Pros

The Admiral is another Houck course worth seeking out.

• Great shot variation forces consistency
• Multiple lane selection on most holes
• Clear signage is a massive win
• Shorter holes require as much precision as the longer ones
• The Scenery

Cons

• Hole 8 is such a stark difference (downgrade) to the rest of the course (which is fantastic).

Thoughts

The cons are clearly outweighed by the pros because this course is incredible. Like all Houck courses, I find myself besmirching the man's name initially, then praising it shortly thereafter. He just knows how to require you to put away the canon arm mindset and suggest you seek lanes and alleys worth throwing.

The water on the course is near perfect. Gotta consider it but doesn't come with such a huge risk/reward factor.

This is my favorite Houck course (that I've played) to date and is in fact one of my favorite courses ever.

The Admiral features Houck characteristics like memorable multi-path Par 4 and 5 holes spread throughout the course. In this case the mix is nine Par 3, seven Par 4 and two Par 5 holes. The course offers Red, White and Blue tee positions that are well suited to Rec, Intermediate and Advanced players, respectively.

I played from the white tees, which resulted in an amazing range of hole lengths from 227' to 762' and a total course length of 7142'. If you choose the blue tees you'll stretch the course length out another 1000 feet by lengthening nine of the holes anywhere from 44' (Hole 1) up to 240' (Hole 18). The red tees subtract about 1500' from the whites, by shortening all 18 holes.

Most of the holes are played through mature forest, with tight gaps to hit, especially on the Par 3 holes. As the holes get longer the fairways tended to get wider and offer multiple routes, but never so wide in the woods that you didn't have to hit lines. Some of the Par 3 holes were tight enough that I switched over to forehand drives to better deal with hitting tight gaps right off of the tee.

Fine variety of straight, curving, and doglegged holes, with an occasional low-headroom situation or water crossing adding additional challenge.

There is not a lot of water in play, but it is used well. Hole 7 is a great little two-fairway Par 3 hole to a shallow (front to back) island green. Hole 11 is a longer Par 4 that offers a lay up to the front of a pond, with an approach over the pond to a narrow strip of land for birdie/par. Or big arms can go for eagle by driving over the pond and onto the green.

Top notch infrastructure with large, flat concrete tees and big, colorful tee signs. There are 18 separate red tees which shorten holes and give more direct lines to the pins. Nine of the holes share white and blue tees, with the other nine offering longer blue teepads. All tee pads and signs are identical so there is no compromise by choosing to play any of the available tees.

Hole 8 was kind of a dud. After playing wonderful, complex wooded holes you find yourself throwing out into a wide open field to an unprotected pin. There are rows of trees and shrubs planted to eventually guard the pin, but it will be years before the hole is improved by them. Then you have to walk back across the field to play Hole 9 back into the woods. Usually I'd welcome the contrast of woods to open ground, but this hole seemed out of character for the rest of the course.

Course is mostly flat, so the added challenge of uphill/downhill play is absent.

I was pleased to play my second new John Houck course in three days, having just played Parc des Familes in Louisiana. I was struck by the similarities, including the similar course lengths for red, white and blue tees, the flatness of the course, and the variety and challenge of fairway shapes.

I am also enjoying the fact that I can confidently go to a Houck course and know that I'll find a set of tees that are challenging for my skill level, and I can ramp it up or down as I wish. Also, that navigation, tee pads, signage, etc. will be top notch!

The Admiral is a fun, challenging par 65 GOLF course that is accessible to players of ALL abilities due to three well-conceived and implemented sets of tees.

Scoring well here requires course management, shot-shaping and controlled power. Many of the holes offer multiple options and the course can be attacked differently every time it's played.

The pine forest offers a very enjoyable walk through the woods with a good amount of shade and the cushion of walking on pine straw. The course is easy to navigate with two loops of 9 holes and instructive signage. The cement tee pads are good-sized and well-textured.

The schule is minimal and the risk of losing discs is on the lower side.

Hole 7 is a unique, fun short par 3. There are two fairly tight options off the tee and the hole is slightly downhill at 245 ft. The basket is on a peninsula, essentially being surrounded by a moat. Players much throw a soft downhill shot to lay-up as close to the moat without going in to shorten their putts that can be a bit intimidating with the water danger.

I'd argue for a few more small trees being taken out at critical locations. A few routes look appealing from the tee, but down the fairway are one or two very small "plinko" trees that introduce a bit too much luck in the lines.

No way for the designer to get around the minimal elevation change on the property.

Hole 8 is 550 ft. across a wide-open field and then requires 400+ ft. of backtrack to get to hole 9.

Congratulations to John on hitting the 100 course milestone in style!

As a player who appreciates courses that reward course management skills and incorporate multi-shot holes, I am grateful to John for the courses he's planted and the influence he's had on other designers.

