This is a short 9 hole loop designed with beginners and young players in mind. It features DISCatcher baskets, concrete tee pads, detailed tee signs, and shares the park with a wonderful 18 hole course complete with practice basket. Near the practice basket there is a course map of both the 18 hole course and this short course. The tee signs are painted orange, to distinguish them from the tee signs for the 18 hole course.

For a pitch-&-putt course, this track offers a decent variety in terms of shots from the tee, a mix of open and wooded holes, with a variety of elevation changes mixed in as well. The course opens up with a fun, wide open, downhill shot. It ends with a nice uphill tunnel shot. Hole 4 has a split fairway, with a wider, hyzer line out to the left, and a thinner line to the right that is cut straight to the basket.

Can be played before playing the 18 hole course to warm up approach shots, while also getting some putting practice in. In fact, Hole 6, because it is downhill, is little more than a putt from the tee.

This course is very short, which is a bit of a double edge sword. It means that none of the holes are ever out of reach for even extremely young players, but offers little variety in terms of hole length. It would have been nice if there were a bit more variance in the hole length.

The tee signs are starting to show their age, the signage itself, and the orange paint around them are both starting to fade. If these could receive a bit of a face lift, it would help with the appearance of the course.

The worst thing about the course, at least when I played, was the existence of widow makers. There were three to four widow makers that I noticed around the course & transitions. There had been storms recently, so maybe these will be cleared up relatively soon, so this will not affect my rating, but I hate to think about one of these coming down while a young player was walking underneath. After Hole 3 there were two of these propping each other up on the walk to Hole 4. Spooky stuff.

For now a 1.5 seems fair to me. While this might seem a bit generous for a pitch-&-putt course with an average hole distance around 127' long, I doubt many courses that fall into that category will have concrete tees, tee signs with hole maps, access to a practice basket, and a full course map near the parking lot. That doesn't even mention the stellar 18 hole course that shares a park with this course.

Favorite Hole: 1

-Nice custom made UFO disc golf club tee signs. Like the ones on the original 18 holer and at Glenn Hilton. Nice concrete tees and orange disc catchers.

-Great practice for upshots. I tend to say that a lot. Yada yada yada. The holes are very short and tend to be just past the distance where you can comfortably jump putt. Upshots can be difficult as they require arm control, and this niner is mostly wooded, so parking any of these holes means you clearly did something right.

-It's a real building block. The 18 holer from the red pads is a short course as well, but the holes are longer than the ones here on the short nine hole course. The fairways on the 18 holer aren't any easier either, even though there are many good birdie chances for recreational players on the 18 holer. This course can give a confidence boost with its ace opportunities and its different shaped approach shots.

-You can play it real quickly. Doesn't take up much time at all.

-It's very short. I mean, the average distance per hole is 127' and the standard deviation of hole lengths is only 23'. None of the holes are even two standard deviations (46') away from the average. So obviously, there's some serious repetition.

-#4. This is no fun. The 130' split fairway offering many small gaps through trees just had me annoyed. It's short enough to be able to get there without much trouble, but upshots like this one are never any fun at all.

-First hole is a wide open putter toss. #7 and #8 are pretty lackluster open holes too.

-There's a fallen fence on the way to #2 and it's kind of hard to spot. I walked into it without seeing it and I fell down.

-A lot of us have different review strategies and philosophies, but I can't see how an intermediate player, an advanced player, AND much less a pro player could rate this a 3.5 under any circumstance. It's kept up well and it offers some different shots to throw but you'll have upshots like this on bigger courses and you'll have so much more to be excited about. The Orange layout at Sawmills to me is nothing notable. Play it once to mark it off your list or play it to practice upshots. You could learn a lot more about your upshot game here, but then again, you could learn more about your upshot game anywhere as long as you are throwing 100-150' to a target.

