Some of the really negative things that have been said about this course are, to my mind, undeserved. A few caveats:
1. I am a relatively new player. Been playing on and off (mostly off) for about 4 years, but I picked it up again this summer with a goal of trying to actual improve.
2.I played 4-5 times a week this summer, and Leigh Farms was the course I played more than any other. I only played the rec course, so this does not include any information about the advanced course. The one time I tried to play the advanced course, the holes were indeed very confusing to find, and I ended up resorting to the rec course halfway through.
3. I admit that perhaps some of my admiration comes from the fact that this was, for the most part, the course I attempted to teach myself to play disc golf on. I tried my damnedest to make this course my own, to play it until I knew every nook and cranny. Perhaps many of the negative things people have said about this course are things I just forced myself to get used to and play through, things that others used to more well-manicured courses would not have tolerated. I also managed to somehow score an Ace on hole 7, the only ace I have ever scored, out of freak luck. So, I'll admit I'm a bit emotionally attached.
4. The first time I tried playing this course, I didn't take one of the brochures with me, and I got lost, and frustrated, and quit. I went back months later, grabbed a brochure, learned the layout, and fell in love with the course.

But there are a bunch of things to love about this course.
Hole 1 and 2 are both short shots that are fun to shoot for ace on with a mid-range forearm and you can easily overshoot.
This course is both so frustrating and so rewarding because almost every hole can either end up as an easy birdie or a double-bogey. You are ensconced in trees the whole time, and slight deflections can send your disc into an abyss of brush and trees. But the reward for a perfectly delivered drive through the trees is oh-so-sweet. This course is an excellent course to drill if you are trying to get better at throwing through trees.
The first 3-4 holes are all pretty similar, but there is some great variation as you get into the later parts of the course.
Hole 12 is a fun shot to practice changes in elevation and shooting down hill.
Hole 13 is one of the longer holes on the course, and requires some interesting choices about which route to take to try to clear the mini-creek. The creek creates a low-risk OB type opportunity for you to practice - discs are easily retrievable, but you do have to climb down into the creekbed to get them.
Hole 14, the gulley hole, is one of my favorites.
Hole 17, around the barn, is just such an incredibly fun, tricky shot to have to drive from.
Leigh Farm takes all of the wonderful, frustrating things about NC courses and packs them all into a tiny little package. I get why some people don't like this course, but I loved learning to play disc on it.

The key to not getting lost on this course is to grab one of the brochures at the front of the course and take it with you until you learn the course structure. As many have noted, the layout is a bit counter-intuitive, and with the two courses laid on top of one another, it's REALLY easy to get lost. Get yourself the brochure, and read the instructions carefully. For the most part, the instructions do a pretty good job of walking you from basket to basket.

You might get lost a few times, but once you learn the layout, it makes sense and is really easy to navigate. When you're done with hole 13, you'll need to cross the street to the other side of the park closer to the highway. Look for a wooden plank marking the trail from the road/sidewalk to the second part of the course.

The brush is pretty bad, as some have noted, but I think some people's reviews are exaggerating it quite a bit. This is not much different than any other heavily wooded NC course. Pretty standard fair for NC courses in terms of how bad it is if your disc gets out into the rough. The one thing that is a bit worse here than at other courses is spiderwebs. When walking through the rough to get to my disc, I definitely liked to carry another disc with me to wave in front of my face to prevent me from walking into spiderwebs ("Sorry, I'm not home right now... " Sing along if you know the words, kids).

The teeboxes could definitely be better maintained.

If you have no problem moving your disc through trees with ease, you will probably find this course very easy. There are not many holes which require much in the way of distance driving. It is almost entirely enclosed in the woods, so if you need 900 ft fairways and enormous par 5's, the rec course is definitely not the place for you.

I get why people may not like this course. It's a bit rough around the edges. But for me, this was a great course to learn how to play disc golf on. It honed my skills in the woods, taught me to throw a variety of shots, and was a fun place to get some good disc golf muscle memory down. Don't let these reviews scare you away. But seriously, use the instructions, or go with someone who knows the layout.

The rec course at Leigh Farm is a decent play. It would probably earn a 2.5 on it's own merit. There are some interesting holes. There are a lot of short holes, fourteen of them under two-hundred feet, but a bunch of those are fairly interesting. (Particular 17, which passes one of the park's historic structures and finishes in a tunnelish area) They're pretty much all wooded and while tight, they aren't too tight for the intended audience. It it called a rec course. It certainly gets more interesting towards the end where many of the holes are just shortened versions of those on the longer layout. 10 and 13 stand out. Two of the longer holes on the layout at 277 and 334 feet respectively, they both shoot down hill and 10 finishes nicely to the right while 13 crosses a creek just before the basket. On average, it plays with a similar difficulty to the nearby Cornwallis except some of these holes are far easier than anything at Cornwallis and some of them are far tougher. It's much less consistent in it's level of challenge.

