Pros:
Tirzah ARP is a surprisingly above-average nine-holer. There are some gimmickries involved, but all in all, this course offers a good bit of variety while playing on the grounds of a classical church.
- There is very good variety here, almost split right down the middle. The first four and a half holes are wooded (to varying degrees). Once your shot clears the trees on #5, the rest of the course is open, with the exception of small trees along the right side of the fairway on #7. You also have doglegs, minimal elevation, a raised basket on #8, and a variety in length: holes ranging from 144 - 504 feet.
- The holes offer some challenging basket placements/hole layouts. Trees are placed right in front of the tees on #4 & 5, but also impact how you throw on #1 - 3 & 7. The approach shot on #9 can be impacted by obstacles (mainly a scoreboard for the baseball field), creating different looks.
- Course can appeal to most skills levels. It's not overly challenging, but it does require precise shot making on most holes to score low. By that, if you're a casual player, you can throw poorly and still come away with pars on most holes. It's very easy to recover from bad shots, hitting trees, etc. and still salvage par. To see birdies, you will need some good shot making, especially on the wooded holes. You're not going to see any high scores here, or blow up holes here, even on your off days.
- There are some nice scenic holes. The front of the course (front of the church) is much quieter than the back part: two-lane, 35MPH road versus four-lane, 45MPH. Also, throw in the big trees and the old church building, and it's a very relaxing stretch. On the flip side, teeing off on #9 right in front of the four lane road is the complete opposite.
- Because of some of the obscure layouts, you're getting tee shots you don't normally see. On #5, especially, you've got to play a big arching shot around the trees. This is the type of shot you would more often see as an approach shot on a long par 5 than as a tee shot. That said, with these layouts, I think some of these holes are great for practice. Not that you normally want to be throwing from behind big trees. But if you do end up there, you'll be glad you have that shot in your repertoire.
Cons:
As much as I said I liked the variety, it does feel a little extreme, or forced at times. After just speaking about the positive of hole #5 in my last comment above, I'm now stating the glass half-empty feel of the hole. Like I said, this is an abnormal tee shot, feeling more like an approach shot on a longer hole after a poor tee shot.
- You also see the gimmickry on #4, with two trees directly in front of the tee pad. Basically, you can try to squeeze a shot through the trees (think the bad tee layout on #6 at Boyd Hill), or throw wide around them. Again, it makes a birdie 2 that much more challenging, but still can leave an easy par 3.
- I got a little bit of the 'Be Sharps' feel for this course. The Be Sharps, as we know, was Homer's barbershop quarter on the Simpsons. He said the name should be a little less funny each time you heard it. There was a vibe here, after playing the course twice, that while, it's a perfectly decent course (as you'll see in my rating), I got more bored and less eager to play it as much rounds went on. It was just solidly decent, that nothing really wowed me about the course.
- Course doesn't have benches. Course is obviously closed during church service times. And being on church property, players need to have a higher level of decorum (no smoking, drinking, etc.) than at most courses.
- Tee pads were very short on the first 8 holes. To its credit, on the one long hole - #9 - the pad was plenty long.
Other Thoughts:
My expectations weren't too high coming into it. There are probably a negative stereotype for a church course - pitch-n-putt, aimed at newbies, boring, etc. Tirzah had none of that. This was a genuinely pleasant course. The designers have done well to create an interesting layout.
- I've never played around a cemetery before, or had to walk through one to get to holes. Having a cemetery there might have different impacts, or none at all, for different people.
- I did like the Bible verse plaques at each tee. You are at a church after all, so I was a nice touch. It's also nice seeing a church use disc golf as a ministry tool.
- There wasn't one A+, great hole here, just a lot of decent to slightly above average ones. It makes for a good, steady course, just not one you're not going to remember.
- Between this course and Dutchman Middle about 5 minutes down the road, you have the makings of a decent 19-hole layout. You're also 10 - 15 minutes from most of the other Rock Hill courses, so it's easy to play a bunch of different places in one outing.
- I had to look online to find out where the church got its name. It's a Hebrew word meaning "she is my delight." Ok, so maybe the course isn't a complete delight, but it's still one of the better nine-holers in the Rock Hill area.