There seemed to be concrete pads on every hole with a trash can on the majority if not all. It felt the majority of the holes were shorter, but there were a few longer shots scattered in to change it up at times. The use of elevation was decent, but not great. The park was clean which is always a plus. I would say the fact that there isn't a lot of obstacles this is a great beginner course or since there are 27 holes it could be nice for a moderate player (if its not busy). We played after a good rain and with the rocky ground the course didn't get muddy or waterlogged like a lot of course would.

The coolest part of the course I thought was the change of pace they had with the tee signs. The had street signs with "Hole 1" marking the pin.

Pretty boring for anyone who has played a higher level course. Every tee shot seemed to have a straight line plan without any need for a hyzer shot even. The weeds on the course were terrible, not sure the last time they ran a mower of it, but it made it difficult to find even a good shot in the middle of the fairway. The tee signs were no where near to what would be acceptable. Not only are they bent up and hard to read, not all the holes had them and it didn't feel like they laid the fairway out correctly. Because of the bad signs, I'm not 100% sure how many holes we played because you could normally see 5+ baskets from each tee shot and even if you played to the right tee, you could see 3 tee pads for a potential next hole. While I did like the tee signs with "Hole 1" they weren't on every hole and some holes (#7 I think particularly) had a another basket 40 ft behind where the hole 7 basket was marked. Don't sit on the benches, while they may have these at every hole the only thing they will hold is a bag. It made the course feel very run down and almost like no one cared for it with the combination of weeds strung throughout the fairways. My group played at 10:00 on a Thursday morning after a good rain, so we were the only ones on the course, but with the number of fairways running throughout and poor signage I feel like this would be a VERY dangerous course. Keep your head on a swivel if you are going to play.

I was excited to play this course as it had almost a 4.0 rating, but I guess I should have read some of the more helpful reviews as it would have definitely set better expectations. McClelland is a course that if you are in Joplin you could 100% play and have a good time and probably not lose any discs, but if you are on a road trip like we were, I would suggest looking for a different course on the route.

In the end it felt like 27 holes were forced on this piece of property. If the current piece of land were to be re-worked and an 18 hole course were put in, I think it would fix what felt like a cluttered course.

In the current layout, I think if the signs were updated and properly hung where they wouldn't be bent up and the fairways mowed a little more this could be a great course with how it is, besides the danger factor.

> There were mostly level, concrete pads on every hole.

> Good baskets throughout that catch well.

> Moderate elevation changes.

> Good variety of length of holes that fluctuate well.

> Park/course was pretty clean throughout.

> Benches at every tee... but also see cons.

> The rocky ground actually helps to prevent erosion and wear on the course, keeping it from getting run down and muddy.

> A good challenge level for beginners that certainly helps avoid obstacle-frustration and lost discs.

> Some of the baskets have a street sign on top of them with the basket number. Unique and was helpful in determining which basket belonged to which tee... when they were actually there. It seemed like half the holes didn't have this sign though.
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> Very plain design - all the holes are pretty much making a straight run to an open basket.

> Feels repetitive, as the variety is only provided by the elevation and distance changing.

> Because of the above two cons, the course was pretty boring.

> A serious lack of challenging obstacles. Sure, there are 3 - 5 medium to large trees on every hole... but they are really easy to avoid and just don't force anyone to shape their shots to get around. You just throw straight at the basket from the tee and keep on going straight.

> The "grass" (actually, it was almost all weeds) was between 12" to 24" tall over the entire course. Not only was this really annoying for finding most throws, but there were snakes and rodents...

> Except for the baskets themselves, the 'course' seems kind of run down.

> The tee signs are terrible. The most important part, which is the hole number, is the smallest and hardest to read part of the signs and you cannot see what hole a tee belongs to until you are standing 8 feet from the sign. Also, the 'map' on each sign was barely more than a green rectangle with a tee marker centered at the bottom and a basket centered at the top... it did almost nothing to describe the fairway.

> Navigation was pretty bad due to not being able to actually tell which tee was next. You could see several options from each basket... but the lack of being able to see the hole number on the tee signs meant a lot of guess-work and wandering to be certain.

> As part of the above, it was often very difficult to tell which basket belonged to the tee you were standing on.

> I wonder why there are these huge blue street signs on top of half of the baskets, but not on the rest? Also, why do these signs need to say "HOLE 1", "HOLE 2" instead of just "1" , "2" and so-forth. Eh, that's a nitpick, but it was... odd. It also meant that these signs were as wide as the whole basket and meant a disc that should have missed the basket by going over the top would be stopped dead and knocked back.

> Detracting from the above pro about benches at every hole, most of the benches were in very bad disrepair... some even broken beyond use. I was afraid to sit on any of them, thinking I'd probably end up breaking it. (I only weigh 155 lbs)

> One of the biggest cons at McClelland was SAFETY. My goodness... the tees were so very close to the baskets on almost every hole and the fairways really leave players playing into and onto each others path. I would say the course design is unforgivably thoughtless of the very concept of safety and "heads up!!!" was heard more times in one round than I've heard over the last 6 months combined.
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I find that the further away from popular destinations or major cities one travels, the ratings for courses on dgcoursereview tend to be really high. I go with the presumption that this is because the course is mostly reviewed by locals who may not have much exposure to a lot of other courses. So, a course may seem like a 4 or 5 rating because the only other courses folks have to compare it to are either pretty poor or non-existent.

McClelland is certainly a passable course and totally playable, but I was not expecting to find a course I would consider a 2 where the average rating is 4.

Good, proper signage, navigation markers, maintenance and a big redesign to fix the egregious safety issues could easily bring my score on this up to a 3 or maybe 3.5.