O.T. Sloan Is a pleasant, short-to-mid-range course. Plenty of enjoyable layouts makes for a good round.
- Course is seemingly getting a makeover. As such, when I played in September '19, there were holes were the tee sign and basket number did not match. If you follow the basket number, you'll be fine.
- Plenty of birdie chances and/or ace runs here. 11 of 18 holes have 'listed' distances of less than 250 feet. All 11 of these holes are in the woods, so there's still an element of challenge to them.
- Easy navigation. You pull up in the parking lot and the first tee is steps away. From there, most transitions are straight forward and/or are aided by next hole signs. On an aside, maybe a local can explain why the next hole signs are in the shape of airplanes? I'm missing the connection.
- Front nine is exclusively wooded. Back nine has some open layouts. A common theme of the open holes is to tee off in the grass and have the basket and putting circle back in the woods. You see this on #10, 15, and 16.
- A small but significant touch. Each basket has a large pink marker on top. It's not easy spotting a grey metal basket in the woods. It is easy, however, spotting a large pink marker on top. I wish more courses had this.
- Good course for beginners and casual players. With an average hole length under 250 feet, big arms aren't needed. Little chance to lose discs. Wooded holes are generally very forgiving. Even a first timer should be able to make a couple excellent shots while not having (m)any disaster holes.
- Hole #3 may be the best on the course. A downhill, wooded layout that plays a fair amount longer than the listed 184 feet (seemed much closer to 250 feet). If I had thrown the correct disc, it might have been a good shot. Or, I'd just hit another tree 40-feet further down the fairway.
- This seemed like a nice small-town park. A nice swimming pool, with lanes, maintained tennis courts, dog park, and a rec center. When I played on a Saturday afternoon, two of the three parking lots were completely empty. I had to make sure the park wasn't closed.

The current design/navigation issues will need to be addressed and sooner than later. For all I know, this has been an issue for two weeks, two months, or two years.
- Of those issues, multiple hole distances are incorrect. #3 was a good 50 - 75 feet longer than its listed length. #10 was probably 75 feet shorter than listed. #11 wasn't close to 405 feet. #14 played much longer than its listed length. Several others were clearly wrong as well.
- A complete lack of consistency in the tee areas. #1 was sand. Several were indeed concrete tee pads. Several were dirt; some were marked with spray paint; some were ambiguous areas; and then #18 was brick pavers. It's semi-acceptable on a short course. It wouldn't be on a longer, better layout.
- More navigation issues. After #3, there's a sprayed painted box on the ground. That makes you think this should be the tee pad for #4. I play the hole, which was also had an incorrectly listed hole length, putt out at the basket for #4, walk to a concrete tee pad, and see a tee marker for hole #4. Umm, what?
- On the back nine, this is where the redesign breaks down. I never saw any tee markings for #13, so I keep walking and hoping to find one. Instead, I find the basket. I'm guessing there was something in the ground I missed.
- Any one of these problems can be forgiven. When they're all piling up - not sure if you're on the correct hole, not sure a hole's length, not sure if you missed a hole, etc. - it gets frustrating.
- I didn't notice any basic amenities on the course - benches or trash cans - at any point. I don't know if the rest rooms or water fountains are accessible in the rec center building.

