Pros:
The Athens Sportsplex course is a solid course in a city park setting. It features concrete tees, baskets that are in good shape, and excellent color tee signs with distances for the 2-4 possible basket locations on each hole. I appreciate the good variety of possible basket locations that would keep this course fresh and challenging for locals if moved regularly.
The course is mostly flat playing over lush grassy fairways and around a few trees. The biggest challenge here is avoiding the o.b. (water/creeks, roads, fences, walking trails, etc.) There is quite a bit of water in the form of creeks that come into play on several holes.
Cons:
Disc golfers should be aware of the popular walking trail on the first few holes- lots of walkers the day I played and I was the only one playing. Lots of roads and parking lots come in to play as hole borders (not my favorite obstacle as you have to watch for cars, and landing on asphalt is hard on discs.)
Tees for 3 and 7 are somewhat close to each other and somewhat at each other, be careful if crowded.
There is a good deal of room for error or to play it safe on the drives for most holes, but then there is hole 18.... which is just a super narrow strip of land between the road and creek with the fairway sloping downward towards the creek- nearly impossible to land safely in bounds even playing it safe with putters- very tough hole and I question the design of it a bit (especially since there is a 19th hole that plays over the same creek- maybe these two could have been combined?)
Hole 14 is long just for the sake of being long, absolutely no obstacles whatsoever (unless you count the road and swimming pool that really do not come into play.) I always find wide open boring no matter what the length.
There were supposed to be 19 holes, but, when I played, hole 11 had no basket, and hole 12 had no tee and no basket. This was disappointing as I was really liking the course up to that point.
The back 9 is much different from the front (much longer and more open) and gives the impression that these holes were created at a different time than the front (rather than a unified 18 hole design).
I also thought the course could have used some bridges to get over the creeks. Not sure how one would get to some of the alt. tees and longer baskets without them other than wading through the water.
Other Thoughts:
FYI- many of the tee signs were posted on objects other than tee signs, like large wooden benches, the wooden bridge (#4), and the protective wooden wall (#9).
Overall, there are some really nice, fun, and challenging holes here. Despite its many cons, it is worth playing if you are in the area, and if I was a local I would definitely play here regularly.
The course is really easy to get to from I-65, and, in fact, you can see baskets from the Interstate.
Be advised that playing on a hot sunny day in Alabama that it will be hot, and this course has almost no shade.