MARCH 2024 UPDATE - Rock Spring has been redesigned, with maybe only a couple holes being reused based on the current Udisc layout. Redesigned by Gateway Disc Sports, the course seems to sport some Dave McCormack signatures, including a double out-and-back layout and new Gateway Titan baskets with blue tops. I don't see any indication of tee signs being up yet, but baskets are in and teepads are at least marked. The course now starts and ends at the end of the larger parking lot that is adjacent to the one that was closest to the old hole one. Time will tell if the redesign brings this course back to its former glory - seems like it is still rough around the edges, though I believe fairways have been worked on. I'll be sure to try to get up to both this course as well as Gordon Moore this year to update them appropriately on this site.

Rock Spring is a challenging 18-hole course set in a city park full of trees, elevation, and punishing rough. This course is the elder statesman of an Alton region that now has 6 courses, including 3 18-holes to choose from.

Rock Spring is located fairly centrally in Alton. It's pretty easy to navigate to from any direction, being located off College Ave. Folks looking to play this course should have little issue coming from either direction on routes 3 or 100, or if you are crossing the bridge from Missouri. There's plenty of gas stations and restaurants a short drive from the park in case you need snacks or anything before or after your round. Rock Spring's proximity to other courses also make it easy to hit Rock Spring and other courses in the same day if you have the stamina for it. The course start can be tricky to find: There's a triangle interchange in the middle of the park, and the course starts by the small parking lot right at the top of that junction. You'll see a practice basket, a shelter, and an old white trailer that looks as though it'll be there for the foreseeable future. There's a bulletin board at the end of the lot, and hole 1 is on the left side of the driveway.

Course equipment includes DISCatcher baskets, concrete tee pads, and signage for most of the holes. The tee signs include distances and a general layout of the hole. Some parts of the course also have directional signs that come in handy. The signage has a similar vibe to Woodland Chains in Collinsville if you are familiar with that course. Each hole has 1 concrete tee, all of which are in good condition. There are alternate pin locations, though many are were either gone or hard to find. For those that you can find, the other tee pads are rubber.

The course design here is quite challenging. Elevation is a huge factor on this course, and when you combine that with tight fairways and blind shots, it makes for a mentally and physically challenging round. Most of the holes from the concrete pads are between 250 and 350 feet, with a few 500-foot holes spread out among the final 10 holes, so technical shots are the name of the game here. The course plays like a classic feeling park course, so the fairways will some trees to throw around with occasional rough depending on the hole. No two holes really feel the same here given the terrain. Hole 1 is a downhill hyzer, and that's followed by a longer uphill shot, with hole 3 being more of a forehand approach shot (all for RHBH players). This variety continues throughout the course. Even similar looking holes like 16 and 17 require different strategies to set yourself up for the birdie. If you need a break, the course plays close enough to the parking lot to provide a double loop layout after hole 9.

Course difficulty at Rock Spring caters to intermediate to advanced players. Those who like high risk/high reward situations and can keep their throws consistently accurate will have a good round here.

The course equipment is showing its age. There are a few pins that have bent baskets, showing they are past their prime. The rubber tee pads don't have signs by them, and most are either near impossible to find or grown over. The signs on holes 3, 6, and 15 are missing, which can leave you guessing on how to attack 6 and 15. The rest of the signs vary in terms of their helpfulness. The graphics on the signs are fairly basic, which works for many of the holes. That being said, some of the holes on this course could use more clarity so you have a better idea of what's going on. I found hole 8's sign to provide enough information on the hole layout, and the pin was much farther up the hill than anticipated. Hole 5 is also a placement that requires essentially a full U-turn at the top of the hill, which isn't clear from the tee sign. Walking up a fairway isn't the most annoying thing in the world to me if I'm on a new course, but this course is already a significant hike, and also a course where you don't want to be spending time in the rough.

Speaking of rough, Rock Spring sports some of the most unforgiving rough I have seen on a disc golf course. A lot of the areas off the fairways have a complete who's who of things you don't want to walk through, from poison ivy to thorns. I had a disc kick into the rough in the valley of 15, and my reward was a couple dozen feet of thorny plant after thorny plant. There's clear grass cutting that happens in this park, but the rough is absolutely ridiculous. Based on what I saw on my last round, I have no reason to believe the poison ivy issues brought up in other reviews aren't still present. If you're as allergic as I am, that means this course will not be on your to-play list for much of the year.

