Nice baskets
Plenty of parking
Little to no traffic
Great place to do fieldwork or practice putting

Incomplete (missing hole #9)
Bent basket on #5
No restrooms
High probability of losing a disc

It's a shame that I had to give this course a "1". It has some possibilities after all.

#6 is a classic elevated tee shot that requires some shot shaping and is far from an easy birdie. #7 is an honest par 4 requiring an accurate drive and tricky approach to a sloping green. #3 requires careful placement to avoid a scary uphill putt or a death putt. Plenty here to like then???

Sadly no. At best the course can be playable if you don't mind waiting for the soccer players to move to the other end of the pitch before throwing or deciding whether to hop the neighbors' fence to grab a disc before the canine security guard comes after you. The old #9 hole can be played back to the #1 basket if you want to practice a left to right shot around the baseball backstop, but by that point it all just seems silly.

I thought about contacting the school to see if I could get them to replace the missing basket, but noticed when looking up the phone number that the school had an 11% proficiency in math and about twice that in reading. Honestly, it kind of put everything into a little better perspective, and I decided to just leave them alone.

They have a few bigger worries than some old guy who likes throwing discs at chains.

WHAT TO EXPECT: Beginner/Casual style course that plays counter clockwise around the RA Jones Middle School property. Mostly straight holes in a well manicured school lot, that feels "busy" with multiple fields, property line fences, exercise equipment, parking lots, and buildings. Only available outside of school hours.

AMENITIES: Plenty of parking and sports fields to warm up in.

TEES/SIGNAGE/BASKETS (PROS): Some nice sized concrete tee pads (on holes that have tee pads, see below), Yellow Discatchers that show age and use but still caught well.

DESIGN: Hole distances vary from 130 feet to 375 feet, mild elevation starts behind Hole #5's basket and continues throughout Hole #6 and Hole #7. Definitely a beginner and casual introduction to the sport course, perfect for middle schoolers and PE classes to get a taste of the game. Putter round at best for intermediate and above players.

INCOMPLETE: The course seems incomplete now. There is a new (and really nice) baseball field that appears to be where Hole #1 and Hole #2 used to be. I was confused as U-Disc wasn't very helpful. I basically ended up just locating baskets and tried to backtrack to find a tee pad and played more safari golf than anything. I never found a basket for Hole #9 either. Basket for Hole #5 was a leaner.

TEE SIGNS: There was only 2 that I could locate, both of them in horrible condition. I'm guessing they were not UV protectant as it was pretty much a completed faded out piece of metal that wasn't helpful at all.

SAFETY: This course checks almost all the boxes for safety issues. There is a parking lot within a few feet of a basket, a soccer field within a few feet of a basket, 3 holes play directly along a property line with houses next to it (and lots of dogs who are unhappy you passed by), nasty deep rough along hole #7, and a blind shot that throws over a building's roof. There is also a degrading mulch walking bath around the perimeter of the course that you throw over on almost every hole, and some exercise equipment you have to throw over as well. Definitely wanna play this when no one is here.

While I certainly love it when a school invests in putting any sort of disc golf setup on their grounds to help with school PE programs and introduce kids to the sport, this course has seen better days. I'm assuming this was once well loved and cared for, but the school, or the kids lost interest and focused on other areas. Probably needs a dedicated PE teacher or volunteers to revive and redesign to spark some life back into it. Otherwise it kinda just exists as a forgotten eyesore.

After playing Mt. Airy and Idelwild back to back, I fell back into my old course bagging ways and showed up at RA Jones Middle School. RA Jones has nice amenities for a school course. It has nice sized concrete tee pads, decent small metals signs and Discatchers with the yellow bands and numbers.

The course has some decently long holes with # 7 playing at 375'. The first hole plays the shortest at just 130'. Most are just straight throws with the biggest challenge will be just keeping your disc on it's intended line.

# 1 plays down to the softball field and close to the parking lot. # 2 plays along the end of the soccer field. Then you enter Barking Dog Alley or holes 3-5. These holes play down along beside the neighbor's fences. As you walk past each house, their menacing mutts go crazy, barking loudly and passing it on to the next dog. It seemed as though every house owned a deranged pet. My question is? If these canines get so crazy with one tired old disc golfer walking back by, how do they react with scores of middle school mutants, carrying on only as middle schoolers can act?

