Pros:
- Scenically located on the St. Joseph River, with the first basket visible from the I-94 bridge, River Park's 18-hole course is a basic but solid layout consisting of a tasty mix of park-style, heavily wooded, and water hazard discin'. A decent mix of hole lengths keep things fresh. The shortest hole is a 153' ace run backdropped by a wooded upward slope. The longest, hole #15, measures 412'. Not the widest spread ever, but enough distance diversity for most everyone but the big guns. Parts of the course run along the park-style sections, replete with mature deciduous tree trunks which must be avoided on #'s 2, 3, 17, and 18. A big seam of thick woodland is sandwiched between this park area and another park-style area alongside the roadway (through which parts of #'s 8, 9, & 12, as well as #'s 13 & 14 can be found).
- The wooded area makes for some fun discing, with tight but fair lines. Thick, punishing rough with its fair share of poison ivy will definitely affect errant shots, but not unfairly. Lots of tasty wooded shots coupled with elevation to squeeze out some good designs, especially on hole #'s 8, 9, 12, 14, 16 (near the river's drop-off), & 17 (raised atop an artificial berm).
- Good amenities. Natural tees, slightly rutted into dirt, with the front demarked with sunken 4x4s. Not bad, but this course deserves better! Hopefully, the course receives some concrete tees in the future. The signage is spectacular, though, and goes a long way towards forgiving any tee issues. Large numbers perpendicular to the teesign itself, help with navigation and are a nice touch. Signage itself is a good map of the hole with distances and next hole directions. Port-a-johns near the parking lot in a couple of places.
- Water holes: #'s 1, 14, and 16. Hole #1 is backdropped by the beautiful St. Joseph River. Don't go long! Hole #14 isn't a river hole, but rather a small creek that wends its way behind the wooded drop off behind #14's basket and green area. Hole #16 throws in a park-style area, with the river hard to the right waiting to swallow anything off line. Wind is prominent left-to-right off the open river. The creek issues out into the river, and #16's basket is directly over the bridge, river to the right. What a green!
- Fun. Sometimes courses just feel fun; they achieve a certain level of gestalt where no matter what foibles or shortcomings they might suffer, their over-all fun factor carries the day. River Park is one such course.
Cons:
- You can tell immediately the course suffers sogginess; directly next to a major river, things are going to be sloppy at times. This looks mostly to affect the first and last several holes in the front park area along the river. Hole #14's green area might also get muddy with the slope and creek. The course does seem to have as much flood mitigation in place as possible. Mulched segues deal with some of the issue; the raised berm for #17's basket also alleviates the sloppiness.
- Hole #14's mostly open, flat grass, throwing towards a small gap between two trees into what looks like mostly uncleared forest? A questionable line, with a weird, unfinished feel to the green. I don't get it. Otherwise could be a fine hole with the creek backdrop, just needs some opening up at the wood's edge.
- Hole #13 is total filler. Too short, open and flat to matter.
Other Thoughts:
- Between the poison ivy (much beaten back since my first round here), the potential for bugs, the punishing rough, sloppiness, and lack of concrete tees, this course should be, by all rights, lower rated; however, there's enough of a dignified and elegant design here forming the backbone of a solid course that I find it difficult to rate it any lower than 3 discs.
- Easily and quickly paired with nearby Lake Michigan College's 9-holer.