Veteran's Memorial Park is a good course in a beautiful park. I liked the rustic looking baskets from the early days of disc golf. The holes are fun and use multiple shot shapes from the tee box. A couple of long holes, a couple of wooded holes, and a couple with a bit of elevation change. Long and short tees and different pin placement on many holes.

Natural tee boxes were sort of rough in places. The signs left something to be desired, and flow from hole to hole was interrupted once or twice during my first and only round.

All in all, I would recommend playing this course if you have the opportunity. Not the best, but a worthwhile play. You can feel the disc golf history here.

Really good layout and use of land/elevation on the majority of the holes. There are a variety of holes here, ranging from short & technical, to long & open. However, big arms aren't at a big advantage here; the guys who are accurate and have good distance control have a good chance to shoot a solid score. The location is pretty sweet too. The course sits very close to the lake, and atop some of the hills offers some nice views and vistas. When I was there, the park was clean and there weren't too many people around the course. Most traffic stayed up near the tennis courts and ball fields. There are also several pavilions along the course, and a few restroom areas. There are multiple pin locations, and Pro & Am pads on some holes.

Some of the tee pads are in dire need of repair. A few have erroded to the point that roots are present on the pad, a few that have carpet tended to be pretty slick, and one of the concrete pads was basically smooth, so any moisture and I bet that things is slipppperrryyy. The signage was a bit outdated too, and it would be nice to have a course map posted at the main board. A few holes run fairly close together which could be an issue in a big tourny, but certainly not anything major.

Overall, a solid disc golf course, but needs some work to really shine. Signage is outdated and many of the tees need major renovations, and there is a mixture of concrete, carpet, and dirt pads. Having consistent pads throughout would greatly add to the course. I purposely didn't add the homemade baskets to the Pros or Cons; mainly, because I respect the history of the course and understand the sentiment toward the baskets. However, new baskets really would make this course much better. There's a good bit of variety from a few longer open holes, to shorter technical holes. Bottom line, I thouroughly enjoyed playing the course, but if it was mine, there are quite a few updates I would make. If you are in or around Florence, you must stop by and play this course, as it certainly is special.

Favorite Holes: 4, 7, 8, 9, 12, 16, 17

As one of the oldest courses in the world Veteran's memorial in Florence is a very well designed course. It has a good mix of open and wooded holes with many short and one or two longer holes. Accuracy is the key on this course. For new players this is an ideal course to learn the game on as most of the holes are fairly short. For advanced a pro players low scores are possible but not a given for two reasons. The first is the utilization of elevation changes on the greens, the second is the fact that the course poses the first Headrick designed baskets (in a hand made fashion. Ask one of the locals to give you the story behind it) which provide for the dreaded "Florence Scoop"

The only real cons I have for this course are the baskets which provide for some serious spit outs and ridiculous scoop outs. You'll just have to play to really get a feel for them. Also some of the tees and pins are very close together, which during a tournament can provide a slight issue but nothing too bad. Many of the tee pads are carpet which works great as long as there hasn't been rain recently in which case they get extremely muddy and slick.

Simply because its one of the oldest courses around I highly suggest everyone try and play this course if you're in north Alabama. The SFC (Shoals Frisbee Club) does a great job of keeping the course in good condition.