Lake Amador South is considered the middle child of the three Lake Amador courses. The longer North Course is considered a little more challenging and the Campground course might be a hair easier.

The Lake Amador Resort complex centers around the 400 acre lake offering fishing, camping, boating, swimming pools, rentals and three challenging disc golf courses. The charge is $10 for the day. And with this $10, you'll receive a professional looking scorecard, just like at the regular golf courses. Play all three in one day and you can call yourself a man or perhaps a woman. The cafe is full-service on weekends and sandwiches during the week. There is a nice selection of discs and bags in the cafe. Pay for your plastic with your plastic and it'll will set you back. I thought the prices were pretty steep.

The South course has a nice large course map, excellent long concrete tees, a kiosk with some information, DGA baskets with an round attachment on top showing the hole # and lots of white next tee arrows. Some of the signs have weathered and are hard to read. There is a washer system in place showing current basket position. I don't think they all were correct, though.

The course starts out pretty innocently with a series of birdieable holes with not much elevation. Starting on # 5, you'll start to see what all the elevation talk is about. # 5 is a hyser around this big tree with the basket stuck down in the trees in a clever placement. Oh yeah, this course might be the king of the rollaway, what with the extreme, steep hillsides and some nasty basket placements. Hole after hole have you either throwing down steep hills or have baskets are on steep hillsides.

The lake is currently (January) low. The folks at the resort are praying for some rain. Californians are obviously drinking too much water! Either that or wasting too much water showering or watering crops.

# 9 is just a short little, 160' but if the lake is up, the basket sits right on the edge. # 10 plays across the lake and then up a good sized hill. I liked # 12 in it's current position. It's just 225' but the basket sits on a steep, sloping hillside and the basket is protected by a cluster of about 15 small trees. I liked # 14 a lot. It plays only 234' but has you teeing off through the fork of this tree. Also a prime hole for ugly rollaways.

# 15 basket was in a seriously, nasty position, stuck at the far end of the fairway which gets progressively more narrow with an OB fence close by on the left and a drop-off on the right.

And # 18 is an especially great hole to end a tournament. It's somewhere between 330' and 525', big downhill but not exactly open. There is a serious drop on your left and not much room on your right. The basket sits in kind of a natural stadium bowl, perfect for spectators.

Signs could be improved.

Treacherous hillsides and basket positions.

Would be sweltering in summer. Bring lots of water.

Big time endurance needed for all the steep ups and downs.

Expect some horrific rollaways.

The North Course is longer and the Playground Course has some nastier holes but the South delivers on it's promise to challenge you both physically and mentally. There are so many places and ways to get into trouble here. It's no wonder there is a huge supply of lost discs in the cafe.

Holes 6-18 are technical and fun. Good shots are rewarded! Get off line and pay the price. Big tee pads and nice baskets are a huge plus. Met one of the course designers and heard of the future plans to improve the course with new placements and potentially water between 1 and 4.

1 - 5 are wide open putter shots. $10 fee.

Great new course. I look forward to hitting up the Sat. dubs and learning the local routes.