The most striking feature for me, in playing 'The Masters', was that this church course west of Indianapolis had someone on the design team who understands the fun three dimensionality of disc flight. Beginning with a longer, open field arm stretcher, the course works its way into and out of the woods at the back on two occasions, and provides a nice variety over nine holes (and added second tees on seven of the holes to add a little distance). In fact, the large level concrete tees produce holes ranging from 170 to 520 feet, and finish with good quality DisCatcher baskets.

The ninth basket is set near the parking area, where overthrows are guarded by a set of pines, and markers are set in the ground in five foot intervals between 15 and 35 feet, for putting practice. The nice course kiosk doesn't have a map, but includes local club info, some scripture (it's a church course, after all), and a note to let them know when you ace the short hole nine (they'll add you to the list of celebrants, so you don't have to be one of those guys who tags the equipment...please, do it their way!)

The feature holes for me are the ones in the woods, such as the tricky approach and green on 2, the needed sweeping (rhbh) hyzer line on 3, the longer, left to right shot on 5, and the narrow gap you have to hit to get out of the woods from the long 6th tee. Of course, finishing up with a couple of ace runs is really fun, too.

There's plenty of good hole signage, next tee indicators where needed, and mando signs galore. In all, they've done a really nice job with the installation, and this course would normally earn a 3 or 3.5 rating from me, ...but...

Because they only had a small parcel of space to work with, in order to install these fun lines, they had to cross numerous fairways, and try to get folks to throw safe lines by using a lot of mandos. You need to throw past the first basket you see on hole 1, and be aware that you're crossing the 7th and 8th fairways as you play. To get from the 2nd basket to the 3rd tees, you'll cross the flight lines on 6, then throw across 6, and risk a tree kick putting your disc near folks holing out on 4. There's a pretty good walk back to the 4th tee (especially the long), and then you have one more mando, but should stay to the right of the second one you see (that's for the 5th fairway). The 5th hole drives right in over the long 6th tee. Too many danger spots for me to give the course the rating it might have otherwise earned.

They didn't have much elevation to work with, so the holes play pretty much Indy area flat, and the restricted space means that most of the long tees add distance, and not as much of a different line of flight. I can't imagine how much crossing fairway use that might have made!

First timers, don't turn in at Hummel Park, but at the church, and park at the back of the lot, where you'll see the course kiosk.

Reviewer Background as of this writing: 4.5 yrs experience at age 54, not a big gun, and not an impressive rating (Rec to Int skills), but enjoy having played over 250 courses and shared hopefully helpful info about those experiences.

Fits 9 holes in what seems like only a couple acres.

Mix of wooded technical shots and open easier shots.

Mandatory shot paths helps keep the holes from being too easy and also give some safety to players on other holes.

Hole 9 has practice putt markers with distances marked out from 15 to 35 feet from the basket, which is nice.

Holes 7-9 are too easy, and even 6 is easy enough to birdie so long as you can throw somewhat straight from the drive.

Many of the holes cross each others' fairways and several holes start in places that cause you to walk across fairways, which could be hazardous if the course gets busier than just a few people playing on it at once.

Hole 1 has three large rocks along the right side of the fairway. I didn't know why they were there until I looked at the course-provided scorecard/map. They mark out distanced in 100 ft. sections, starting 100 feet from the recreational tee or 200 feet from the advanced tee. It's obviously not necessary, but it's kind of nice to be able to gauge where you stand on the longest hole of the course.

I think this course I a bit underrated given that I never planned on playing here since it was rated at what I assumed was 2.5 discs when browsing the map on my DGCR app.

The course is very well maintained, the rough isn't too deep so as to cause many lost discs, if any.

Also, the course is challenging in the woods and it was actually a fun course to play, even with the high winds I experienced today.

If this course were spaced out more and had more room to spread out and avoid having crisscrossed fairways, I'd easily give this a 3 disc rating, especially if holes 7-9 were either lengthened or had more trees. Either way, this is worth a visit if you only have a half hour or so to play 9.

First, this course does make good use of the little land it has available. It manages to fit 9 holes without it feeling too crammed. Also nice baskets and two sets of tees are a plus. Basket 9 also serves as a practice basket at the beginning of the course.

Second, the mandos, for the most part, make some of the open holes more interesting.

Third, I especially enjoyed a couple of the wooded holes, 3 and 5 to be specific. They were challenging but not unfair.

First, some maintenance could help in the wooded area, as there are some down trees, especially by the hole 5 basket.

Second, although the mandos are helpful in some cases, a couple of them are just 3 foot wooden posts. If your throw is close to the mando, you won't know whether or not you made it, because it is so low to the ground.

Third, on hole one, it is hard to tell which basket to throw to, with baskets 6 & 7 being immediately visible in about the right distance range, and the actual basket being tucked behind a bush.

Fourth, and most importantly, were holes 7-9. I really liked the first two thirds of this course, but wow did it drag towards the end. Holes 7 and 9 are short and open, lacking any challenge. Hole 8 is also short, and although a mando attempts to make it interesting, a simple RHBH anny will have you in position. Especially hole 9 stuck out like a sore thumb. Just a straight uncontested 170 shot. It sure looked as though the designers had put in 8 holes, and just threw this in there for the sake of making it a 9 hole course. Especially given that this course had some good challenging holes, 7-9 really stuck out in a bad way.

Overall, this is not a bad course. I would recommend it if you're in the area, but if you are short on time, Avon Town Hall is a more challenging course just a few miles away. I played both when I was in the area and had a good time.

-Clean
-Well Maintained
-Good Baskets
-Tees Well Marked
-Usually Not Crowded
-Proximity to Hummel Park
-Requires Variety of Shots
-Multiple Tees

-Dirt Tee Pads
-Some Fairway Intersections
-Easy
-Pro Tees Dont Change Play of Holes
-Not Much Space to Work With

For the space that the church who put in this course had to work with, they did a pretty solid job. The course is small. It is what it is. Having said that, there are alot of things that this course does right. The church does a great job maintaining the course; there is rarely any trash on the course, the grass is mowed regularly, and the baskets are new. The tees are well identified, however, they are just a dirt surface. This can cause some pretty slippery footing, especially if the ground is wet or muddy. i had heard that concrete tees were in the works; however this was hearsay, nothing confirmed. Signage would also be helpful, but isn't terribly needed.

Considering the course's compactness, it does require a variety of shots. Holes 3-6 take advantage of the wooded area at the rear of the course. That being said, the course will not prove very challenging to those above the novice skill level. A few of the holes are made more interesting with some mandos.

Overall, this course is very well done; the designers were simply limited in what they could do with the space available. As far as small courses go, this one is better than many. If you are a beginner looking for a good course to learn on, or if you are in the area and looking to get in some quick practice, this course fits the bill perfectly.