Sawmills Orange is a fun, short 9-hole layout. It's a fantastic way to warm-up or cool down when playing Sawmill's 18-hole course.
- This is a great, beginner-friendly layout. Other than hole #1, every hole has enough of a challenge that beginners will feel rewarded for good shot making.
- Great layout to practice throwing putters/approach shots off the tee. All nine holes range from 96 to 160 feet. Every hole has ace potential. Here's an example of the beauty of short courses. On #8, an open, 150-foot layout, I threw off-line, knowing it was a poor shot the second it left my hand. I walk up to my disc and see my penalty for a bad shot here was a 15-18 foot birdie putt.
- It's a fun, creative layout. The course uses the rolling hills to create good layouts, more so than the average pitch-n-putt course. Trees come into play on the final 8 holes, either directly (blocking the basket on #4 & 6), or by boarding the fairways (#2, 3, 8 & 9).
- Even the most basic hole on the course - #1 - is fun in that it's a cubby ace to be had. Throw a bunch of discs at it to start your round, retrieve them, and play all 9 holes. As you walk from #9 to the parking lot, you cross right past #1's tee, so empty your bag again.
- The course is the perfect ego boost before your round or a pick-me-up after your round playing the 18-hole layout. That course has enough love/hate tough layouts that a bunch of cheap birdies and possible aces may just be what you need.
- Holes #2, 3, 6, and 7 seem like the best ace chances on the course, with each having a different look. #2 is a straight ahead shot; #3 is a slight dogleg right; #6 is a short, downhill throw with two lines to the basket, and #7 is an open, slight dogleg left that begs for every disc to fade back to the basket. One of my two pars on the round was on #6 as my tee shot sailed right past the basket and landed 40 feet away. If the shot was three feet further to the left, it's probably hitting the basket.

Do you want a fun, 1100-foot nine-hole layout with a good variety of layouts and designs? This is about as close to perfect as you'll find.
- Signage at the front of the course could be better. I don't know how many casual/beginner players do research prior to a round. As you walk up the sidewalk, there are tees in two directions - the 18-hole layout to the left & the orange, 9-hole layout to the right. A simple sign pointing players to the appropriate course would be a nice touch.
- Have better signage between holes, especially in the potentially confusing parts of the course. There's a long transition (relatively) from #2 to 3. Also, after finishing #7, the only visible tee pad is for the pro course's #2. Again, you don't want to confuse and/or frustrate a new player by having them get lost on a course.
- If you want to introduce new players to a portion of the 18-hole course, maybe have signage after #9 to the pro course's first hole. Let new players get a taste of holes #1 & 2 (two of those course's easiest holes) to see if they're ready to tackle all 18, or simply have a short walk back to the parking lot.

Sawmills Orange is a fun course. In terms of design quality and execution, it is laid out better than the original 18-hole layout.
- You can tell the course had a lot of work put into it. Again, there aren't a lot of 9-hole courses that get a lot of clearing done in the woods. It seems you tend to get the simple basket placements out in the open.
- If the course were in a more convenient location, it would be fun to play this often. As it is, even if you're in Hickory, I don't see people driving 20 minutes to play a short course. It's not even as close to 321 as Redwood Park in Hudson.
- Because of the similar terrain and proximity, this course has a similar vibe to the Hildebran 9-hole course. Combining the two courses would create a fun, short 18-hole layout.
- I was in the area and in a time crunch, so I didn't play the original 18-hole layout. Even with that in mind, I didn't have interest in playing that course while I was here. Just an 'other thoughts' observation.
- I do like the variety of courses in the Hickory/Unifour area. This is a good compliment to the scene. Taking all 27 holes into account, this is worth a play if you're in the area.

Concrete tees, new baskets.
Flow is good so it is easy to navigate on all but 2 holes.
Plays quickly, only a putter is needed.
Good warm up for longer course on site.

Rough can be thick.
Steep hills could be muddy and slippery during or shortly after a rainfall.

A nice complement to the larger course on the property.
Inaccurate players could potentially hit a lot of trees.
Basket 6 to hole 7 and basket 7 to hole 8 could use basket spokes tape-wrapped or painted to show direction to next tee, although it does not take a lot of looking to find them.