The navigation at this course leaves more to be desired at times. With hole 6's sign missing, it's hard to tell where the basket is without walking the whole fairway, and more importantly, it's not 100% clear where hole 7 is from the pin. Heed my warning that it's not down the hill. Hole 3 can also be hard to spot even with the sign saying it's across the street; go down the hill once you cross the street in front of you and you'll see it.

The course design also comes off as dangerous at times. This doesn't seem like a park that gets significant car or foot traffic, but some placements still play really close to roads. Holes 1, 3, 4, 9, 10, and 18 all come to mind. Some of these holes, especially hole 4, are also blind shots, which add to these concerns. Hole 2 also plays over a road, but you can at least see where you are throwing.

Park amenities are limited at Rock Spring. There's a couple of pavilions and a playground, a ballfield, and what looks like a bathroom at the base of the hill by hole 6's pin, which you won't walk past on the course.

This course is physically demanding; if you have trouble handling hikes or terrain, this will not be a fun course for you. There's a lot of hills to walk up, including some like on the walk to hole 8 where a staircase would really be appreciated if you're going to have the tee in that spot. That hill looks like it's a real challenge after rain.

To me, this course had a vibe similar to that scene in Cars where the new highway got built and then the town became a bit of an afterthought. That's not meant to be a dig at the local club; it's clear from playing La Vista down the road that they put a lot of great work in the courses in the area. I think part of the issue is that the rest of the park feels like an afterthought as well, which is on the park department. The park gets used for a Christmas light event in the late fall/winter, but other than that, the park has a neglected feel to it. Some other reviewers said the park and area feels sketchy; I'd say it just feels neglected. I never felt unsafe at this park, but I was one of 2 people on course or in the park when I was playing my last round here, compared to a full parking lot at La Vista.

I don't think the reviews on here or the ratings are necessarily bloated. If anything, they may be outdated. Most of the reviews are from when this course was new, and having played this course back then as well, it was worthy of those scores. That being said, time is taking a toll on this course, and it's a shell of its former self. It could use a lot of TLC. The lack of other amenities means disc golf is the main attraction of Rock Spring, and it can be an elite course that could put it and La Vista up there when it comes to 1-2 punches anywhere. It just needs updates. Baskets that aren't bent. Signs that provide more information. Clearer navigation. If this course got some more love, it could really be something special. With the quality and passion that the local club has shown in the construction of La Vista, maybe brighter days are on the horizon for this course. Time will tell.

Check out Bluff City Disc Golf on Facebook for more information on Alton and Godfrey area disc golf. Van Man Disc Golf is also a bit of a hike in Swansea down south, but worth the drive given their great customer service.

Come check out Rock Spring if you're in the area and want a challenge and work out. Just watch out for the thorns if you go off the fairway.

If you were given a piece of land like Rock Spring Park with it's rugged hilly terrain and told you could design a disc golf course that maybe only the top 25% of the disc golfing population would enjoy playing, then I believe the course designers have achieved that goal here. That is why reviewers mention not seeing players on the course here. The course is long, extremely technical in places, never bending, always grueling and mentally exhausting. I can see why the advanced players and above would welcome this challenge. Also some younger gung-ho type players. What you won't see here are your average recreational players, your families, beginners, seniors, beginners. They will all gravitate to all the player friendly recreational courses in the area.

The designers here to seek special pleasure in hiding the baskets, finding hills to throw uphill and over, putting baskets in extra precarious positions. When I finally reached # 6 and found what I consider to be a "normal hole", that is a little 248 throw where I could actually see the basket off the tee, I was amazed to find that the basket was perched just 10 feet from a very steep 35 foot drop off on the left side.

Then later I arrived at # 15. A 375 hole with a 20'x 30' to throw through with nasty rough on both sides. Who was this hole designed got? Certainly not a player of my minimal talents!

A previous reviewer describes the neighborhood as kinda sketchy and downtrodden. That's exactly how I felt about the park too. It was just kind of trashy. Areas where a big section of fence was down. Just doesn't look like it gets a lot of attention and care. Like a CSI crime scene.

To me, the course has a small target audience. Appeals to the young, the hung-no and the advanced players. The rest of us aren't coming back. I think it proves the point when no-ones playing there.