Some work is still going on here, but if you download the map before you go, you won't have any trouble following the rec course. It's fairly intuitive and as long as you have the map letting you know which general direction to go from the basket, you should be fine. Remember, the signs are inaccurate. (Sometimes they depict the hole correctly but the numbers are still wrong.) Don't use them. Use the map, and look for the blue numbers on the tee pad. Those indicate you are at the right place. It was recently closed for a good time and a lot of work has been done. There is nearby construction where an apartment complex is going in but the construction at the park is mostly done and it's a good looking clean park now that should provide a quick, fun round.

A bunch of the holes are less interesting. In particular, those pairs of holes which are combined into one hole for the advanced layout. I'm speaking of 1 and 2, as well as 3 and 4. They very much feel like hole segments. It's tricky putting two layouts into the same area and some of the holes of the rec course suffer that. Even beyond that, the experienced player will find little challenging here. Too many of the holes are just short pitches, as described above. I'm not really knocking it for the incomplete nature of the course as that will be finished soon enough and there are really only a few transitions that need much in the way of aid. (13 to 4, 15 to 16 and 11 to 12) That said, I'd recommend playing the rec course once before playing the advanced layout. It will help you understand how the course is built and it will make navigating much easier. Because right now, the advanced course is not the easiest to follow.

Now to Leigh's Lair. The advanced course here has a ton of potential. I think when it's all done, it will be a 3.5-level course on it's own. It's a nice design that boasts some real challenge while remaining playable by all but the most inexperienced players. It's got some long, curving holes with real distance for wooded holes and I doubt many will complain about the throws that the layout allows. Three of the holes combine two fairways from the easier layout, typically resulting in a one solid bend as you transition from one to the other. Six of the holes are on their own and this includes some of the best holes on the course, specifically the ones around the mound complex. 6 throws form ground level essentially up a ramp to a high placed tee on the edge of a sharp drop-off. 7 plays from the top of that mound to the top of a another smaller mound and 8 throws off that one. It's a nice sequence and it's made better when you come back that small mound and climb the back steps to throw once more from a ledge half-way up. The other holes are more like long pads for the regular course. In some cases, much longer pads.


As of now, it's one of the tougher courses to follow, even with the map, which as linked to here is hand-drawn and thus vague. Additionally it seems to be inaccurate in a few places, so I'll guide you through a few instances of trickyness, at least for now as I assume there will eventually be signs to help with this. (At least numbers on the pads, for most of the round I had no idea what number I was on and it took playing the rec course to better understand Leigh's Lair.) The first tee is the same as the rec course first tee. That confused me at first. 1 plays from the rec 1 tee to the rec 2 basket. Likewise, 2 plays from the rec 3 tee to the rec 4 basket. Both pretty nice holes. Then the layouts separate and there is a sign that indicates this. 4 does not tee off near the pump station as the map would indicate. Walk down the road to the bend and you well see the short pad in front of you. Turn around and find the long pad imbedded on the hillside. 5 is along the service road but it is much shorter than the map makes it look. The basket is tucked to the right of the road. From that basket, cross the road and you'll find a tee pointing straight at the mound. (This is labeled 7 on the map but I'm pretty sure it's 6 now as I couldn't find what was 6) From there the map is mostly accurate other than the numbers being one off. Most of the holes down the end stretch are matched up with short course holes. You just need to find the long pads.

Honestly, if you can wait until the course is finished being worked on, it would be advisable. Save yourself from the navigation nightmare. But even now, there's great golf to be played here with some of the toughest holes in Durham.

Challenging and well laid out. Two courses in one, with beginner and adv tees.

Can be confusing first time through, heavily wooded. Little parking.

Pay attention to the board at the front as to what configuration the holes are in. The maps show two holes but there are only one set of baskets out there... if you've not played a course that moves baskets around this will confuse you.

this course has two sets of baskets and rubber pads. different colored rocks(yes rocks) tell you the am and pro tees. some holes u play same pad (am an pro) just throw to next holes basket. no very 1st timer friendly. you hav to know the course to play it and then its still not cool.........

...........i would like to think the guy that got the $80,000 for this courde will be rashambulled(nut shots till one of u hits the ground 1st) DID YOU REALLY PUT RUBER MATS OUT HTERE WITH 2 PIN PLACEMENT. YOU HAVE GOT TO BE COUNTRY OR MIGHTY SLOW!

PLEASE TELL ME YOU HAVE MORE MONEY LEFT FOR TEES AND TEE SIGNS...........COME ON DUDE. STEP UP OR HAND OVER REST.