South Christian High School is located on the (yep, southern) outskirts of Grand Rapids, MI. The school grounds are home to a 9-hole DGC, and I suspect the plan is to eventually have 18 holes - the course maps/scorecards available in a box at the first tee refer to this course as the "Blue Nine", as if there will eventually also be a "Red Nine" or something.

SCHS - Blue Nine consists of mostly open disc golf with holes in the 200'-300' range. The designers did a nice job of utilizing the couple of trees in the area as obstacles, and setting the distances appropriately for rec level players (maybe even a little bit long yet for P.E. class, but I won't judge). Hole 7 is a fun 200' throw slightly downhill and with a slight RHBH hyzer required to reach the basket.

The baskets are blue Chainstar Pros that are still in like-new condition. The tee signs are high quality and have the hole number, distance, par, and a basic map of the hole.

My biggest concern here is safety. Hole 2 plays across the school drive, with the view to your left semi-obstructed by a couple of large pine trees. The worst part about this is that it didn't even seem necessary. All nine baskets and the other eight tee pads are on the opposite side of the drive, and there is room for this tee area near the first basket over there too. The weird tee position doesn't add anything to the hole. Why make people walk across the potentially busy drive, just to then throw back across it?

The same drive is also in play on holes 1 and 3. A baseball diamond defines the left side of the fairway on holes 8 and 9.

Navigation could be improved a little bit. The map is nice, but multiple baskets are often visible from the tee and it's easy to throw at the wrong one in a couple spots. It would be nice if the tee signs pointed out these other baskets on them, instead of only the correct one. Another small upgrade would be to put some tape on basket rungs to direct towards the next tee, and add hole numbers to the basket bands.

The tee pads are natural. Honestly not a big deal here in itself, but the entire course was very muddy when I visited in March. It seemed like the land this course is on holds water at an above-average rate. If you visit at a similar time of year or after a heavy rain, you will likely need to stand and throw as I mostly did.

With only one hole over 300', mostly flat open terrain, and no water hazards this course is not likely to challenge or interest experienced disc golfers.

No extras like benches, trash cans, practice basket, or porta potty.

The course map abbreviates the school name as "SCHS". Doesn't that stand for something else too? That's what kept nagging at me as I trudged through the muddy field here throwing and documenting. Finally it hit me that I was thinking of "Socket Head Cap Screw" which is something I had to abbreviate a lot at a previous job (and frequently accidentally flipped the H and C - hence SCHS). I don't think I will remember much about playing here in a few months, but if I see that abbreviation again maybe the association will dredge something up in my mind.

SCHS DGC was never intended to be a disc golf destination, but the safety issues are concerning (even more so given the assumed target audience). Relocation of the second tee and addition of the navigational aids would be relatively easy fixes, and together might bump my rating up to a 1.5 or so. Even if that were to happen, there are plenty of better options around - including Brewer Park which offers 18 holes of mostly similarly open throws less than a five minute drive away.