-Free to play.
-Long holes with some good down hill shots.
-Hardly ever a wait to tee off.
-Can be very pretty in the summer with old trees that can make some good obstacles.

Unlike what some other people have said the city of South Bend has not done a great job of maintaining the park. The signs all need to be replaced due to vandals, and hole 4 is missing its basket. There is also trash everywhere.

If Rum was cleaned up a little then it would be a nice little city course to play, this does not mean that the course is a bad course to play. If one would really like to play a nicely maintained head over to Mishawaka to play on George Wilson.

-Located in a very beautiful, well-groomed park with huge oak trees providing shade. The widely-spaced yet ever-present trees provide some excellent line-shaping opportunities.
-Long, level, grippy tee pads all in great shape except for #7, which has one corner broken.
-Free to park/play.
-Great use of available elevation.
-Extremely difficult to lose a disc.
-Good variation between shorter holes and longer, more challenging holes.
-Open holes good for beginners yet still a challenge for more experienced players.
-Park department does a great job cleaning up the leaves. One really neat aspect to this course is that they mow "fairways" into the course after the leaves have fallen.
-Park is family friendly with playgrounds, grills, shelters.
-Overall a fun place to play with a few lovely views.

-Damaged/vandalized/unclear signs make navigation, finding out pars difficult.
-No trash cans.
-Some holes near park road, one near city road.
-No restrooms.
-Hole #2 floods a bit near the basket after harder rains.

The front nine is fairly straight-forward and easy. The back nine is where this course shines, in my opinion. Starting on hole 9, the holes really start having a unique feel with many possible/interesting lines to take.
- New trees have been planted throughout the course. Currently they don't change much, but a few years down the line will add to the difficulty of the course. They seem to be placed in very strategic spots.
- Seriously, watch out for the acorns in autumn or you'll kill yourself going down hills. I play this course for it's long open fairways whenever I get a new driver.
- Course changes as of 9/13/10: #4 has been removed due to hazardous play/ erosion issues. #7 basket is now short right of the old position. The old #13 (#12 in the new layout) now has the basket to the far left near the road. A new hole was added between the old #13 and #14. Also, the local club is working on reinforcing the teepads where erosion might be an issue, which fixes any issues before they occur. With the new, safer layout I have raised my ranking by a half-disc.
Course Update: 6/8/2019 - Redesigned course layout deletes several holes (including the two longest, most challenging holes) in order to homogenize hole lengths by adding several shorter holes. The course is now 24 holes, but lost arguably the best two holes. The rest of the redesign slightly tweaks tee and pin positions of the old layout, adding a few dual pins on a couple of holes (e.g., #2). With the old layout, a wide variety in hole length and difficulty helped separate Rum Village slightly from other standard park-style affairs. While there are more holes now, they feel largely like the rest of the course and don't make up for the loss of the two long bomber holes.

It's free!
Cement tees (I didn't realize how much of a plus cement tees were until I played a few courses with natural tees)

Offers a variety of holes. Short and long, uphill and down. Around and through the trees.

Mature oak trees provide shade and scenery. There is a great view of the downtown South Bend skyline from one of the hilltop holes.

The course is not well marked. Some signs are wrong, missing, or damaged. I've played here a lot and I still get lost. I often get to the end and realize I've only shot 17 holes.
No scorecards or maps are available. I have no idea what par actually is on this course.

There are a couple of holes where you may find yourself in the street (not the park road, but the actual street with very real traffic)

Watch out for the acorns on the hillsides in the fall - dangerous in a "Home Alone" kind of way.

I like this course, I think my biggest problem with it is the sign confusion. If they just updated and replaced the signs this would be a great course and I would give it a higher rating.

This is a classic beginner friendly kind of course. Occupying a park with well established mature trees, and easy rolling hills, it's a nice walk, generally well kept, and easy to navigate.
Most holes are reachable (i.e. under or around 300') even for beginning players. Not terribly taxing for top pros (Geoff Lissaman shot a 37 there in the '96 Worlds), but it doesn't strike me as having meant to be a championship course.

There are other more difficult courses near by, so saying that this is a short course isn't exactly a fair CON.

This is the kind of course you could take your family out to to introduce them to DG. If I remember correctly, there are picnic areas nearby, so its a fairly family friendly kind of place. Fun to play, decent, but not remarkable.