(1.620 Rating) A beginner friendly course in a nice neighborhood park.
- BEGINNER FRIENDLY - The environment here is ideal for beginners. Almost no water and zero overgrowth to contend with. The odds of losing a disc will be limited to forgetting to pick up or begin foolish and pumping one 40 feet long on (3). The distances on a few holes will encourage length development and the par figures will be encouraging. This course would be perfect for night golf too, although I'm not sure if the park is open.
- NAVIGATION - Adequate. Hole (1) is about 300 feet east of the parking lot. The tee signs are basic, showing distance and next tee direction. The tee sign's artistic description of the fairways are useless as the trees aren't shown. All stated, what makes this course easy to follow is the open nature of the park.
- QUICK PLAY - Like throwing gas on a lit fire, it goes quick. I had it wrapped up in under 20 minutes and checked off another course.
- TEES - Wonderful tees. 6 feet by 12 feet. Players will have way more than they need.

Too simplistic for most.
- LACK OF CHALLENGE - I am now one of 9 DGCR members to sling a 9 down (par 30) or better on this course, along with pro greats like Sneaky Jedi and Sisyphus. 3 holes are open shots that hover at around the 300 foot range. The rest are lightly wooded in the 150 to 210 foot range.
- PAR STRUCTURE - Holes 1, 2 and 9 are listed as par 4s. How nice. Everyone over an 850 rating needs to play this as an all par 3 layout.
- UNIQUENESS - An entry level city park nine without any distinctive features or acreage to produce an inspiring layout. There is one borderline in-play water features, elevation change maxes out at 30 feet and there are no heavily wooded plays. Holes (3) through (8) are all chip-shot snooze fest ace runs where discs have to miss a couple mid-size trees. Hole distance vary from mid 100s to low 300s. As stated above, there are three listed par 4s, but I did not give credit for any of them.
- CHAINS - These must be the original DISCatchers models, cause they were the worst of this brand I've ever thrown at. The chains were noticeable lighter than normal. My putts were getting brushed off to the side on every non dead center putt. Somehow they all went in.
- NATURAL BEAUTY - There is nothing that makes this park stand out from any other park. A spattering of trees, a small hill and mowed grass. Those features were enough to garner a 2.0 out of 5 in my beauty rankings.

O'Brien Park will work just fine as a neighborhood disc golf course. It's quick to play and likely very relaxing for the local residents. This is an ideal course to introduce a first timer too as they won't lose any of your discs. For those outside a 15 minutes drive, it's really not worth a play. Non-locals would have to be trying to play every course in Chicago or be a course bagger to show up here.

- tee signs for each hole
- concrete tees for each hole
- makes use of a huge hole and a drainage ditch for elevation change
- short lengths made a bit interesting by risk of overthrow into marsh on #3
- good for beginners and people just looking to work on technique
- lots of ace opportunities
- good quality baskets (a bit rusty, but no less usable)

- some of the tee signs have graffiti on them
- many of the holes are VERY short (almost difficult not to overthrow on 150')
- most are quite open, though some trees are in the routes
- little sets this apart from other city courses

This course is okay, and I almost wanted to like it more. The holes are a bit too short but the continual excitement of an ace is admittedly a bit nice. It's a serviceable course with good baskets, but it's one of the few I've seen with graffiti on tee signs. There is also some sort of dog breeder adjacent to the course and a multitude of dogs were barking nonstop for the half hour plus I was playing. It's not that big a deal but wasn't the most pleasant. All in all, the course is fairly ordinary and not one worth making a trip back to in my opinion. If you are newer to the game, it's a great one to build some confidence on and get used to shorter throws before moving on to other courses.

- Nice park setting is pleasant to play through

- Baskets, tee pads, and signs are in good repair

- Decent hazard variety for such a small course (elevation, water, trees)

- Very short and largely open, most holes at/under 200'

- Lack of variety through the middle section of the course

- Tee signs not in the best location (explained below)

O'Brien Park is a nice, typical suburban park with playgrounds, sports fields, and walking paths. The disc golf course is mostly removed from the other areas of the park, and I have not had any conflicts with other park users.

The course starts and ends relatively strong, with holes 1 and 2 presenting fun uphill and downhill shots that are two of the three longest holes. Hole 3 starts the series of 6 short holes, but has a retention pond directly behind the basket to add a bit of interest. Holes 5-8 play back and forth over a drainage ditch which, along with the sporadic tress, provide enough of a challenge to keep the course from being completely boring. The course finishes with one more chance to actually stretch out your arm with it second hole over 300'.

This isn't a bad course to work on your short game if you are a more seasoned player. Most of the middle holes have lines where you can just toss up a high forehand or backhand hyzer shot over/around the trees, but there are tighter, lower ceiling lines up the middle that are nice to work your putters through.

This is a nice course for beginners as well. My wife puts up wonderfully with the longer more challenging courses she usually plays with me, but her 200-250' max drive felt at home here. She enjoyed the change of pace and managed to shoot under par. So if you are new to the game, have friends of family you want to introduce to the sport, or just want an easy change of pace, O'Brien is a great little park.