As much as I love seeing courses being installed in our schools and then used for Phys Ed classes and after school programs, I have some serious concerns about this course at RA Jones. So many disc will find their way into the neighbor's yards along Barking Dog Alley. Also, # 7 is a 375' hole that plays along a sloping lawn that borders a deep, nasty rough. So many disc will find their way into that rough. And then, some students will manage to get their discs up on the roof on hole 9. Having taught at the middle school level for four, very long, years, I know that some middle school boys will have a grand old attempting to launch their discs up on the roof.

I had a pretty relaxing round here, despite the menacing mongrels of Barking Dod Alley. I'm rooting for this course in spite of all the lost discs possibility. I fear that school officials will get awfully weary of dealing with the neighbor's complaints.

I always think it's a wonderful idea for schools to put in a course, and RA Jones Middle has decent sized, level, concrete tees aimed at holes short enough for casual and student play. Working counterclockwise around the generously mulched path that runs inside the perimeter of the school grounds, this course offers shots from 123 feet to as much as 383, with elevation coming into play just past the 5th basket, and on holes 6 & 7. Most of them require some control in your release angle, to avoid going right into any fenced yard (where the correlation to barking dogs approaches parity), or left onto the sports fields. Hole six actually plays blind around a tree (anny or hyzer line: your choice), and up against the woods, and hole seven plays very long, and slightly downhill along the tree line.

Played outside of school hours, if no one else is out here, there is some interesting potential for stronger players to try some safari golf, but as designed, its mostly a putter round for even Intermediate players. So, for its intended audience (middle schoolers), it's a fun little introduction to the sport.

There are some safety issues. Almost every 'fairway' is right over the path. The first basket has the parking lot 15' to the right and the baseball backstop 15' to the left. The second basket is just barely off the soccer field. Some of the others throw right over a couple of the (impressive) exercise stations. Overthrows on hole five have an excellent chance of going over a private fence. The trickiest spot is on hole nine, which runs past the back corner of the building and up a blind sidewalk. Elevating a disc around the corner also can, and will, put one on the roof. So please be very careful with that shot!

This course is just around the corner from one of the better disc golf merchants in the area, and halfway between Idlewild/ Boone Woods and Lincoln Ridge (aka Banklick), so it's an ideal site to introduce middle schoolers to the sport.

12/24/20 update: It's been three years since my last visit & there is a lot of decline: The school spent some money on a nice baseball field fence and removed the first tee and the 9th basket, so there are no tees for 1 & 2. I assume you play a 150 footer from the sidewalk out by the driveway and throw the 2nd from wherever it feels right, along the new baseball field fence. The original mulch hiking trail has decayed into spurge. There are only one or two remaining tee signs, and they are barely legible. In all, it's a pretty poor nine holer now (sorry).

This is a course designed for beginner / rec players (Middle school kids course). Tees will be grass. Tee areas and signs due to be installed in Fall 2013. Safety was a forethought in design knowing kids will be playing this regularly. Tees will be away from baskets. There are no fairways crossing or next to each other.

The course is mostly open. It goes around perimeter of school grounds. Holes are short. Wind will be the majority of the difficulty.

It is designed with kids in mind since the school will be conducting PE class competitions. Once hole lengths and par are determined, the hole info tab will be updated.

9 brand new DisCatchers in the ground.
It's on school property so it's exposing the game to kids.

Where to start...
No map, tee pads, or signs to inform golfers of the layout.
Plays perilously close to playgrounds, baseball fields, the school, the parking lot, and the soccer fields. Anyone using any of these other amenities is in or near the line of fire.

Who knows, maybe whoever installed this course (school board?) has plans for pads, signs, etc., but that doesn't change the safety issues. My guess is this will pretty much be used just for PE class and the holes will be left short.

Enzy and I played a safari round using the empty baseball and soccer fields so we could air it out some. We started at the basket by the first baseball field and worked our way counter clockwise from basket to basket.