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Sunny Lake DGC reviews
14
2
The most frustratingly confusing course I have ever played. 2+ years drive by
Reviewed:
Played on:Jun 12, 2016
Played the course:once
Pros:
Secluded, quiet park and area. Course is mostly away from other areas of the park. Ample parking. Nice tee signs.
Cons:
Horrendously confusing hole layout and overlapping Pro/Am course system; fairways crossing and paralleling existing hiking trails; tons of hole to tee backtracking; paths to holes are literally fairways of other holes; muddy, stump- and root-filled fairways.
Other Thoughts:
There might be a great course forever inaccessible, locked away inside the actual Sunny Lake course layout. I had high hopes for this course when I did a walkthrough back when it was still under construction (no tee signs, no tees). Assuming I was just totally off on my assumptions, I was looking forward to playing once the course was a bit more finished.
Unfortunately, the official course layout is actually more confusing than the tangled path I had trekked earlier.
For some confounding reason, the designers decided to stack some sort of a Pro course on top of the Am course. This "Pro" course of course instead named "Gold", to make it more confusing I suppose -- since the baskets and tee signs refer to silver color coding for this Pro course! Sheesh.
The Amateur baskets are orange. Except when the Am course uses the silver Pro (I mean Gold Course) baskets. And vice versa!
Basket #2 literally has no number on it, and then the next Tee you encounter has both #2 and #3 on it (Pro and Am holes).
The baskets usually (but not always) are numbered according to the Pro holes, which means you are for example throwing from Am tee #13, but the hole is Pro #7 (and the basket numbered as such). It is astoundingly confusing.
On top of that, I think Tee #5 is actually incorrectly numbered #6 (since there are two #6 tees).
There are "Next Tee" signs for most holes, but again these use the Pro numbering, but sometimes the Pro holes use the Amateur holes, which means the numbering is way different. I'm having a tough time even explaining how confusing it is!
It's almost comical how poorly though-out this course is. I feel like this was done on purpose, and there is a secret code to decipher the awesome course locked within, and this bizarre Amateur/Gold course system was designed to scare away every last casual player, as well as amateurs and enthusiasts like myself.
Due to this bizarre Am/"Gold" course overlap, you will sometimes find yourself throwing a 921' amateur hole (like hole #18).
On top of all of this, there is so much backtracking and overlap that you are constantly seeing 1-3 tees or 1-3 baskets all within putting distance of each other, making it stupefying as to which hole you are supposed to be throwing at, and which tee is actually the next tee.
Some tees (like the first "#6", which I think should be #5) are literally steps away from another tee for a hole far later on in the course.
There are often 2 or 3 "Next tee" signs for a hole, which is a sign that the course was not well planned at all. Even with the numerous "next tee" signs, you will constantly get lost, pass up other tees and baskets, and have no clue as to where you are supposed to go next. Completely non-intuitive.
I could go on about the muddy, inaccessible fairways, the ill-planned placement of baskets in overgrown tall grasses that you can tell will never be manicured (the rest of the park is immaculately maintained, so to see tall grasses enveloping a basket in early June is not encouraging). But the course itself is such a mess it's not worth analyzing each hole.
There are some (many) holes with lots of potential. The entire course is ripe with potential. Which makes the course that you are forced to navigate that much more frustrating, because the entire time you are just envisioning the excellent course that could be here, right on the very same acreage this travesty of a course has eaten up.
I'd almost have to recommend this course just for the experience of playing possibly the most confusing course I've ever encountered. You will get a slight buzz (or minor schizophrenia) trying to figure out what the designers of this course weren't thinking when they concocted this masterpiece of confusion.
It might be worth it just for that.
Unfortunately, the official course layout is actually more confusing than the tangled path I had trekked earlier.
For some confounding reason, the designers decided to stack some sort of a Pro course on top of the Am course. This "Pro" course of course instead named "Gold", to make it more confusing I suppose -- since the baskets and tee signs refer to silver color coding for this Pro course! Sheesh.
The Amateur baskets are orange. Except when the Am course uses the silver Pro (I mean Gold Course) baskets. And vice versa!
Basket #2 literally has no number on it, and then the next Tee you encounter has both #2 and #3 on it (Pro and Am holes).
The baskets usually (but not always) are numbered according to the Pro holes, which means you are for example throwing from Am tee #13, but the hole is Pro #7 (and the basket numbered as such). It is astoundingly confusing.
On top of that, I think Tee #5 is actually incorrectly numbered #6 (since there are two #6 tees).
There are "Next Tee" signs for most holes, but again these use the Pro numbering, but sometimes the Pro holes use the Amateur holes, which means the numbering is way different. I'm having a tough time even explaining how confusing it is!
It's almost comical how poorly though-out this course is. I feel like this was done on purpose, and there is a secret code to decipher the awesome course locked within, and this bizarre Amateur/Gold course system was designed to scare away every last casual player, as well as amateurs and enthusiasts like myself.
Due to this bizarre Am/"Gold" course overlap, you will sometimes find yourself throwing a 921' amateur hole (like hole #18).
On top of all of this, there is so much backtracking and overlap that you are constantly seeing 1-3 tees or 1-3 baskets all within putting distance of each other, making it stupefying as to which hole you are supposed to be throwing at, and which tee is actually the next tee.
Some tees (like the first "#6", which I think should be #5) are literally steps away from another tee for a hole far later on in the course.
There are often 2 or 3 "Next tee" signs for a hole, which is a sign that the course was not well planned at all. Even with the numerous "next tee" signs, you will constantly get lost, pass up other tees and baskets, and have no clue as to where you are supposed to go next. Completely non-intuitive.
I could go on about the muddy, inaccessible fairways, the ill-planned placement of baskets in overgrown tall grasses that you can tell will never be manicured (the rest of the park is immaculately maintained, so to see tall grasses enveloping a basket in early June is not encouraging). But the course itself is such a mess it's not worth analyzing each hole.
There are some (many) holes with lots of potential. The entire course is ripe with potential. Which makes the course that you are forced to navigate that much more frustrating, because the entire time you are just envisioning the excellent course that could be here, right on the very same acreage this travesty of a course has eaten up.
I'd almost have to recommend this course just for the experience of playing possibly the most confusing course I've ever encountered. You will get a slight buzz (or minor schizophrenia) trying to figure out what the designers of this course weren't thinking when they concocted this masterpiece of confusion.
It might be worth it just for that.
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