The best thing about Sloan is that its problems can all seemingly be easily fixed. Get someone out to the course with a wheel to re-measure the layouts. That problem is fixed. Make sure each tee marker exists and is correct. Two easy fixes. It would take a couple of locals one Saturday morning to make the course better.
- I intentionally left as many hole numbers out of my review. Based on previous reviews, its clear many holes have been renumbered in the redesign. Take for example, there's a tee marker for #18 next to the parking lot. That doesn't exist anymore.
- The front nine, with its wooded layout, a hint of elevation, and risk/reward quotient, it's a perfectly fun short-course play. It's got a lot of vibes of Elon Eager Beaver's layout in Charlotte.
- The back nine does step up the level of difficulty and length. I didn't use a driver/fairway-driver once on the front nine but did use it six times on the back nine. You're going from a lot of holes in the 200 - 250-foot range on the front, and more in the 275 - 350 on the backside.
- The wooded holes are more than fair. There's plenty of room to carve shots around trees. The only tight fairway was #3. That was also the only hole I was tempted to throw multiple shots for fun.
- Based on the propensity for small-town courses to get overrated by locals, I was concerned this course had a sub-3.0 rating. Based on my rating scale, that rating is pretty close to spot on. Compared to other courses of the same length and challenge, this course does compare favorably to Elon Eager Beaver (Charlotte), Wellspring (Burlington - sorry BD doesn't like my 3.0 rating for that course) and Cornwallis (Durham).
- I feel good about giving this course a 2.5 rating. Once the redesign is complete and signage, etc. is updated, this will be closer to a 3.0 in my book.

For being such a small town, I was pleasantly surprised at this 18 hole course.

The course is situated in a nice community park, and rambles throughout most of it.

Although this course isn't as polished as some and lacks some basic ammenities, it still ranks high on the fun factor.
A challenging front 9 plays through the tight pine woods, and although mostly short holes, still plays pretty tough if you're not careful.

The back 9 starts to change scenery and opens up a bit, throwing through and across a field, and adding a bit more variety to the course. There's even a bit of elevation change towards the end of the course, throwing downhill.

Although fun, this course lacks some of the basics. Some of the tees are concrete, but it seemed like a majority were natural tees. Normally, no big deal, but some of these had roots, etc. in the "tee area" and made it a bit awkward for a run up. I also felt the tee sign itself was a bit close to the tee pad on a few holes. It may not have been close enough to hit anything, but it certainly was close enough for me to move over to the side of the tee box.

The navigation here can be a bit tough. There aren't any signs or indicators of direction here that I saw, aside from just looking around and seeing the next tee. It appeared that the new dog park has possibly changed the layout of the course, so there is an old tee and tee sign, a red herring!

On the front 9, some of the fairways were mighty mighty close to tee pads for other/next holes. If it were a busy day (doubtful here), It could be a real hazard. Not great layout design. To piggyback off of the not great layout, there is one hole that plays very close to a semi busy road. One wrong kick off a tree, and you're in the road. Less than ideal

Some of the holes also felt a bit thrown together. There seemed to be no real fair fairway, just a few possible routes with a hope and a prayer. I'm a tree hugger for sure, but one or two trees removed, or a tee box moved 30ft one way or the other could potentially help this.

Although this course isn't as polished as some of the others in NC, it still was a fun course to play.

It plays semi-quick for an 18 hole course, so if you're driving through, I would stop in and play a quick round.

Cliff notes:
Fun disc golf, course needs some work. Would play again, just wouldn't go out of my way to play it.

The front nine is typical North Carolina. It's heavily wooded. Tight fairways with punishing rough. Most of them are pretty short, typically under 200 feet. It's a solid course for beginners and novices have the benefit of extra tees that are even shorter. It's a fun course for them to get accustomed to the type of bigger courses that they will find in the area. At the same time better players shouldn't be too bored by the hole design.

The back nine is mostly open and longer. What's great here is that beginning players can get accustomed to both types of holes. While they may not be able to drive the entire distance on these holes, they will have the opportunity to try. For better players, it's nice to have the opportunity to open up a bit in Carolina. 10 and 11 are particularly nice as they feature a few trees, and drives will have to be shaped a bit.

The front nine is more Anderson Park than Valley Springs. The lines aren't clean, meaning that trees are often in fairways instead of lining them. Additionally these holes are too close together at times, meaning to get from a basket to a tee, you often have to walk across the fairway you just finished. Some tees are also in the firing zones of other tees. for both reasons, it may not be the best course to play when it's busy.

The back nine is fairly simple if you can drive 300 accurately. I also worry slightly about 12 and 13, which parallel a tennis court. The fence is fairly high, but with potential new players, I don't doubt that some lefties have put discs on the court. I'm still more worried about 16 though. I can see a player, a few rounds in to their career and gaining some distance, climbing up to the tee, trying to power one out and watching it fade left, and left, and left, and right into the pool.