The course has a lofty rating. Good for it and your guys who are enjoying playing here. I doubt very seriously if you have much trouble with beginners or families or one disc wonder players ever bogging down this course. If I lived close, I'd take my sorry old bones and go chase ACES at the Eagle Scout course at Gordon Moore Park or I'd go play at the perfectly challenging 18 at Kutter Park in Cottage Hills.

I'll keep some of my thoughts out, as much of it has been said already in the other reviews for this park. I really dug the isolated, quiet backwoods vibe that you get immediately upon reaching the first tee. While my group was there, we didn't see one other person anywhere in the park (except some guy driving slowly by in a car) the entire time and it was very peaceful.

This course was obviously very carefully designed to take full advantage of the dramatic topography of the area and each tee was very well placed to allow for maximum use of the available space without any basket/fairway overlap. I never once felt like I was wasting time between a basket and the next tee. The signage at each tee was well above average for the area and gave me a really good idea where each basket was; which was very helpful since most of the baskets hide out-of-view from the tees. That made me think carefully about each shot and weigh the risk vs. reward of a poorly considered or poorly managed throw - very nice touch.

The concrete tees were very level, of a decent size and the baskets were all in pristine condition. There wasn't the usual mud and mulch ring around the tees or baskets (as is the usual for St. Louis) and only a couple of places I had to walk to get to the next tee or basket were really muddy or washed out(not bad for a woodsy park just 2 days after rain).

If this were closer to home, I'd play it more frequently. My hats off to the designers!

Unfortunately, for every great thing about the Rock Springs course, there was something bad to drag my personal opinion of the course down.
The first thing I noticed was that, unless I was just terrible at reading the satellite map and the directions, there wasn't really any parking near the course. There was a small parking lot a couple of miles from the 1st tee, but we ended up parking in a gravel circle next to a shelter... where we couldn't find anything in the way of a restroom (oh well, we're all used to peeing in the woods I guess... but the ladies won't like that).

Each of the tee signs lists an alternate blue tee, but I only found about 5 of them remain and they are worn rubber mats laid in the grass. The ones that were there were uneven, unlevel and not really useable.

Although Creve Coeur Lake has often been worse, the grass here was really tall on the fairways in some places and showed signs that it doesn't get cut very frequently. That made it hard to find discs and meant itchy, scraped ankles and soaked socks and shoes. Also, there is a very serious Poison Ivy problem on every single hole. Usually, P.I. is a only a problem when you have to go off into the brush to look for an errant shot - but at Rock Springs, it is all over the fairways, growing along with the grass and almost every basket had a big ring of it growing right against the post. So, I constantly had to stick my hand right into the P.I. to pick up a disc.

I thought the underbrush surrounding the fairways on some other area courses was bad... but this takes the prize. Just stepping 1ft. off the fairway usually meant you were up to your shoulders in the nastiest thicket of P.I., thistle, grabber vines, thorny weeds and every other kind of ugliness imaginable. I usually can tolerate to spend a lot of time looking for badly thrown shots, but on this course, you can usually kiss that disc goodbye. My arms are torn to hell and I've got a rash all over both from the 3 minutes I tried to find the first disc I lost on hole 12. If you find it, you can keep it because you earned it. My other friends permanently lost discs too.

Another big issue this park had was garbage. I saw only 1 single trash can on the whole course (hole 10) and it was overflowing so badly that there was 3x more trash piled up on the ground around it that it could ever hold. There was literally trash thrown around on every tee and by every basket. I don't get how it's so hard to carry out the empty, lighter weight containers for what people carry in and why the parks dept. can't take a few minutes to empty the only can on the course.

Finally, I'll add that this course is NOT meant for the physically challenged. Many of the tees require one to actually hike up a muddy 45° hill, slide down a steep roadside bank or jump a small creek just to get where you needed to be. My group and I were fine, but we're all young and in good physical shape. Just saying for those who need to know that kind of stuff.

The course is well worth playing and made for a very thoughtful and satisfying game, but coming prepared will make a difference. Bring a course map for sure (the one found in the DGCR files is great) as you'll need it the first time. I strongly suggest you wear waterproof boots or shoes, long pants and plenty of insect repellant. With some cleanup, mowing and efforts to reduce the Poison Ivy, this course could easily get a much higher rating from me. (Nothing personal, this review is just my opinion... as all reviews are just that.)