A basic park course that has competent, flat, and non-startling design.

-Amenities: The Charlotte treatment. Sponsored brand new DISCatchers, Charlotte-style signs with complete maps, long concrete tees, next tee signs.

-Maintenance: Impeccable maintenance of both grassy and wooded fairways.

-Flow: Great, logical flow with every hole following from the previous one and ending back at the start. Combined with the maintenance, that makes Sugaw Creek an ideal beginner course from the perspective of ease of play. It's a pleasant place to be.

-Mix: A nice combination of wooded and mostly open holes. Doesn't get too repetitive.

-Skill Level Friendly: Sugaw Creek isn't going to be where new players go under par, but it should be welcoming enough that they make good progress on it. Similarly, it's not so simple that intermediate/advanced players won't enjoy trying to birdie holes.

-Shot Shaping/Gameplay: A slightly forehand-favoring collection of mostly about 300' holes. Wide tunnels are fairly common, as are basically open holes with a treeline or scattered clusters to avoid. A lot of the holes are typical design-wise, but definitely some stick out, such as the ultra-low ceiling on (7) or the downhill to elevated basket of (14). The style is similar throughout, with just details changing. About intermediate level due to needing 300' of distance to score well.

Hard to complain.

-Distance Similarity: Holes are mostly between 250-350', which doesn't offer a lot of variety of disc type off the tee. Probably a favorite neutral fairway driver is usable on easily more than half the holes.

-Elevation: Or lack thereof. The flattest I can remember playing in Charlotte. Good chance to work on rollers I suppose.

-Road Risk: (1), (2), and (18) put the driveway and sidewalk at major risk.

-Pizzazz: Sugaw Creek mainly lacks any kind of attention-grabbing features or holes. It's solid and unremarkable.

Sugaw Creek is basic but very well done. If I was to point to a single disc golf course as the standard, flat, city-park style course, this might be the one. The maintenance and pleasant variety of basic throws makes it enjoyable, though hardly unique. As you could guess, this one gets the Typical rating all the way from me.

~Similar Courses: Frog Rock (Austell, GA); Brahan Spring Park (Huntsville, AL); Dallas Island (Hixson, TN).

Sugaw Creek is decent course in NE Charlotte. By Charlotte standards, it's very run-of-the-mill, but in most other places, it would get more acclaim. I am giving Sugaw a 2.5 rating, which is below its 3.2 average. However, I tend to be a slightly tougher grader than the DGCR community as a whole. My average rating is 2.5. And I'm giving Sugaw Creek, and average course, a 2.5.

Pros:

+ Lots of variety and challenging hole layouts to test intermediate and advanced players alike.

+ Very nice mix of open holes to really bomb and tight, wooded holes for accurate, creative lines.

+ There is good variety of hole designs: a couple of slight downhill holes, some wooded and some open.

+ Several nice greens with baskets situated on ridges or hills to increase the difficulty.

+ The problems I have with this course are mostly about safety and location, not the technical layout. This is a decently long, challenging course.

+ Much to my surprise, since the area and the upkeep of the course itself isn't good, the community center at the park was very nice. Good restrooms. Other amenities there, like indoor basketball, rooms for classes, etc.

Cons:

- For me, far and away the biggest problem with the course is its proximity to a high-traffic road. Granted, it takes a pretty bad shot to land in the road, but I played this course with beginners and one of them DID land it in the road! It was a true miracle that it happened to miss a windshield. (It landed in the middle turning lane, thank God.) Several holes are just way too close to that road. Not only that, but they are close to perpendicular to the road, so an errant drive -- a grip-lock or unplanned turned over disc -- really could hit a car (as I very nearly saw for myself).

- In addition to the safety concerns, for about a third of the course, you're close enough to the road to hear the constant roar of traffic (and people shouting their greetings to you as they pass by). There are some peaceful sections of the course, but a big chunk of it is not fun at all.

- Getting back to safety and peacefulness, or lack thereof, this is a pretty bad part of town...and it shows on the course. There were 5 different homeless people on the course when we played. None of them caused any problems (in fact, we had a fun conversation with a couple of them about disc golf), but still, not what you want in a course. Also, the upkeep wasn't great. There was a good bit of trash and debris. Aesthetically, the park is below average.

- We played this course after some rain and the drainage was poor. I'm not sure how it is on a more typical day, but my experience, after some rain, was pretty sloppy. Lots of mud and some standing water.

- The baskets were old and pretty cheap.

- Some of the tees left a lot to be desired. Walking paths are used as tees on a few holes; there was mud and water on many of them.

- There were no "Next Tee" signs or maps, that we could see. For most of the course, it's not a problem, but there were a couple of places with long walks in between holes and we had to guess (wrongly, as it turned out) where to look for the next tee.

Overall, this is a decent course to try out if you live in Charlotte. For out-of-towners, it's not going to make your top 5 courses to play here. However, because of it's central location, it's a passable option if you're visiting the Queen City. Of the Charlotte courses I've played so far, I'd rank them as follows:

1. Nevin (not far away, N CLT) - 4.5
2. RL Smith (W CLT) - 4.0
3. Kilborne (very close by in NE CLT) - 3.5
4. Eager Beaver (southern tip of Meck) - 3.0
5. Bailey Road (N Meck) - 3.0
6. Renske (not too far, S CLT) - 2.5
7. Sugaw Creek - 2.5
8. Pinewood Elem. (kids' course) - 0.5

-You will use a variety of shots here: grip and rip, precision mids, and tricky putting
-Offers a decent chance at a solid score without being too easy
-Variety in the holes, most wooded but some open to open"ish"

-sketchy part of town, play with others
-some holes are extremely tight with heavy woods which can frustrate beginners and alienate that type of crowd
-you might get lost on your first time out, print out a map at cdgc.
-noisy noisy noisy

Sugaw's most redeeming factor is its variety in shots. When you go to Reedy Creek you play in the woods. Sugaw is a mixture-just like Kilborne. However, my last two times playing here I have become increasingly disillusioned with the course. Sugaw kills my excitement for dg, and its not exactly MY cup of tea, but I would consider it essential to play at least once if you live in the greater Charlotte area.
Memorable holes:
Hole 9: mando between the big trees with the pin well behind some bushy undergrowth. this hole provides a good example of an average Sugaw hole-open yet technical.
10 and 11: both similar grip and rip holes, a nice break from the woods of Charlotte
17: my favorite hole here and one of my favorite in Charlotte, mando left with a sweeping dogleg right means this hole is perfect for sidearms and sweeping anhyzers. Great hole.

Nice course with a good variety of open and wooded holes. Most of the holes are shorter but there is a few that will let you air it out. Even the short holes are challenging enough to keep the course entertaining.

There are several fairways that play thru one another. There is also quite a bit of litter and the park as a whole seems kind of shady.

This course is definitely worth playing and I would rate much higher if it wasnt for the "enviroment".