- this course is beautifully maintained on a college campus.
- plenty of benches everywhere. Some benches in the shade during sunny days.
- nice clean new tee pads
- good mix of shorts, longs, woods, and open shots. More open than wooded though.
- cart friendly

- No hole maps. Course is difficult to navigate. I'm told the layout has changed recently, but even if it hasn't there are no maps at the tee pads, making finding the basket a challenge.
- Some of the holes appear to have an alternate layout with two tee areas and two baskets, but it isn't always clear which is which. Alternate baskets are numbered, but the numbers don't go with the hole that you're playing.
- multiple holes throw right at or over other golfer's tee pads and/or fairways.
- Some holes throw directly at campus buildings and roads.
- Some holes have mandos...the hallmark of lazy or poor course design.
- Parking lot is small and not clearly identified as being associated with the disc golf course. It probably makes perfect sense to students of the university and locals, but to an out-of-towner it wasn't as clear.
- No public bathrooms, no drinking water, no trash cans.

This course appears to have a large amount of available land to use for disc golf as they saw fit, so I'm left wondering why they made some of the choices that they did. The grounds of the campus are beautifully maintained, but the layout of the course doesn't take advantage of it as well as they could have.

Hole 18 is particularly poorly arranged. The hole not only tees off blind, but then finishes out in the middle of a narrow dirt path flanked by protected research forest where you're *technically* not allowed to walk.
I don't want to damage the university's research or restoration efforts, but from the blind tee everyone is throwing directly at the restricted area and then down a blind alley where restricted area is between the fairway and the basket, which is in the middle of a 1 foot wide path with no landing zone.
This course is placed in a really nice piece of land. It could be so much better than it is with just a little thought and effort.

Safety Note: There's a vehicle path/ford through the river which leads from near the basket of hole 18. There are warning signs telling you not to walk there. They aren't kidding. The rock shelf below is super slippery. If you don't want to go swimming, take the long way around and use the wooden bridge.

- This is a nicely designed course on the property of a small, well-maintained college campus. It stays well away from any buildings, though there is a walking path to be aware of when you're playing here. It makes good use of the semi-scattered trees, and a creek, a field, and untended areas of undergrowth function as hazards to avoid.
- Offers a decent amount of variety for a 9-hole course. There are a few straight open holes, but they're scattered among the three par-4 holes (each offering choices on the tee, and one that lets you throw for distance), a tough par-3 that rewards accuracy, and a left-to-right shot that is defended by several large trees.
- The grass is always cut on the "front" part of the course.

- Tees are natural, with wooden toe-board. Some are fine, others are uneven, and a couple have roots that interfere with footing.
- Signage is almost entirely lacking; there is one small worn-looking course map posted near the bridge. Tee areas are marked with a plain wooden post. There are no directions to the next tee, and finding the tees for hole 3 and 4 can be difficult for first-timers. I'm a local, and I don't know if I could find the precise location of tee 8.
- While half the course is almost always nicely mowed (1, 2, 5, part of 8, 9), the rest is less so. The grass tends to get long on the back section of the course, in the areas where the limited elevation change comes into play. It's usually still playable but you might have to search a bit.
- There are some edge-of-fairway areas where you could lose a disc. My discs seem to love hiding in the brush along the creek on hole 2. The field that forms the right-side boundary of hole 4 goes right up near the basket, and the corn or beans can really make it hard to find your errant throws in the summer. The trees that border hole 7 can also result in some searching time if you end up in there.
- As I mentioned above, there's a walking path that comes into play on holes 3 and 8, so be watchful for pedestrians. A greater safety issue is the approach on hole 8, which plays at least partially blind across the creek to a basket about 30' from a road. To make the situation worse, there's now a 35'x35' fenced in garden area in one of the ideal first-shot landing areas on the hole.

- MVNU is a solid 9-holer, offering some fun and a bit of challenge to recreational and intermediate players. Even with the negatives I mentioned, the design is good enough that I'm rating it a 2.5. Easily the best course within about 30 minutes Mount Vernon.
- There is potential for improvement. Decent tee pads and signs are the most obvious, but it would also benefit from making a few updates to adjust to the changes on the property over time. I'm told they lost a huge guardian tree on 3 a few years back, for example. And hole 8 has the new garden space in play, as well as years of vegetation growth along the creek.
- There's a small parking lot near the course, but visitors to campus are supposed to park in another lot, almost ¼ mile from the nearest tee. I've never had an issue parking in the small lot, but during the school year I've only parked there on evenings and weekends.


Family Friendly Rating:
PROS: Quite manageable with either a stroller or small hikers. As long as you stay clear of the edge of the trees, you should be safe from poison ivy and thorns.

CONS: Several holes might be too long (5) or too risky (8, maybe 2) for kids to throw, depending on age and ability.

OTHER NOTES: A few kid-friendly places to check out in nearby Mount Vernon: Ariel-Foundation Park (located on the site of a former glass factory), a Children's Garden (located behind the Knox County Career Center), Harmony Park (a fully inclusive playground) and SPI-Mount Vernon (an indoor play space with a focus on science and technology). For a cold treat, I recommend Round Hill Dairy (ice cream) or Whit's (frozen custard).

