they can spread 18 very long holes throughout both sections of the park, or they can even set up two separate 18s. The downside of this flexibility is there are spare tees around and signage is not consistent on the front 18 and pretty much so non-existent on the back 18. In addition, some of the tees are marked only by tape on an existing sidewalk, and thus are especially hard to find. Also, sometimes the basket numbers don't even match up, particularly on the back nine. La Mirada has a great pro shop, the best I've ever seen for DG in fact, and they are happy to hook you up with an up-to-date map. But if you play when the shop isn't open you'll be in for some confusion, to be sure. The last time I was there, I went with a map from their website showing 1-18, and then 19-27 for the back. But the pro shop wasn't open, the map on the door showed only nine holes on each side, and the back nine was numbered as such (10-18), but a few baskets were misnumbered, or not numbered at all. No tees or signs were numbered on the back nine. Once we finished the shop was open and we figured out we did play all the back nine holes correctly, but not without some trial and error and not in the right order as it turned out.

For those with an up-to-date map in hand or local guides, however, La Mirada is a true SoCal gem. The whole course is maintained to a level rarely seen this side of Winthrop U. The course is more open than not, but does have a bit of elevation to contend with, and enough obstacles to keep you honest. The whole course is beautiful, in a man-made kind of way, and the back nine is truly long, par 34 in its usual configuration. The park can be crowded however, so interaction both with non-disc golfing park users (on the front 18 mostly) and surrounding roads (on the back nine) could be a problem on some days.

If you can manage to hit La Mirada on a fairly non-crowded day and have a good map in hand, you will probably consider it to be an elite disc golf course. But on a crowded day with an inaccurate map, it's a very pretty course that is hard to figure out and play in its entirety due to the general proximity of its holes to sidewalks, roads, baseball fields, and picnickers. Either way the course still rises above most of its SoCal peers.

Favorite Hole - #17 - shot along the side of a hill overlooking pond and most of course.

Always fun to play more than 18 holes. Manicured lawns, with a good mix of trees too. I loved the changes in elevation.

Sometimes pedestrians and park goers can be a distraction. May be a pain to get to with traffic.