Lion's Club DGC is an 18-holer located on the south side of Rolla, MO. It plays in a mostly DG-exclusive area of Lions Club Park. The course has many tightly wooded holes that play through a predominantly pine forest, with rough off the fairways that is unforgiving but doesn't hide discs. Elsewhere, several wide open holes (with fairway edges marked by staked OB) balance out the course.

There is a nice range of hole distances present, from a few sub-200' throws in the woods up to some 500'-700' bomber opportunities in the open. A couple of holes play near small creeks, which were dried up when I visited in mid October and which would never be deep enough to lose a disc in. My favorite hole was #16, which is a fun little 250'-300' throw requiring hitting a tight little turnover shot (RHBH) in the woods, and making it over the creek on the approach to the basket.

The baskets are Gateway Titan models with large yellow metal "Lions Club" signs and the hole number on top. There is one basket, but two pin positions per hole. Quite a few baskets were closely guarded by trees - I found myself straddle putting seemingly more than normal. There were also little white...quills? in the ground, which I believe were meant to indicate the boundary of "circle 1" around each basket.

The tee pads are concrete and engraved with the hole number. One per hole. The tee signs are great, with a large map of the hole and current pin position indicated by a bolt. Benches appear at most tees.

The front of the course has a practice basket, and a kiosk. The kiosk didn't have a course map, but scorecards are also available and those do have a map. The porta potty was not at the beginning of the course, but could be found near the path between holes 14-15 and 17-18. There were a couple of trash cans scattered around.

The biggest Con here is lack of elevation change. The course is pretty much flat other than a couple of small slopes in the open areas.

There's a little picnic area that is in play behind hole 17's basket. Someone was parked there when I played and I had to lay up to make sure I didn't hit them.

There were some navigational signs nailed to trees or posts on the ground, but I could have used more in a few places. I missed the transition from hole 1 to 2, and hole 4 to hole 5 was also a bit confusing because it passed through the path from hole 12 to hole 13. There are also long walks between holes 14-15 and 17-18 that could have been signed better.

Other than that, just a few very minor gripes.
- It's either wide open, or tightly wooded here. There isn't really much in between.
- You could argue that the course is slightly unbalanced with shorter holes mostly packed into the front 9, and the longer holes mostly on the back 9. On the flip side, the front 9 and back 9 each loop back to the parking lot so this could really be construed as a Pro.
- You won't lose a disc in the rough here, but one could conceivably get stuck in one of the pine trees.
- Road noise from adjacent US-63 detracts from the aesthetic a bit.

For being basically right in Rolla, I was surprised to have little to no cell service here. Maybe my phone was just having a bad day.

Overall, this is a solid course that is clearly well cared for by the local club. I wouldn't call it a destination in itself, but definitely a worthy stop if you're travelling along the I-44 corridor or otherwise in the area.

The course plays through a large park and doesn't seem to have many conflicts with non-disc uses. Many of the holes play through a wooded area, with shorter but dense trees. A few shots tempt you with up and over routes, but the trees are plenty dense to catch and punish a missed line. The wooded shots offer some nice tight lines and a mix of left and right turning holes. Missing the fairway often leaves some room for creative recoveries but can easily lead to bogies or worse.

The rest of the course plays in open rolling fields. There are really minor elevation changes but overall it feels fairly flat. This part of the course offers some longer shots, with some chances to really air out some long drives.

The alternate pin positions change up some of the holes quite a bit, and at least change many of them slightly. The signage is solid, with hole layout and distance. The concrete tees are a good size and have good grip. Navigation is easy here, with signage as needed and well defined paths.

The course gets a bit repetitive at times, with lots of short wooded holes about the same length, and some wide open long holes that also feel pretty similar. It felt like there was opportunity to be more creative with the wooded holes and mix up the lengths and hole shapes more. I also would have enjoyed the open holes more if they were more into or out of the woods rather than being wide open with no obstacles.