When you combine the two nines, you get a nice variety that will be a solid learning experience for new players and a fun enough day for everyone else, but nothing special.

Layout - It's a decent technical style wooded course. You'll have to shape the disc a bit but it's mostly hitting straight tight gaps on most holes.

There are a few longer holes (but no bombers) and a couple with some good elevation change.

There's OB around some baskets and fairways to make it even more challenging, it's short but not an easy course.

Course flows pretty good, no confusing parts. 1-9 is a loop back to the parking lot. The park itself has other facilities.

Atmosphere - In an older park that's still in good shape.

Equipment - Concrete pads. Baskets are older but still in good shape. Hole Distance shown on post. Benches on each hole.

Layout - Not that much variation throughout the course. Many holes are repeated. Only some of the holes have real elevation change.

There's nothing that makes the course really stand out. You play near the road and other park facilities a bit so that takes away from it.
Some of the next tees are close to baskets.

Atmosphere - Not the best looking park in NC, it's just kind of average. You definitely don't get a remote feeling out there.

Equipment - Some of the pads are short. No real tee signs. Baskets are getting old.

I'm not a huge fan of this course, it is what it is. It's a good place to work on your short game and hitting tight gaps but definitely not a course to travel to. It's good for the locals because there isn't much else in the area.

It was not crowded.
There were no water holes.
Back 9 had some challenging holes.
Easy to find next hole.
Not much undergrowth.
Long tee pads (where there are any)

Several holes close to the road.
Baskets hard to spot; not bright yellow.
On a few holes, there was no good path to the basket.
No concrete pads on "novice" tees; pads on about half of the other tees.

It was not an extremely exciting place to play. 2 of the holes ran parallel to the road through a section of woods. Would have been easy to hit a tree and bounce into traffic. 10 is an open hole with the road 30 feet or so beyond the basket. 15 (I think) was my favorite: throw from a hilltop across a field to a basket 300 feet away. My best drive of the day (and I still got a bogie).

This is about what I expect from a dg course. It's in a public park; we don't have to pay to use it; there's very little tax money allocated for this sport. Sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised by a public course. But I'm not really in a position to demand more.

I was excited about going to Fins Furs and Feathers to check out what I hear is a very good selection of dg equipment. But the owner has been rearranging the setup, and the dg stuff was in a locked room. I was outa luck. Then I was hoping to play a good round of dg, but I was outa luck there too. I don't know if this is because of the baskets, or because I wasn't throwing very well today, but a couple of putts seemed to hit the chains perfectly, and kicked back out.

If I'm in the area again, I'll probly play this course again, but I drove about 50 miles to go there, and it wasn't worth that to me.

This course is a beginner friendly layout with excellent variety of open and technical holes that makes for a fun course to play. The front nine and 16-18 are short and technical while most of the back nine (10-15) are longer and slightly more open.

Holes 9 and 18 loop back to the parking lot so you can go play a quick nine if you want and you don't have to hike back to your car.

Lost disc risk is very low

Benches on every hole.

Most of the holes have fair and attainable lines and the greens are open enough that you won't find yourself with a wall of trees in front of you 20ft from the basket.

A lot of work is being done on the course to make it even better. There were signs of fresh cutting on 16 and 17 (or maybe a lot of fallin trees)

Concrete Tee-pads have been added on many of the holes (mostly the long ones)

many of the holes will be easy and short for the better players.

While there are concrete pads being put in not all of the holes have them (Doesn't affect my view on the course but some don't like natural pads) also some of the concrete pads are short and awkward.
Even though these are mostly on shorter holes there should still be more room

A few holes come very close to a busy road which could be a problem or danger if someone throws an errant shot.

Some of the tee pads are very close to the previous basket and someone could easily be hit.

I also don't remember seeing many trashcans if any on the course.

