Pros:
Westwood Park is a nice pitch-and-putt nine holer. Located in the hills of Mount Airy, it's good for beginners or a quick round.
- This is essentially your typical, small-town, beginner-friendly nine-hole introductory course. It's a simple, easy course offering some enjoyable holes along with a couple duds.
- The course takes advantage of the hills and woods. This creates some fun layouts. #1 is a short, downhill shot. It's the type of shot where your throw could sail 75 feet past the basket if you throw too hard.
- There is one, truly good hole - #5. It's a down and up shot, starting out in the woods, throwing over a field, to a dogleg right basket back in the woods. It's a solid layout, nice scenery and good challenge. This is the only hole on the course that would be a very challenging 2. It's also the course's only hole that you might possibly see on a more advanced level course. Very well done.
- Course is easy to navigate. Turning into the park, there was a sign for the disc golf course, which led right to the first tee, and #9's basket. From there the holes are all closely bunched together - too much so at times - that there's very little walking from hole to hole. The only slight navigational issue is that the basket for #4 is the one you see on #2's tee.
- Course is great for beginners and casual players. This level of player will enjoy some of the unique hole layouts, such as the triangle-shaped hole design of #3. Without much length and almost no chance of lost discs, even first timers should see chances at birdies here. I brought two discs with me when I played. One was never used, except when I threw a second putt.
- This is a very nice park with plenty of amenities - ball field, picnic areas, walking trails, etc. The course itself doesn't have amenities - meaning benches - but none are needed. It took me 15 minutes to play nine-holes, so there wasn't any need to rest.
Cons:
The biggest problem with the course is that it's too cramped into too small of a space. Because of that, holes overlap each other. Were this course ever crowded, that would be a major issue. When you're the only person on the course - as I was - it's just a nuisance.
- All or parts of holes #2 - 5 interfere with each other. As stated above, the basket for #4 comes into play on hole #2; tee pads for #3 - 5 all play too close to, or as part of, the prior hole's fairway. This park seems to have enough space. Why not spread the course out a little more? With a course aimed at beginners, there will be errant throws. A course like this doesn't need the hassle of people getting hit by discs when it could have been prevented beforehand.
- Tee signs are odd. As others have mentioned, tee signs are listed on every other hole, showing the layout for the current hole and the next hole - #1 shows layout for 1 & 2; #3 shows for 3 & 4, etc. That's a bit different, as in I've never seen it anywhere else. But, what makes the signs almost useless is that they're so vague, they don't provide much help. After the third or fourth hole, I gave up on them because they seemed to be creating more confusion than actually helping.
- I'm a stickler for details, so it's a bit annoying there are no hole distances listed. That would something useful to have on the tee signs, more so than ambiguous pictures of hole layouts.
Other Thoughts:
Westwood course is good for what it offers. It's not meant to appeal to people like me or better players. Who it will appeal to is families, first-time players and casual players. For them, this course is a success.
- That said, I viewed my round here as mostly a series of approach shots. It's a good thing I didn't need to do any run-ups on my tee shots because the pads are dirt and very uneven. This course gave me a chance to throw big hyzer and anhyzer shots more often than I typically do, so that was a positive.
- There were enough adequate holes that this course kept my interest. You can tell the course wasn't designed by disc golfers. That said, holes #1, 5, 7 & 9 were all good enough that it made me overlook the lesser quality layouts.
- Whether at Westwood Park or somewhere else in this region; but, this region is prime location for great disc golf courses. There are plenty of rolling hills in a park like this, and throughout the area. Whether building a course throughout this park, or finding another park in the area, there is untapped potential in the Mount Airy area. As for the course in its current state, it's nothing special. If you're in the area, spend 15 - 20 minutes like I did for a quick round. If not, it's not worth a drive to play here.