Walnut Hill sits on what used to be a ball golf course in Far East Columbus. This is a "links style" disc golf course that can get tricky with its tough pin placements and long fairways.

- Two sets of concrete tees with colored plates engraved within the tee. These plates have the hole number, par, a basic hole map, and distance. Very nice!

- Just because you have a big arm, doesn't mean you'll score well! The design takes full advantage of the scattered trees forcing you to think a little extra on even the longest of holes.

- Pin placement is genius! Many baskets sit on hills, or lips of the former bunkers, etc. Makes for tough approach shots and putts!

- While I don't have the biggest arm in the game, I can respect the design.

- Most holes kind of blend together due to the lack of elevation and tree cover. While I think the design uses the area perfectly, it's still lacking any really special holes.

- Can flood pretty easily, #16 was almost completely underwater. You know it's bad when ducks are swimming across the tee pad!

- In a somewhat sketchy part of town, seems the 1st tee is a popular hangout for some less-than-ideal individuals.

- You can almost always here traffic. It's in the middle of a commercial hub so you're guranteed to hear honking and the constant police car siren.

- #1 and #18 are pretty far from the parking lot, and you don't really see your car until after the round is over.

- No benches or trash cans that I noticed. It was also lacking any sort of kiosk or bulletin board at the parking lot.

Not a bad course, but it might get a little boring to someone who doesn't have a strong arm. The pin positions and interesting design really saved the course. Kudos to the designer for making the best of what he had!!

Nice quality teepads

Nice piece of land with decent potential

The course is located in a part of town without too many other options, so should see more play than it might otherwise.

The part of town the course is in is a bit sketchy. I know 2 people who have had their cars broken into.

Not much potential for growth, as most of the obstacles have been used.

Tee signs located in the rear of the teepad feel a little odd to push off of, and make navigation more difficult.

The layout seems a little odd, with long walks from the parking lot to the first tee, and from the 18th tee back to the parking lot.

Long tees tend to be very unimaginative. Usually they're just 50-75' behind the short tee.

Walnut Hills fills a niche in Columbus, in that it is long, largely open, and mostly flat. In other words, it's largely a bomber's paradise. Given that it's on an old municipal golf course the designer did a great job forcing crafted shots with the relatively small number of trees available. I didn't expect the have to think through my shots as much as I did, and this was a tremendously nice surprise. When the wind picks up, the difficulty ramps up to an entirely new level.

I'm sure the long walk to the first tee was not by the designer's choice, but it is a minor annoyance. After that there are several other spots where navigation is somewhat counter-intuitive, but for the most part follow the mowed paths in the grass and you'll be fine. The one exception is after hole 2. The first time we played the course we skipped holes 3 and 4 (located to the left of hole 2, across a bridge) and jumped onto hole 5 without realizing it.

My biggest complaint is that the long tees are duplicates of the shorts, just slightly further back. Granted, hole 17 is the exception, but for the most part I prefer when the longs force a different line than the shorts, as opposed to just a different disc to account for a longer distance. Stacking the teepads in this fashion seems to be a hallmark of Paul Jay designs, but I vastly prefer the approach taken by the course up at Alum where you may have 2 similar distances, but 2 very different shots needed.

Overall this is a course with limited replay value due to the neighborhood and lack of variety. It is an interesting addition, and I will revise this review as the course matures.

This is a long course on a former ball golf course with a lot of great trees throughout and a serious challenge for your average/rec player.

Overall, I'd have to agree with the other reviews posted so far so I won't go over too many things that have already been said.

-First off, I'm just really happy that this land got repurposed for disc golf by parks and rec... thats a great sign that they are aware of the growing draw, and will hopefully continue to support the sport.
-The park is definitely a very pretty location and I can't wait to see it all in bloom.
-Easy to get to off of Interstate 70 and in an area of town that needed more courses.
-Concrete tees are nicely done w two positions and some benches have been put in as of mid Feb.
-The park looks great in general, and wildflowers have been planted all over (according to park staff) that will be popping up in spring.
-When the old putting greens have been used as new pin placements it just feels cool.
-Plenty of challenging shots, need to work around trees in MANY places, and chances to work a few different skills (rollers and thumbers especially)
-Great exercise if you'd like to get a good hike in!
-The course is long. You probably aren't going to get par. Just hang on and enjoy the ride, lol.

