A nice little walk in the park, McLean is a quaint little course that plays mostly around the edges of a pretty clearing in the woods. Fairly simple and very short, the course makes good use of trees and a stream in the small space available for course play. Almost all holes are short, an accurate drive will leave you putting for 2 every time. Good mix of 'lefty' 'righty' holes. Signage was accurate and course was easy to follow. Beginners will find this course very appealing. Those with experience will find a relaxing, quick birdie fest. Playing alone I finished 2 rounds in under an hour. Hole 4, the longest, was very scenic and my favorite.

The tee boxes, a square patch of dirt boxed in by wood beams, were messy. Over the years they have become dug out and many where muddy and or filled with water. On about half I drove from next to the box. Baskets are old and a bit beat up, but still the chains caught well. Par, was interesting. I am by no means a believer of all par 3s, and have played some courses were I feel par was inflated, but this one tops them all. Take from that what you will. The start of the course was a bit of a walk, but directions posted here were accurate. Advanced players may find this course too easy.

Not at all destination disc golf, but a nice little course. Great for local play or for beginners learning the sport. I enjoyed my quick rounds there.

Tight layout that requires accuracy on your shots. Includes water, but enough to lose discs.

Ground is very slippery if wet, almost clay-like. Tee boxes are terrible.

My wife and I enjoyed this course. It has a nice mix of open holes and tight ones as well. Water comes into play on #1, 2, 6, 7, 8 and 9. 1, 2 and 9 play across water and 6,7 and 8 border it or it could easily come into play. However, the creeks involved are very shallow and you won't lose any discs.

The course is fairly easy to follow. However, finding it to begin with wasn't very clear. You have to park by the basketball courts and then walk to the right toward the tennis courts. You go through the tennis courts and take a left on a path inbetween a small playground and more tennis courts. Keep walking that way and you'll come upon the first hole.

The second tee requires you to double back across the bridge and the third tee is up a path to the right of the second hole. Other than that the course flows fairly instinctively.

As mentioned the pars are incredibly high. I shot a 9 under and only played about average for my normal ability.

There is a fair amount of thick rough around so losing a disc is a possibility. My wife I and would take turns going down field and watch the others disc come down.

We enjoyed it and will definitely play it again because it's close to our house.

This course had a pretty good amount of challenge for how short it is. While most people see short courses as "novice" I see some as useful for a quick round with great opportunities for short game practice! There are great water obstacles but even if your disc gets wet, the water is very shallow (6" at its deepest). There is good opportunity to practice extreme right dog legs (great for leftys) This course would also be good for those lacking super human driving ability because of the course's length. Great little gem tucked in suburbia!

If it had rained recently the tee boxes would have been filled with mud. The course is short so no practice for the super long drive. There are a tremendous ammount of opportunities for your disc to get lost, wear long pants and close-toed shoes for going into the woods. The course is not amazingly well marked but still easy enough to follow. The holes are close to each other so the odds of getting hit by a stray shot on a busy day are pretty good.

I actually liked playing this course and will probably go back. It's free to play even if you're not a county resident. This is an old course so the baskets aren't state of the art nor are the tees, but you won't be competing here, it's a great practice ground. There were many other people there but it wasn't crowded. I went in the evening after work and had a ball. Be carefull if you're taking any shots at dusk, you might lose a disc. I met some other people while I was there. Everyone was very friendly and I got some good pointers from someone I ended up playing a round with. I was shown by one of the locals where the unofficial "pro tees" were. They're set back from the tee boxes and they're marked with orange ribbon next to them and some of them still have the spray paint on the ground. All in all I would say that this is probably the best small course that I have played.

The course was simple and fun. It gives you a nice opportunity to practice your short game. There was good signage and very little traffic.

Average hole is under 200 ft. The Par is far to high even for a novice. For example hole 5 has a 160ft Par 4 with very little obstacles. There was even a par 5 that was under 300'.
Tee boxes are tiny and can be filled with mud, but because the basket is so close you can stand and toss.
There are several baskets where you are shooting blind.

Don't worry about your discs, water is not really a factor (it says 5 holes have water in play).
play the course as a par 3 if you want a challenge. I did not get ticks or poison ivy!
Wear pants, bring bug spray, and forget the par and you will see this course is under-rated (as a 1 out of 5).
Basket 5 is gone. It is now a tree with tape.