I wish the pin placements were more consistently marked on the signs, it's always a little annoying to have good signs and to still have to walk the hole to see where the basket is. There are holes in the tee signs with bolts, but a couple were missing and a couple others were in the wrong spot when I played.

Beginners will find this course challenging but approachable. It can be a little punishing for less accurate throwers, but it's not a course that's going to eat discs. More experienced players will find some nice challenges and tricky lines to hit, though there's not quite enough variety to make it a top level course. This is a fun layout, and worth a stop if you're in the area.

Lion's Club DGC is a great road trip course. It's a serious layout for serious players and makes a great stop for the road warriors. It has a very challenging setup and punishing rough that requires you to manage the course and use a variety of shots to shoot well. It has some short technical holes and long bomb holes, so there should be at least one shot for everybody. The course has good signs and directional signs so finding your way shouldn't be an issue. The tees are concrete and very long; they are great to get a good run-up from. Each hole has two pin placements and some of them like #8 change the hole considerably. There isn't much in the way of water, but a creek does come into play on #16 and #18 and it can come into play on #14 if you go very, very long. The baskets are Gateway Titans and catch very well. There is a practice basket with marked off putting distances near the parking lot, and the area the course is in is mostly disc golf only (#15 & #17 overlap a bit with a dog walking area.) The local fire department training are is right next to #15, so you get a cool show when they are doing training exercises. Overall, the course makes for a good round of tough golf. Players who enjoy a challenge will really like this course.

Rolla is set in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains and has a nice rolling topography. Despite that, the disc golf course manages to use possibly the flattest piece of land in town for all but 3-4 holes. The lack of elevation in the wooded portion of the course really limits the course.

The course seems to have a lot of short, <250' technical holes (#1a, #2b, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #11, #12, #16a) and long, >400' bomb holes (#8, #10, #13, #14a, #17, #18.) The pins can be set up so that only #9 and #15 are between 250'-400'. That a lot of dink-dink-bomb-bomb. There could have been a lot more variety in the distances besides "pitch 'n putt short" and "over 400 foot."

The course loops over itself, so hole #3, #4, #5, #6, #11, #12 & #13 are all next to each other. Unfortunately, by doing this they made #11 essentially a repeat of #3 and #12 a repeat of #4. Neither of those shots is so cool that I'm dying to play them again. Given the design there isn't much you can do for the #3/#11 situation, but there is a long walk from #11 to #12 that could have been used to change up hole #12.

Some of the shots are long for the sake of being long. Hole #18 tees off in the woods and you have to keep it in the tunnel for about 100' before the hole opens up. The pins are 589' and 686', so after you clear the cool part of the hole you have five or six hundred feet of wide open to go to finish to an open basket. That hole could be ½ as long with the pin up closer to the creek and be more fun to play. You could say similar things about #10, #13 and #17.

Be careful when checking the tee signs. For some reason, the A placement is not always the short placement. Hole #2, #3, #4, #12, and #14 all list the A placement as the long placement, so if you glance at the sign on blind holes like #2 you will throw to the wrong place.

I generally overlook things like bugs unless it is very severe. Having said that, there are A LOT of ticks on this course during the warm months. You really need to take precautions and check for ticks after a round.

NOTE: Sometime over the summer of 2020 someone installed gigantic goofy/tacky number squares on top of the baskets. I guess arguably they make it easier to see the baskets, but since you can only see six or seven baskets from the tee anyway it seems like the answer to a question no one was asking. These gigantic number squares have no edging and gouge putters like no ones business; no kidding huge slices into the wings of putters like you swatted them with a Ginsu knife. I'm marking this course down 1/2 a disc until this issue is address because I've got torn-up putters and I'm pissed about it.

I'm pretty sure I have reverse homeboy bias on this course. A lot of the things that bother me about the design I probably wouldn't notice if I played it a few times a year. If there was more of a balance between short/tweener/long shots instead of just short/long I'd grumble a lot less about the design. If some of the short shots were stretched out into the 300'-375' range I think the course would have better variety and would be more in keeping with the challenge of the design. As it is, the course is still very solid and definitely worth the trip.