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New Life Academy reviews
11
0
wolfhaley
Diamond level trusted reviewer
Premium Member
Experience:
20 years
1008 played
579 reviews
Reviewed:
Played on:Oct 21, 2023
Played the course:once
Pros:
New Life Academy DGC is a pretty standard style nine holer. A few improvements have been made since the first review on here, though the design appears to remain the same.
There are two framed in tees on every hole except 7 if I recall correctly. These add length from the longs to shorts but many of them also offer a different shot shape which helps with the replay value. Nicely sized for both pads per too.
The baskets are mixed. There's six Mach III's and then three portable ones, not sure of the brand. The Mach's catch pretty well, the portable ones not so much. They weren't terrible, but not great either. One basket and pin placement per hole. There was also a practice basket between the two tees for hole 1.
The flow of the course is pretty simple once you locate the first hole. It starts and ends near the lot with pretty straightforward transitions for the most part. There's a little bit of elevation involved here and a couple trees to contend with, though I'd still consider it mostly open.
There are two framed in tees on every hole except 7 if I recall correctly. These add length from the longs to shorts but many of them also offer a different shot shape which helps with the replay value. Nicely sized for both pads per too.
The baskets are mixed. There's six Mach III's and then three portable ones, not sure of the brand. The Mach's catch pretty well, the portable ones not so much. They weren't terrible, but not great either. One basket and pin placement per hole. There was also a practice basket between the two tees for hole 1.
The flow of the course is pretty simple once you locate the first hole. It starts and ends near the lot with pretty straightforward transitions for the most part. There's a little bit of elevation involved here and a couple trees to contend with, though I'd still consider it mostly open.
Cons:
The course is located on school property so it's a pretty limited in it's availability. I'd actually tried to play this one once before after forgetting about this fact. Only open after 3 and on weekends during the school year.
The tee pads, while a decent idea haven't been maintained since installation it appears. There's literally nothing left of the woodchips that once filled these. It's basically just framed in pads that play on dirt.
The three portable baskets are not good. Kind of weird playing on mixed targets like that. The practice basket is also one of these temporary ones too.
To get to hole 9 you need to backtrack up both 3 and 4's fairways. Not a great design in this regard. Hole 1 from the longs has you throwing over the corner of the parking lot too.
The tee signs are mostly missing now. These were never made to last more than a season. I believe only holes one and two still remained. Not a huge deal since it's a pretty straightforward design, just kinda trashy looking if anything.
The tee pads, while a decent idea haven't been maintained since installation it appears. There's literally nothing left of the woodchips that once filled these. It's basically just framed in pads that play on dirt.
The three portable baskets are not good. Kind of weird playing on mixed targets like that. The practice basket is also one of these temporary ones too.
To get to hole 9 you need to backtrack up both 3 and 4's fairways. Not a great design in this regard. Hole 1 from the longs has you throwing over the corner of the parking lot too.
The tee signs are mostly missing now. These were never made to last more than a season. I believe only holes one and two still remained. Not a huge deal since it's a pretty straightforward design, just kinda trashy looking if anything.
Other Thoughts:
With the two easy to find tees and an attempt at signage I'll rate it a 1.5. Passable is the definition of this course as is. Not worth any sort of trip out of your way to play obviously, especially with so many other good options in the twin cities. But if you must bag it, it's OK. Not the worst I've ever played.
14
0
Not good, but not terrible. 2+ years
Reviewed:
Updated:
Played on:Sep 26, 2020
Played the course:2-4 times
Pros:
Ignoring the massive cons I will talk about below, this course has the potential to be your average 9-holer. Nothing specular here, but certainly not bad.
1) Considering the land available the layout is quite good. It could be improved, but it certainly could have been much much worse. A couple questionable holes (3 and 5), one hole that is genuinely very good (hole 8) and a bunch of middling ones to fill out the course. It's quite lefty favored, but it's very open so I don't think it's quite as big of an issue as it would be on a more wooded course.
2) There is a good variation of hole distances, especially playing the course as 18 by taking two loops around; short then long pads. Though, to nitpick a little bit, for my low-900s rated self, many of the longer holes (1 long, 2 long, 6 short, and 7 short) are in no-mans land distance wise. Very very hard, bordering on completely impossible, to 2 without a throw in but they still feel like you've really messed something when you take a 4. Only hole 7 from the long pad would I venture to call a 'legit' par 4, though it's still pretty soft. Either way, you will be throwing putter, mid, and driver off the tee depending on the hole. That's not something all courses can claim. To ignore my nitpick, for lower level non-competitive players that this course is probably most frequented by (considering it's location at a school) this variation is very good and the course pars line up to that audience quite well.
1) Considering the land available the layout is quite good. It could be improved, but it certainly could have been much much worse. A couple questionable holes (3 and 5), one hole that is genuinely very good (hole 8) and a bunch of middling ones to fill out the course. It's quite lefty favored, but it's very open so I don't think it's quite as big of an issue as it would be on a more wooded course.
2) There is a good variation of hole distances, especially playing the course as 18 by taking two loops around; short then long pads. Though, to nitpick a little bit, for my low-900s rated self, many of the longer holes (1 long, 2 long, 6 short, and 7 short) are in no-mans land distance wise. Very very hard, bordering on completely impossible, to 2 without a throw in but they still feel like you've really messed something when you take a 4. Only hole 7 from the long pad would I venture to call a 'legit' par 4, though it's still pretty soft. Either way, you will be throwing putter, mid, and driver off the tee depending on the hole. That's not something all courses can claim. To ignore my nitpick, for lower level non-competitive players that this course is probably most frequented by (considering it's location at a school) this variation is very good and the course pars line up to that audience quite well.
