Found my way here after playing my first ever round of disc golf at Telford last summer, and am looking round for more local courses to play this year. Wow. Thought I'd chip in with my tuppence for some perspective.
I was a beginner when I played the course, probably hadn't thrown a Frisbee since I was knee-high to a grasshopper, same as the rest of the family. We meet up with friends every now and then in the park, and on a glorious summer's day went for a picnic, football and ice cream and spotted the signs for disc golf by the ice cream van. One of the dad's had played in NZ a few years back and persuaded us all to fork out for a go.
Things didn't start out well as the kids were having a practice and an enthusiastic but highly errant throw hit one of the adults in the head. #1 rule on the scorecard was safety. Lesson learned. Easy to find the map and first tee. Everyone wants to be a hero, so we all started on the long tee, but soon settled into a nice mix where the little ones were throwing from the short tees and grown-ups from the medium or long. Only down side there is that the kids have to watch the olds throw and wait for theirs, but there was always plenty of banter around the basket as we're trying to get a better score than the others. Plenty of trees for beginners to avoid/hit, and what looked like an easy shot off the tee soon became more difficult after a wayward drive. Loved the signs all over the place, made it feel like we were doing something proper. The whole place was well looked-after and you had to go out of your way to find any litter.
And here's the thing... we had a whole shed load of fun playing. We were all together, talking, laughing and had an absolute blast. Probably shouldn't have done, but some of us snuck around again before handing the discs back. The 'pro' in the group was getting close to the basket on almost every hole, and gave us loads of tips on how to throw. He no doubt found it too easy (but didn't complain) but that just served to inspire the little' uns by showing them what a Frisbee (sorry, disc!) can do in the right hands. Got a real thrill on the second time round at having a go at a hole-in-one on holes 7 and 9 as they started to get into range.
From what I've seen on YouTube and the likes, 'Tour' type cources have very long holes, and sometimes you can't see the basket. The course is bounded on all sides so you could maybe get 3 or 4 of that sort of hole here at a squeeze? If that had been the case at Telford, it would have been a complete fail as a family activity and I've have felt robbed as we'd only have played a couple of holes. One of the group has mobility problems but was still able to enjoy being a part of the game on a level with eveyone else, and anything that provides that possibility is a win in my book. The 'app' was a touch of genius and the kids loved scanning the codes on all the signs. Only downer here was there was no GPS location on the map, but I'm picking nits here
If I was going to pick more nits, a couple of holes might have benefitted from a pointer to the next hole, but I think you can see the next tee from the basket on each hole if you know where to look. Some would shuffle forward on the tees as there was no defined line, but just added to the enjoyment pointing it out!
So easy to see the positives here. If the aim of the course was to get people up and having fun then Telford did just that for us. On top of that, we told our friends, some of whom have since been and really enjoyed themselves. If I ever get as good as the folks on YouTube, I doubt I'll be coming to Telford to hone my skills often, but in my line of work you teach someone to play chopsticks before hitting them with Rachmaninoff's 3rd! I don't know why the course is how it is, and I'm not good enough to know good design from bad design, but it says on some directories that it's 'family-friendly' and that's precisely what it is. Fun factor 10 on my boat! As a first-time player it got me interested, which lead me here to find more courses, and as it's generally the experienced players that expect more from a course and review them then there's going to be a bias here. So, if you're reading this then Telford most likely isn't for you, but I'm offering an alternative view. It's my first course, my home course, and on the day we played it was perfect. I'll always love it for that.