Generally quiet and not crowded
Fun layout for the space available
Some nice natural scenery when following the creek

No tee pads, just a wooden foul line
No signage other than hand drawn diagrams on tee markers
Some odd choices for tee locations

Since the course is located on a college campus, it is generally well taken care of. Mowed regularly, little to no trash/litter...makes for an enjoyable round.

I personally think some of the tee locations could be moved to create more challenging and/or longer holes. Tee pads and signs would make for a much nicer experience and would alleviate some confusion for first-time players of this course.

You can get in and get out of this course within 30-40 minutes most days. It makes for a nice "get out and play" course if you don't have a lot of time.

You will enjoy the pretty park scenery and creek views playing this nine hole course on the campus of MVNU, especially if you have a little extra distance in your arm. With holes ranging from a little over 230 to 595 feet, the course is marked by 4x4 posts and deep baskets, just south of the campus proper. After parking near the ninth basket and the gazebo, walk around the structure for the open, level hole 1, then turn to the left and see that the majestic pines have grown since the course was installed, forcing a shaped shot, left to right, if you want to avoid the creek (and you do).

Then go to the bridge (where you'll find a small map of the course), crossing over and uphill to the right for the third hole, then going deeper to the southeast to the next open field for holes 4 (the longest, past the satellite dish, to the corner of the cornfield), 5 with its basket just past the row of monster pines (do not get under them: they're a maze of branches), a nifty, true left to right shaped shot 6th, and an ace run 7th hole. You'll go back northwest (passing the 3rd basket), and throw from the top of the slope down to a landing zone by the pathside lamp for the gap across the creek and the right-turning 8th, before going back to the foot of the bridge to finish on the open hole 9.

The 8th hole is definitely the most memorable here, but overall, it's going to be a fun, fairly quick round for a recreational to intermediate level player.

The course suffers a little from only having natural tees, a lack of elevation (striking on all but two holes: 3 & 8), the baskets boasting only a single ring of chains, and in that there are tee signs missing (or at least very difficult to find) on 3 & 8. I got the impression that the course was put in when these pines were much smaller, because the flight lines on 2 & 5 really seem to have tightened up. The signature hole 8 is interesting if played with a mando as intended, but I guarantee that big arm youths throw overhand directly at the basket, risking throwing blindly to the street beyond. Amd after 8, you have to backtrack a bit along that same, blind fairway. Finally, it's very odd not to NOT find a map until you get to the bridge, and that the course is really kind of broken up into three regions.

This is the more fun, and better established course of the two in Mt Vernon, the other being Thayer Ridge.

Reviewer Background as of this writing: played 270 courses and written 253 reviews, with skills hovering around a 900 rating, I started playing at 50 and am now 55. I don't throw far (300 footers feel like success), but am addicted to DG, and have played with folks ranging from age 7 to 87, so I try to write reviews helpful to all.

There is a nice mix of shots here. Obstacles that you don't usually see come into play (a satellite disc), there is some elevation used, nice hazards (a decent-sized creek is used on holes 3 and 9 and I suppose could affect an errant drive on holes 2 and 8, and a corn field lines the 500+ foot fairway of hole 5. Also, hole 8 has some nice rough to the right that makes you stay left). The flow, once you know where to go, is actually pretty good. Looking back, they really didn't use that much land, and the fact that there was that much variation in that little space really added an extra .5 disc to my rating.

No real signage. I believe that 7 of the 9 holes had a post but no distance. No course map or welcome sign. No benches, trash cans, or practice basket (not that you can't just putt at any basket, but these things affect a rating IMO). Natural pads.

Not that it's THAT big of a deal, but hole 1 technically does start by the bridge, and that doesn't make sense; if I return I will start at hole 2 (by the gazebo) because then "hole 1's" tee and "hole 9's" basket would be near the parking lot. The way it is now you walk from the lot down 1's fairway to get to the tee, and finish at hole 9 a few hundred yards from the parking lot.
Since there is no map available (at time of this post) I'll try to help out as I got lost (I am starting at the technical hole 1 by the bridge, not my suggested hole 1 by the gazebo). Holes 1-3 are in the front main area, with hole 3 being one of the better holes I've played on a college campus. Cross the bridge for hole 4, and as the path turns to the right, walk up the hill on your right. There is no marker there, but you are essentially playing over a valley about 350 or so. After hole 4 proceed to the left of the cornfield, up the hill. Hole 5 plays 500+ between the cornfield and the satellite disc (I imagine that in July/August that cornfield is a nice little hazard). Hole 6's tee will be on the right and the basket is behind the last pine, 7 is a little anhyzer (RHBH), 8 is easy to spot, and 9 has no marker. A local told me to go along the tree line and look for the bird house (it is about 100 feet from 4's basket). From there it's a nice anhyzer over the creek and trees to the basket.
I saw a few students playing which was nice. I've played maybe 6 or 7 campus courses, and this is probably my second favorite. I believe that it was installed by some students so they did a really good job. It's a course that I won't go out of my way to play, but if I'm in the area I would most definitely stop back.