+3 sets of 12 foot long concrete tee pads (although white & blue tees are the same on several holes)
+orange topped Innova Pro 28 baskets
+excellent Houck Design tee signs and navigation signs
+excellent and challenging course design by the #1 course designer in the world, John Houck (except for hole 4, more on that below)
+shady with lots of trees to keep players relatively cooler in the hot southern climate
+couple of water features including the instant classic hole 11

-relatively flat; a few holes do have a bit of elevation change though
-Hole 4. If Houck came across this hole on a course he didn't design, he might write one of his course design articles explaining how bad this hole is. This hole does serve as a good example that even the best course designers can really butcher a hole. What makes this hole so bad? Basically it's 818 feet long from the tips with only about 120 feet of that with a fairway wider than 10 feet. There's difficult and challenging holes and then there are holes like this one where pure luck is the primary element. But wait, there's more! This hole features not one, but two locations that are "pinch points" that are so dense with trees, that 70-90% of every player will find themselves hitting these walls of trees on their struggle down this disaster of a hole. The first pinch point is from the white or blue tees. To successfully navigate this first wall of trees, the player is forced to try and land on two very tiny landing zones. Houck of course is renowned for creating holes with landing zones that require accuracy and thought rather than pure power; however his landing zones on Hole 4 at the Admiral are so minuscule neither a world champion nor a precisely programmed robot can hit these approximately 10 feet by 10 feet landing zones from 300 feet away and uphill to boot. There's another pinch point like this about 150 feet from the pin. The only escape routes through the daunting wall of trees at this choke point are 8-foot wide "fairways" that a player just has to be lucky enough to poke through.

While hole 4 is a shipwreck of a hole, there are plenty of Houck classics at the Admiral, including hole 18, which is long and punishing at almost 900 feet from the tips, but its fairways are just wide enough to be fair. Hole 11 features a pond that tests players from all three tees and is a perfect example of Houck's concept of risk vs. reward. Go for the green and make a birdie if you're accurate or take a bogey or higher if you're not. Or play it safer for a par at best. Hole 15 is an example of Houck's "figure 8" style hole with an anny or hyzer route off the tee to a landing area that then gives another choice from there whether to go anny or hyzer on the upshot. Hole 7 has a tiny island green that can be birdied by landing on the green or with a long putt by laying up close to the water's edge and putting across the water.

This is the championship course that Mobile has lacked. Mobile has several above-average courses, but really hasn't had a "must-play" course until this one was built.

The Admiral is a standard top notch Houck design. It has not got the elevation changes that I like so well at some of his other courses Ive been to, but definitely makes the most of the land. Of course, the tees baskets and signs are new and the finest quality. There are multiple tees on every hole, and each one gives an interesting alternative rather than just adding or subtracting distance.

The layout is long, with 7 par 4's, and 2 par 5's. Many of the longer holes will offer multiple lines to approach the baskets, and some of the shorter ones do to. Two ponds are in play, one next to holes 7 and 9, and the other on hole 11. While it is over 8000', half of the course are par 3's, and many of them are reachable from the tee for birdies. The front and back 9 each begin and end near the parking lot if you would only want to play 9 for some reason.

Most of the holes have a healthy number of trees, but the fairways do provide viable routes and strategic landing zones to aim for on the longer holes. Terrain is flat for the most part.

Outside of my poor play, I don't have much to list under cons. I wish I could have spent the time to play a second round here. Control and accuracy are a must if you expect to stay around par, and I just didn't have it after a weekend full of travel and partying at a music festival. I lost a disc at hole 11, my tee shot was terrible, and reached far enough into the water that I didn't even try poking around to retrieve it.

This course has a sort of funky layout, but its easy enough to follow, with great maps and signage. It is beautifully equipped and installed.

I would be happy to play this course dozens of times annually. It doesn't have a stand above all others signature hole, but it is full of great quality holes, with nice variations throughout and versatility that will challenge amateurs and pros alike.

I was not playing very good, and scored a 7 over (72) on the single round I played. Made birdie deuces on holes 3 and 7. Also bagged 7 bogeys and finished the epic 18th hole with a double bogey.

This course has 3 sets of pads and the pads themselves are very ample. The signage is excellent as well. There is a great mix of short, moderate, and longer holes. I love the fact that there are multiple pads which all present different lines to challenge the players. There are few holes in which water comes into play to add to the challenge here.
The kiosk at the start of the course is a great informative overview of the course.
The elevation here is awesome and many of the holes are technical in nature.
There are both uphill and downhill shots here and dog leg left and right holes too.
The flow of the course is logical and there are directional arrows throughout to help guide you. There are trashcans and benches here too.

Long walk from 6's basket to 7's tee and 8's basket to 9's tee slows the flow of the round down a bit.
There were a few stumps here or there that needed to be flush with the ground so be careful.
These are minor cons however.

You need to have a solid control game to score decent on this course. It will challenge your shot shaping abilities as well as test your mental focus. I chose to play from the white tees upon my visit and would love to go back and experience this course from the other 2 sets of tees as well.
Hole 11 was one of my favorite holes with the basket being positioned up on a bank on the south side of the little pond. It had a good amount of length plus the water threat to keep you on your toes.
There is a splash park across the road from the course if the family would like to tag along and recreate while you are playing.

Being as this is John Houck's 100th course he really hit this one out of the park. I recently went on a week long disc golf excursion and this was one of the courses that I was looking forward to playing the most. It didn't disappoint and I want to go back so bad and play the other 2 sets of tees. I really wished it was possible to give this course a 4.75 as its that good.
This IS a destination course and a must play if you love quality disc golf.
This is a quality disc golf course that the locals are spoiled to have at their disposal. Even if you have to drive a few hours to get to this course do yourself a favor and make it out to The Admiral. You will thank yourself.