-It's good practice. Not long and open. Can be helpful on a windy day since open courses are more volatile in the wind. You'll have some shot shaping requirements since there are a few trees. You throw around a bush on hole two.

-First hole was kind of good. Slightly uphill and wooded through a few rows of trees.

-It's a great family park. Playground and walking path. And if you are in danger and need to hideout somewhere, this is the place. It's right beside the police station in Simpsonville. No one will go after you here. This is all hypothetical brainstorming because I can't find many pros for this course. It's pretty horrible.

-Oh yeah, and there's a board beside hole 1. Tells you that there are eighteen pads and nine pins. Gives you the course lengths.

-Repetition. There are eighteen pads and nine baskets. Dual pads would usually be a pro in my book. It's not here. It's a con. Many of the second pads are no more than 40' from the others and the lines aren't much different with the exception of holes two and eleven. Same object though. Avoid the bush. Many of the holes are very similar in distance. Average hole length is 232' long with a standard deviation of only 46'. Meaning that there's probably only one hole close to 100' from the average because there's no real variance. That hole is #15, it's 135' long. Sure it's pretty different from the average distance but it's a very dumb looking short hole. #6 is the other hole that plays to that basket and it's still a stupid short hole.

-Many baskets are close in proximity. It's a little cramped. There are no tee signs so you'll want to look and check at which basket you are throwing to. The numbers on the baskets are very small. I've written papers with bigger computer fonts.

-Course was designed in 1998, so the baskets are almost as old as I am. They have the TAR knocked out of them. They catch fine but look horrible. Lots of chipped up paint. Probably not worth the money for new baskets, as they could go to better use elsewhere.

-As much of a city park this is, you'll probably see more than just pedestrians. Open spaces at city parks are where people have picnics, throw frisbees back and forth, etc.

-Boring, not worth it at all. Small space and relatively flat. I was a baby when this course was designed but if I were to have been an accountant for the parks and rec department back then, I would've told the head of the department concerning their consideration for a course at Simpsonville City Park........



"NO!!"

I wish I could write that in bold and in a bigger font. But it should only take one two letter word for me to recommend against this course.

What I personally like and how this course stacks up:
1) Holes with good risk/reward. Fair, but harsh punishment for bad decisions or execution. == C-
2) Holes that have rewarding birdie opportunities for me. I throw 300' accurately, 360' max. == C-
3) More wooded than open - lots of variety of shots required caused by hole shape and topography == C-
4) Natural beauty (Appalachian beauty preferred) and seclusion. == C-
5) Bonus points for multi-shot holes with defined landing zones, good risk/reward and multiple options to play them. == N/A

It's all about feeding the addiction, so I ranked this course subjectively based on my own "personal addiction factor". The grades above tell how well the course will draw me back to itself again and again and again. Since I have played a decent number of courses (125 18-hole, 64 9-hole as of mid 2009), my hope is that players/explorers who have similar addiction tastes will find my ratings list helpful as they choose courses to play and explore.

Over time, I expect to fill some of my reviews in with more descriptive verbiage...if what I can add anything to what has already been written. For now, my list is more important to me than the verbiage of my reviews.

I fully expect others with different tastes/philosophies to disagree with me....that's the fun of things here. See my profile for my rating philosophy.