I was having a nice recreational round in Huntly, imagining the nice review I was going to write. Then I got to hole #7. Suddenly I realized how sportswriters felt when the Cubs were cruzing along with the lead and then brought in Carlos Mármol; you have to tear up the story you wrote and start over.

Warrington Park is one of those really nicely developed parks that were paid for with developer's money in the '00's housing boom. The course is an afterthought retrofit into open space/picnic areas that butts up to a row of McMansions; you are right there looking into their backyards for most of the course. Getting to #1 is not great (#6 is the first tee you see from the parking lot) and you can see two baskets from the first tee. The sign isn't great so you have to guess (I guessed wrong) but once you are off the course flows well for the first six holes. Hole #2 has a tall grass shortcut route that can cut down the distance to the pin if you can clear it. Hole #4 throws over (maybe it was supposed to be around) the maintenance dump of landscaping materials for the park AND it is the overflow parking area for the water park, so it is ugly and unplayable on hot summer weekend days. Not a huge deal. Hole # 5 is a short shot with some tricky elevation. Hole #6 can get you close to some backyards, but it's an OK park-style shot. The course has the Midwest Disc Golf functional tee signage and paver stone tees. The baskets are nice Chainstars. Right up through hole # 6 I thought I was playing a nice recreational course and was going to rate the course around a 2.5.

Hole #7 is dumb. It shoots over a swamp with tall grass and weeds, probably a 200'+ish carry over the weeds. New players/young players/recreational players could easily throw into the swamp/tall grass, and there is no safe route around. There is no way to skip the risk, and that is bad course design. There is also (and here is the dumb part I'm shocked no one else has mentioned) NO WAY TO GET TO THE # 7 BASKET WITHOUT WALKING BACK UP THE FAIRWAY FOR EITHER #6 OR #8. The flow here is terrible, and the design is unsafe. Hole #8 is a classic Jericho Lake "throw down the side of the entry road" hole. Hole # 9 is a tall grass nightmare. The hole is an optical illusion with the tall grass pulling in to the left up the hillside. There is tall grass in front of you, so it's hard to see the boundary to know if you are safe or not. Once you throw, you have to walk around a big section of tall grass to get to your disc so if you do throw in the tall grass you lose your frame of reference and just have to tromp around looking for it. It's not a hard hole, but frustrating. Hole #10 is an unremarkable tall grass shot that leaves you far away from where you parked.

The fix for this is obvious. It's a 10 hole course. Pull out #7, make hole # 9 hole #7, make hole #10 hole #8 and then rework hole #8 so it shoots the other direction and make it #9. That would eliminate the stupid #7 shot AND get you back to your car to end the course, making it a perfectly decent 2.5 9-hole course. Why they are trying to cram in an extra hole, using a stupid shot to do it and ending at the far end of the park is a complete mystery.

If the last four holes were not terrible, this would be a very nice recreational course. However, the last four holes are terrible. That part of the course badly needs to be redesigned. Until it is, I have to ding the rating of this course significantly.

The course plays through a corner of a small mostly flat park. A couple holes have some nice length, others are fun shorter ace runs. Several of the holes have some mature trees in play, offering a couple line shaping challenges and a couple low ceiling shots. There is enough rough in a few spots to really punish you for missing your line. With the sports fields right across the street, this is a nice exposure for the sport in an area where there aren't a ton of courses.

There are some strange holes, and the course doesn't really have a strong identity. There are some wide open ace runs that cater only to beginners or people who want to up their ace count, and a couple holes that are long enough to frustrate new players. The long grass is my least favorite disc golf obstacle, it adds frustration and time without changing the way you have to throw your next shot when you go in the rough.

The natural tees are not well defined, and are already showing some wear. They will likely turn into mud pits without improvement or maintenance. The walk after the last hole is pretty long. There isn't a lot of variety in lines you have to shape, you can get away with hyzer or straight shots pretty much everywhere here.

Beginners will find this course reasonably approachable, even with the couple longer holes, though the prairie areas could get frustrating. More experienced players won't find a ton of challenge or variety here, it's not worth going out of your way to play here.