Overall it was a very fun course to play and was relatively well kept. Nothing fancy and not your championship caliber course but it is defiantly worth a stop if you're in the area

- Course layout is fairly intuitive - even with no map, you can pretty easily find the right hole.
- Distances on the
- Am teeboxes as well for beginners.
- Decent variation of tight, wooded, typical NC course for front nine and more open, air-out for the back nine (over the whole course, but somewhat repetitive - see below).
- Even though it was wooded, there is minimal underbrush, so there is minimal risk for losing a disk.
- 15 is a very cool hole - as mentioned in other reviews.

- Tee pad variations - the dirt was fine, some were under construction - I am somewhat concerned with how the paver blocks they were installing will wear over time (will they stay level?).
- Some of the front nine are a little repetitive - just another tight shots through trees.....
- Two holes (6 & 7 I think) throw parallel and within 50' of the busy street that you just drove on - bad news for an errant RHBH throw. I really don't like them
- The course is tight, and several of the teeboxes are very close to, or you backtrack back down the fairway to throw for the next holes, so it definitely would slow down heavy traffic (although it was empty when I played).

- one of the weirdest vibes I have gotten - I went mid-day mid-week, and there was a ton of traffic through the parking lotto the YMCA and a lot of "loitering cars" - people were just watching you. There was nobody on the course, which I like just fine, just concerned that if I "went missing", nobody 'cept the folks who done it would notice.
- The course has a "worn" feeling. All the baskets are there, some are missing the number. Would be nice to have signage with hole layout, or course map at the beginning instead of the old school sponsor's list.
- The course had some trees/branches down (holes 16 and 17) from either the spring tornadoes or Irene, but it was in decent shape considering the damage that was done in other parts of Sanford.
- Decent course - I wouldn't recommend just coming the the Triangle to play that course, but if you're here, you may as well!

A few ace runs but require a tight line, quiet and never crowded, 15 is a beautiful hole and worth bragging to friends about, good variety of throws

Not very many holes that challenge you distance wise, not much change in elevation other then 2 and 15

I enjoyed the back 9 more then the front 9. Woods make you throw your line and make the lack of distance a littel more challenging, a nice course but only worth the trip out from Raleigh/Cary if you stop and play Swinging DBs or Buckhorn on way back.

Short, concise, & *basically* to the point, course. With the exception of holes 10 & 11, I don't believe there's anything over 280 feet. Great course to work on short/medium range accuracy. Also, as previously stated, hole 15 is quite fun!

Quite a few: hole 13 is missing (as of 4/3/10), 4-lane road within 30 feet of a fairway, and again a 4-lane road within 30-40 feet of a hole, overall course layout (I haven't played that many courses, but I can still say that this is WAYYY too clustered. As a previous reviewer said, it would be rather hard to play the front nine with someone one hole ahead of you, without hitting them in the head.... Holes 1 through 9 all seem very repetitive. And, I believe it's hole #9 that has ABSOLUTELY no fairway, what-so-ever. If you don't over-hand it & hope for the best, I can't say you'll be anywhere near the vicinity of a decent putt.

I'm certainly appreciative of whomever made this course possible, as it is a disc golf course, where there aren't many others...however....the layout could have been drawn up a bit better. Hole 18 is very awkward, hole 15 is REALLY fun.

I'm completely redoing this review since three holes were removed and replaced completely, the change is almost enough to make it feel like a whole new course. The original holes 10 & 11 were taken out by a dog park and original hole 13 (ran lengthwise by the tennis courts) is gone. So now hole 12 becomes the new hole 10 and holes 11, 12 and 13 triangulate beyond the woods from old 12's green, mostly in a field completely unused by the original course.

So basically this is an older course in an old park that really shows its age. What's good is that you often have the course to yourself. It's short and mostly wooded so a skilled (at missing trees) player can play a super quick, fun round here. The front 9 is mostly very technical, quite ace-able holes, then holes 10-14 are fairly open, especially the new holes), then it finishes up with more tight, technical, wooded holes.