Cons:
As mentioned above, the cons here really bring the course down.
1) Baskets. Just not good. 2 of them are completely destroyed Innova Traveler Targets (cloth basket), one of which is hard to even call a basket anymore. 3 of them are really cheap and janky metal portable baskets (shallow cages and a single layer of very light chain) padlocked to stakes in the ground, one of them is situated on a small hole in the ground and tilted about 30 degrees off to the side. I tried fixing it for like 2 minutes to no avail. The other 4 baskets are passable; 1 or 2 of them are permanent Mach IIIs and the others are portable Mach IIs padlocked to stakes in the ground like the other baskets. There is also a 3rd Innova Traveler Target just in the middle of hole 2s fairway, don't know if it's supposed to be a practice basket or what, but it's completely destroyed and barely useable, like the others.
2) Tee pads. Also just not good. There was some attempt here to make woodchipped pads for some of the holes. They have nice wooden frames but very little woodchips and are quite rutted out in the middle. On most of them I teed off from the grass next to them to avoid rolling an ankle. The other pads are all grass and (most of the time) marked by a single wooden slat dug into the ground. All of the pads should be grass considering the condition of the gravel ones.
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3) Navigation. Not bad, but marked poorly. The layout is relatively intuitive, but the tees are marked very poorly. The woodchip pads are easy enough to find but the tee markers are not. Most of the long tees, as mentioned above, are indicated by wooden slats in the ground which can be easy to miss. Some of them are only marked by a small slat standing up out of the ground with the hole number, par and distance sharpied onto them. With the assistance of UDisc, I found all of the short and long tees without too much trouble but some are quite ambiguous as to where they actually are supposed to be. There are white arrows spray painted onto the ground for navigation in some places but they don't always match up with the course flow. I don't know if they are supposed to be for the disc golf course or a cross country running circuit/something else like that. The cross over between holes 3/4 and 8/9 is awkward since to get to 9 you must walk down 4s fairway and right past 3s basket (which is blind off the tee) so it could possibly dangerous if the course was ever busy.
4) Tee Signs. The signs themselves have pretty run of the mill hole illustrations and they all have par and distance. But, almost none of them are connected to anything so they are just small painted wooden blocks laying on the ground. Sometimes in the middle of the tee pad that you have to move, sometimes 20 feet away that you need to search for, and sometimes they are actually where you'd expect them. They also only have one set of them, so they are only at the short pads.
5) Super nitpicky here, but restricted hours. Not a huge issue especially with how many courses are in the city, but for some it could be. The course is only available outside of school hours (8am-3pm) unless you have a school ID.
1) Baskets. Just not good. 2 of them are completely destroyed Innova Traveler Targets (cloth basket), one of which is hard to even call a basket anymore. 3 of them are really cheap and janky metal portable baskets (shallow cages and a single layer of very light chain) padlocked to stakes in the ground, one of them is situated on a small hole in the ground and tilted about 30 degrees off to the side. I tried fixing it for like 2 minutes to no avail. The other 4 baskets are passable; 1 or 2 of them are permanent Mach IIIs and the others are portable Mach IIs padlocked to stakes in the ground like the other baskets. There is also a 3rd Innova Traveler Target just in the middle of hole 2s fairway, don't know if it's supposed to be a practice basket or what, but it's completely destroyed and barely useable, like the others.
2) Tee pads. Also just not good. There was some attempt here to make woodchipped pads for some of the holes. They have nice wooden frames but very little woodchips and are quite rutted out in the middle. On most of them I teed off from the grass next to them to avoid rolling an ankle. The other pads are all grass and (most of the time) marked by a single wooden slat dug into the ground. All of the pads should be grass considering the condition of the gravel ones.
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3) Navigation. Not bad, but marked poorly. The layout is relatively intuitive, but the tees are marked very poorly. The woodchip pads are easy enough to find but the tee markers are not. Most of the long tees, as mentioned above, are indicated by wooden slats in the ground which can be easy to miss. Some of them are only marked by a small slat standing up out of the ground with the hole number, par and distance sharpied onto them. With the assistance of UDisc, I found all of the short and long tees without too much trouble but some are quite ambiguous as to where they actually are supposed to be. There are white arrows spray painted onto the ground for navigation in some places but they don't always match up with the course flow. I don't know if they are supposed to be for the disc golf course or a cross country running circuit/something else like that. The cross over between holes 3/4 and 8/9 is awkward since to get to 9 you must walk down 4s fairway and right past 3s basket (which is blind off the tee) so it could possibly dangerous if the course was ever busy.
4) Tee Signs. The signs themselves have pretty run of the mill hole illustrations and they all have par and distance. But, almost none of them are connected to anything so they are just small painted wooden blocks laying on the ground. Sometimes in the middle of the tee pad that you have to move, sometimes 20 feet away that you need to search for, and sometimes they are actually where you'd expect them. They also only have one set of them, so they are only at the short pads.
5) Super nitpicky here, but restricted hours. Not a huge issue especially with how many courses are in the city, but for some it could be. The course is only available outside of school hours (8am-3pm) unless you have a school ID.
Other Thoughts:
All in all, if this course had better tees (either just grass or small concrete pads) and had a full set of permanent baskets this course would be your run of the mill 9-holer. If this were the case I'd be comfortable giving it a 1.5 or a 2.0, but considering the condition of the course I can't do that in good faith. It's not a bad course persay, but it definitely needs some love.