Concerning the equipment, the teepads are perfectly adequate, and the baskets, while a bit rusty, are otherwise in good repair and catch well. The tee signs are fine though mostly unnecessary as navigation is trivial and you can see every basket from the pad. My issue with the signs, however, is that they are placed at the front right side of the tee pads. This is a perfect location to accidentally wack the back of your hand on a right-hand-backhand follow through. Even if it isn't terribly likely, once you realize it as a possibility, it can get in your head and screw up your form trying to avoid the sign. I have hit my hand on a sign during a follow through before (different course) and it is no fun. I would rather the signs be placed at the front of the pads.

O'Brien Park is nothing special, but that doesn't mean it is no good. I enjoy my rounds here, and wish I had a course like this in my backyard, I would play it most days after work. So if you live nearby, bring a friend or family member and grow the sport!

Tee signs are nice quality and the park itself is nice and tucked away between houses. En route, I almost missed the park entrance because it was that tucked away. This is a good course for beginners and young kids.

The course needs better maintenance as each basket has a large amount of rust. There are no teepads, just tee ditches. Unfortunately, there's no real way to tell what counts as part of the tee and what doesn't, as there's about 10-15 feet of dirt patch with the tee sign about a third to a half of the way between the rear of the patch and the basket. The tee ditches seem easily rutted and seem quite a large pain if the weather is wet. Depending on weather, I may try to return tomorrow since it's been rainingstorming for the last several hours.

For experienced golfers, this course has little challenge. Of the 3 holes marked as par 4, only 1 (hole 9) seems like a legitimate par 4 candidate (for amateurs, not pros). In fact, I had a kiss-of-death interaction with the chains for ace on one of the par 4's. Several of the par 3's seem like they shouldn't even be a par of 3, though I've never heard of a par 2 hole. I kept having to pull up on most drives to keep from overthrowing or even crushing it past the basket and still had problems at times.

This could be a seasonal thing or just a problem the day that I went, but there was also a very large gnat problem to the point where I was having to swing wildly for 10-15 seconds prior to most throws.

Even with my atrocious putting abilities, I honestly think that I could get sub-20 on a good day. If I had played here when it was 30 degrees F cooler...I'm pretty sure that I would have thrown ~20.

- This suburban niner is located in a grassy, mostly open park. The course plays up (#1) and then down (#2) a small hill, and then works it's way back and forth through a smattering of mature trees (#'s 4-8) before ending with another completely open hole (#9).
- A nice balance between open shots and the scattered trees; the course is definitely beginner-friendly, but has enough variety to give a good taste of what disc golf is about.
- Elevation is used to great effect, especially #'s 1, 2, and 6. #1 starts off with an open uphill shot. #2 throws a mini bomb off the hill. #6's a miniature "over the gorge" shot, with the pin protected by trees.

- The tees, while far from the worst I've seen, are in pretty bad shape. Basically comprised of large rutted-out gravel patches, they don't provide terrible footing, but they certainly don't help.
- A few of the holes feel very similar in nature (#'s 7 and 8 look suspiciously like #6).
- A lack of any significant distance relegates this course to an "entry level" caliber course. A pair of holes (#'s 2 and 9) stretch past 320', but just barely, and one of those is downhill. Both are wide open.

- #3 was as dry as a bone when I played the course. Perhaps seasonal flooding or some other factor brings water into play, but I saw nothing obvious.
- While nothing spectacular, O'Brien does a solid job of mixing up elevation, trees, and open land to create an accessible and fun introduction to disc golf. Really, the hill is the saving grace here, as otherwise it'd end up being just another flat and boring Chicagoland niner.

- Course makes good use of the available terrain. A small sled hill provides an upshot and downshot, both of decent length. Fun way to start a round off.
- A few of the shorter holes use the trees well to force some line-shaping and shot selection.
- Okay mix of hole length. A couple over 300', a lot of short ones.
- There is water behind a basket, but only a ridiculously overthrown shot would reach it.
- Good signs and baskets

- Middle holes of the course are pretty bland, repetetive, and short. Majority of the holes are less than 200', and are just throwing back and forth over a small ditch. Even with the trees in play, every hole is easily reachable by anyone who has had minimal practice.
- Fairways are constantly next to each other, wayward discs can easily end up on the wrong hole.
- Ditch will hold water after a rainfall; not fun crossing it 5+ times.
- Tees aren't good, but they could be worse. Which they soon will be.

- This park is too small to hold a serious disc golf course, and the course itself is crammed into a small area. The longer holes, #1, #2, and #9 are actually decent, but the rest are just too small and similar. One or two of the short, trees-in-play holes would be OK, but not six in a row.
- Good place to practice different shots if nothing else. The uphill and downhill slopes aren't bad. Maybe OH or FH practice for someone with little experience with those shots as well. Would be very hard to lose a disc, so it's easy to experiment.

For casual players and people learning to play the game, this is a very good course to get a feel for disc golf -- it's short, easy to shoot under par, there are very few places to lose a disc, and some elevation change.

For more experienced players, this course won't be much of a challenge, but it's still very easy to navigate, the baskets/signs are fairly new, and while it's an easy course there is still a decent variety of shots given the length. However...

Other than 1, 2 and 8, this course is just basically taking shots back and forth over a ditch

This ditch gets sloppy during the spring, so be prepared to get muddy if it has rained recently.

The tee pads here are brutal, there are lumps and holes in every single one making them almost unusable.

You can play a round here in 20 minutes easily. Like I mentioned, this is a pretty good course for new players, but for more skilled players it offers little more than a chance to rack up an ace or two.