Many of these holes are short but they're all pretty fair with fairway widths. You won't miss your drivers much but there's enough variety and scrambling needed that you won't feel completely silly with a full bag i.e. with hole 9 I deuced on consecutive days using a FH roller even though there is a hyzer line. There's also a decent amount of elevation change here and there to help spice up otherwise bland, short holes.

Usually a bench and tee sign at most holes.

Lots of holes of 200' or less, very much a deuce or die course for the majority of the holes. A couple of really tight holes aren't gimmies like holes 6, 8, 9, the new holes 11-13, and holes 16 (might be the hardest hole on the course) and 17.

Very frequently the next tee is stupidly close to a basket or in the line of fire, especially the front 9 which is crammed pretty good into woods. Tees alternate between concrete (which are small by today's standards) to bare patches in the dirt to fine gravel. There's no uniformity of teeing surface whatsoever. The baskets are ancient Mach 3's, some a little banged up. The tee signage is very basic and occasionally missing.

Navigation can be tricky. The original tee and sign for hole 11 is still there, ominously pointed at the dog park like a relic from a bygone era. Finding the new holes, 11-13, isn't intuitive but there's a little path through the woods if you're paying attention. You'd probably be more confused if you played the original course than if you've never been here before. Holes 12 and 13 don't have tees or tee signs but it's fairly obvious where they are thanks to the selectively mowed fairways. They are, however, very close to what appears to be possible homeless camping sites. Also not family friendly are the numerous glass bottles strewn about and a presumably stolen safe that was cracked open there. The rough for these new holes are tall weeds that aren't mowed but mostly just a nuisance to hunt a disc in rather than a serious disc losing hazard. The approach into the woods on hole 13 is a bit too tight and luck rewarding I think.

The new holes add a lot more variety to OT Sloan. They're properly long, distance driver appropriate holes mostly in the open rather than short, technical woods holes. They're cleverly designed open holes too, utilizing transitions in and out of woods for interesting greens and tees, landing zones mowed out of the rough meadow to entice playing for par and hole 12 is angled and long enough that it's arguably a par 4 for White and below players.

Thanks to these holes, this is a surprisingly fun round in a seedy park and a lot more worthwhile to play. I miss the holes taken out by the dog park but the replacements are good and much less conflicting with other park areas. Glad to see old hole 13 by the tennis courts gone b/c it was a big safety hazard and often very damp. This won't be the most memorable course you'll ever play but it's definitely worth checking out if you're nearby and merits the occasional out-of-town visit.

The Alpaca Peruvian Charcoal Chicken place right off hwy 421 is some of the best chicken I've ever eaten.

The holes are very fun. Each indvidual hole has at the park is good. Especially on the back nine. You can practice your upshot accuracy here because there are many short, tight holes. The back nine has some good elevation change as well.

The front nine holes are too close together. The tees/pins/fairways are on top of each other and it would make for a very dangerous round if there were many people playing at the same time. Another problem is that a couple of the holes run very close to a busy 4 lane road. Errant drives can easily get out to the road. Tee's are marked with a raised sign in the front left corner of the tee pad. The sign is as high as 2 feet on some of the holes. It's terrible positioning for a tee sign. The back 9 tee pads are really bad. They're rutted very badly and need to be made of something other than sand and gravel. The other general bad is that the course is in a multi use park and some of the holes are laid out close to other common areas. In the summer you would have to be careful of people entering and leaving the pool area when throwing hole 15.

This is a fun course with but there are some problems that overshadow the goods a little bit. The front and back 9 are completely different. The front is all very tight and short. You will definitely be playing pinball here if you drives are off by a little bit. 16 of the 18 holes are deuceable but getting them is another story.

A comment regarding my evaluation of courses. I am not trying to insult or hurt any ones feelings when I review a course. I'm just trying to evaluate the course on what I feel are important characteristics of a good course. Disc golf has become a large enough sport that I feel we should strive for better than we have now. Just putting 18 holes in a park isn't enough. 18 pole holes does not make a disc golf course. It requires tee's, signs, maps, solid course design and constant maintenance. Any less than that and we will never advance the sport to a reputable level.