-A lot of my frustration with this course comes mostly from design problems and missed opportunities. There were some very strange decisions made, imo, that hurt the experience of playing here.
-When you pull into the parking lot, there is a bulletin board at the end of the parking lot. If looking at this board, the practice basket is about 100yds behind you, down a hill, and to the right. It sits on a former putting green, so actually looks like its part of the course... you'd never expect it to be a location for practice.
-Hole #1 is actually probably 300yds beyond the bulletin board, over and around a hill (completely out of sight) and to the left along a walking path. So, in the complete opposite direction from the practice basket with close to a 1/4mile between them!
- I way prefer a practice basket that is inn close proximity to tee #1 and used as a "next up" waiting position when courses are busy. Who wants to use a practice basket during peak hours with the parking lot and a big walk between you and #1, watching cars pile in and groups walk over to #1 ahead of you?
-There is plenty of unused space along this walk for a practice basket, even right behind the bulletin board! I just don't get it.
-The only real hill at Walnut Hills is here near the parking lot. But its barely used. All that land you walk past to your right on the way to hole #1 is occupied by two picnic tables and could have been used for an interesting start/turnaround at 9/end of the course.
-Why the course wasn't set up so that the current practice green is the eventual #18 seems like a big miss.
-There are several confusing places on the course where it is very easy to get lost. I'm hoping there are going to be "next tee" signage.
-The signage at the tees is going to be a plaque embedded in the concrete. (update, these are going in now, Late Feb and do look really great!)
-This plaque system seems like a really cool idea, and would be if the course weren't inherently confusing. In this case, I'd rather have an actual post that could be easily seen from a distance. There are a couple of tees that are in former bunkers, for instance, and you can't see them until you are right on top of them.
-Its clear the course was designed to avoid just being all wide open shots in former fairways, and instead uses the tree lines that were formerly BETWEEN those ball golf fairways to add difficulty. But, in some cases (#7), its kind of ridiculously difficult right now until it gets properly trimmed up. (Like I said, get ready to ROLL!)
-The course also misses out using the area of land closer to the tennis courts and the driveway in. This area has some really great old growth trees and seems to be to have more logical and fun DG land use possibilities.
-I would have tried to avoid following the back portion of the land (along a row of apartments) and oriented the course more back and forth to and from the main hill and parking lot for a more interesting layout.
-And, finally, can get pretty swampy after a rain. Most of the course is in a low area compared to some of the surrounding neighborhood, so be prepared for that.

-A map of the course at the parking lot is critical.
-I can see the argument here for a longer course for bigger arms to enjoy, but I ultimately agree with Sisyphus' take on it in a previous review... I don't see it as that much of a technical or difficult course for your advance/open player, its just extra long.
-Overall, I'd say that Walnut is basically a super sized Griggs when it could have been another Hambick or Holton.
-I currently have a love/hate relationship with this course. I want to love it, but its just... not that much fun... right now. I don't need it to be easy, but it only has maybe 3 holes that I find interesting (3, 4, 9), and the more you play it, the more the rest of it starts to get kind of boring. I initially was really excited with this, but the shine is starting to wear off... will update later in the spring when the parks dept has a chance to get it finished and its flowering and see what I think then.

Boasting dual tee pads and basket positions, and built on a former ball golf course, Walnut Hills DGC will absolutely satisfy the need for Columbus area big arms to strut their stuff. Even playing all short tees to short baskets, it'll average 350+ feet per hole, with only three of them being under 300'. Long to long, and you're looking at an average of nearly 500 feet (and only one or two under 400')!

Beautiful, huge, level concrete tees appear to have a spot at the rear, intended for a plate describing hole details. Fairways incorporate sparse mature trees to force some line shaping and control, but nothing that would truly be described as 'technical'. The brand new DGA baskets have number plates which you'll be able to read (on your second or third throw?). The park is undergoing a great renovation with paved trails, benches, trash cans, picnic areas up on the hill by the parking lot, and a nice playground. There's a brand-spanking new course kiosk at the top of the lot that has yet to be sullied with a course map.

With this amount of space, there are some walks between baskets and next tees. I'd love to see them offer golf carts here (especially in the sunny summer months (not much shade here)! But it also means everybody can pretty much have at it without risking winding up in an adjacent fairway. I'm not sure if the course has the wow factor or difficulty (yet) to challenge Open and Touring Pros, but it will still be fun and viewer-friendly to watch them crush these drives, so, as a competition-worthy course, it might be kind of photogenic.

Right now, I would suggest the traveling disc golf course bagger hold off on this one: without any above ground signage, it's easy to lose your way after the second hole (the tee to your right is for hole 5, for instance), and the massiveness of the course says to me I should have waited until they have a map available to save my sore feet the wandering around. Good news is, you can expect all of the needed stuff really soon.

I noticed that some of the rough cut fairways have a lot of twiggy shrub stumps that kind of grab your feet as you walk (sure this will get better with time). There currently aren't benches or trash cans out on the course, and with holes one and eighteen being a 700 to 800 foot walk from your car, they're going to be needed. Newcomer tip: walk out the path from the parking lot toward the south until it bends towards the apartments and the pond, continue straight toward the 18th basket about another 400 feet out, and look to your left for the first tees.

Because of my age, weight, and skill set, I feel compelled to list this as a con, but some younger, fitter guys might consider it a positive: if you don't like 'LONG', this isn't going to be the course for you.

The name of the park (and course) is a bit of an oxymoron, as the only 'hill' that comes into play is on 18, where you finish the loop. The majority of the course can only really be considered flat to slightly rolling terrain.

Finally, I gave it a 3.0 for its current state. I expect once all the amenities are in, the average rating will get it slightly above 3.5.

Reviewer Background as of this writing: age 54 w/ 4 yrs experience, rated 900+/-, played 245+ courses in 23 states, 80% w/in 3hr drive of Cincinnati. Thrown with folks rated 600's to 1000's, ages 9 to 85 in events and leagues at all tiers. Seldom drive beyond 300-330, but have a solid up-shot and putting game. I haven't designed any courses, but try to lend a hand (with my severely desk-job limited skill set) when I can.