First hole is a good dogleg. Signage is fine. Easy to get to. Very quick to get a round of nine finished. We were the only ones on the course mid-afternoon.

Too short for most players. My daughter noticed the bugs while we played, but it didn't seem bad to me.

Maybe we caught the park at an OK time. Not swampy at all. Poison ivy wasn't a problem either, although it was probably around more than we noticed. Most of the driving areas were clear enough to walk through without incident.

It's one of the only courses inside the D.C. Beltway and is pretty accessible from the Beltway, the G.W. Parkway or Hwy. 66, but it's location is the most positive aspect of this course. Shady, so that's a bit of a plus, too, I suppose.

This course is poorly laid out. All nine holes are short (longest is less than 300). The long tees are very hard to find -- now, with some work at the park, they are gone -- you have to guess or make up your own. The rough is nasty, nasty, nasty thorns and overgrowth, and it is obvious the park is very seldom played by anyone, and even more seldom tended. The overgrowth causes some of the holes to be blind shots, even though the holes are only 200'. Small stream runs through and the area can be both swampy and filled with mosquitos. Poison Ivy and Posion Oak add to the hazards of the rough.

Teeboxes are roughly 4'-square with boards on every side and uneven dirt as the tee surface. It pretty much forces stand-and-deliver, since any run-up is dangerous. Fortunately, since the holes are so short, stand-and-deliver is not going to hurt you.

I've been out there at least five times now, and usually regret going. I'm a pretty decent player and don't often loose a disc, but I've had at least one out there that wasn't worth looking for because of the overgrowth. If you are going to try the course, bring discs you don't care about in bright colors that will stand out against the thick greenery. Use bug spray. Wear pants. It's that kind of course.

Note (08/08/08): Played McLean again last night with a friend. We did a putter-only challenge: two rounds each from both the short and long teeboxes. The course plays much better with only putters or superclass discs (I've played there with a Zephyr). The thorns are as thick and nasty as anywhere I've ever seen, and very, very close to many of the baskets. The upside of using putters are that you can reach 8 out of the nine holes with just putters, and they aren't nearly as likely as drivers to dive hard and bury themselves into the thorns. We actually had an enjoyable round. But I would highly recommend using putters or superclass discs if you are going to play.

The other +/- I should mention is the single-chain Mach-1 baskets, which bounce (or fail to stop) a lot of putts that would stay in almost anywhere else. So putting is a challenge, but not a challenge that will necessarily make you better for other courses, so it forces you to change your putting style without offering you anything in return. The baskets favor a very gentle loft putt; people who throw other styles of putts will get spit-outs at least 50 percent of the time.

[05/2009 update] If you're looking for the long tees, they have completely eroded. Just make up your own long tees, usually 20-70' behind the regular tee and a little off to the side. Makes for some slightly different lines.

After the replay, my best advice if you decide to play there remains this: wear close-toed shoes and long pants.

The park only gets it's 1.0 star because it is mowed, and -- by and large -- it is an area seldom used by dog-walkers, joggers or other folks. A course has to pose physical-danger to other people or be completely covered in nasty trash like hypodermic needles before it could drop much below a 1.0, IMHO.

There are a few non-disc-golfers on the course, usually walking through on/near holes 1 and 9, but most of the course is clear. Double-chain baskets would bump this course up at least .5 stars... but really, I'd rather see a total redesign or a removal of this park. No one who plays here will have any idea what disc golf is really supposed to play like, and no pros will spend their time here, since not even the baskets are helpful for realistic putting practice, since they don't translate well to other courses.

The course is mowed -- or seems to be -- even if none of the underbrush is tended. With a lot of work, this course could probably be brought up to be worthy of a 2-star rating, but that would require a lot of work that could be put to much better use elsewhere.

Good design, has signs and marked tees, baskets.

Rough- poison ivy on and off every fairway, completely unavoidable. Can be very muddy. Hard to follow, fallen trees in way, not maintained.

Short holes with overrated pars is a good ego stroke, but really it should be marked 8 lower than it is. Some holes are a lot of fun to play (1, 5,7) but still not difficult.

Not very difficult. Poorly mapped and marked.

If you go off the fairway at all on 1, 2, 3, 4... you will be all over the poison ivy and it will be all over you.

I go here every once in a great while just to change things up.