Disc Golf Course Review

Canaan Riverbend DGC, the reason you traveled to Fewell Island to play disc golf. It is an 18 hole course with rubber mat tee pads, nice tee signs, two layouts, and nice, yellow-banded DISCatcher baskets. The Riverbend course shares Fewell Island with the Sand Hills course, and for a $6 entry fee, both courses can be played for the day. There were nice amenities, including the small gift shop and nice restroom facilities.

Riverbend weaves its way through the woods of Fewell Island while offering picturesque views of the Catawba River. Throughout it demands a large selection of shots required to score well. There is a decent variety of fairway shapes, hole distance, and plenty of risk/reward in play to keep players honest. The fairways were all generous in their width, so they never felt overly tight for the angle/distance being asked of players off the tee. There's also a healthy mixture of par 3s, 4s, and 5s throughout the course.

The course had a slew of risky greens, with baskets perched on the edge of a steep hill, ditch, or placed on top of a mound. All to require more thoughts from players on if and how they should lay up. Hole 16 is located on top of a massive spiral staircase. Easily the most elevated basket I have ever played too. I appreciated that the area directly underneath the basket was marked as casual relief, giving players about a 5' buffer from the pole - so players aren't unnecessarily punished for absolutely parking their drive.

The course offers a few places to have some reprieve from woods golf. Hole 7 is a wonderful water-carry over a swimming pond. The longs carry the length of the pond, the shorts play from atop an elevated dock, throwing the width of the pond. Hole 11 plays out a gap through open air, to a dogleg left up a hill. Hole 12 offers players the opportunity to play it safely through a wooded fairway, or open it up out above the Catawba River.

Speaking of Hole 12, it is a stunningly designed hole, and easily the prettiest hole on the Island. The kind of holes that disc golfers dream about. If you don't quite make it across the river, your plastic is likely to be lost to the River or if you're lucky it will just get stuck perched precariously on the side of a sandy cliff. It looked like someone had been walking along said sandy cliff when I looked at it. Best to just throw plastic you're willing to lose here. Especially since said cliff seems to be eroding away.

There was a nice restroom between Holes 13 and 14, which offered a nice break during the round and a chance to cool off with cold sink water.

The rough can be pretty thick at times. Players who stay on the fairway are probably going to enjoy the course magnitudes more than players whose discs find unfortunate kicks or are thrown on errant lines.

The tees are mostly fine, but are showing signs of age. Something that is unfortunately inevitable with this style of tee pad. A bit of maintenance being done to re-level them would alleviate this con without the need for something more permanent like concrete.

As I mentioned earlier on, it appears the side of Hole 12 may be eroding away. Please be careful when/if approaching the edge of the cliff.

Some players will find the amount of risk/reward frustrating. Players who always play aggressive will likely be cursed with plentiful roll-aways and possibly lost discs. I don't find this as a true con, but it is worth mentioning because some players won't feel the same way as I do. Many players will likely get overly irate at Hole 16 because you can't tell how elevated the basket is from the tee, leading to a chance of blowing past it and landing in the River.

The course ends on a bit of a whimper. Hole 18 feels like a filler hole compared to much of the course. In an ideal world, the course could forgo this hole and have one more open style hole and the course would be just about perfect for my preferred style.

In an absolute perfect world, the two par 5s would not have been back-to-back, but both were great holes. It just would have been my preference if they could have been spaced out a bit more.

As I have done with so many courses, I have been kicking myself for not playing Canaan Riverbend DGC sooner. What an incredibly balanced course that felt like a perfect blend of challenge and fun. On top of that, despite its close proximity to the Charlotte area, it doesn't appear to get the same amount of traffic as other nearby courses, so it still had a secluded feeling to it. Which I greatly enjoyed. I was admittedly torn between two different ratings for the course, but eventually decided that the higher of the two ratings seemed fitting - thus I am giving it a 4.5 rating.

Players looking to make a full day of disc golf can play Canaan Riverbend in conjunction with Canaan Sand Hills, Westminster Park, and/or Winthrop University - all of which are right nearby.

Favorite Holes: 1, 7, 12, & 14

Iron Hill DGC is at the park of the same name in northwestern Delaware. The park apparently was once the site of an iron mining operation, but today is mostly given over to disc golf only.

This one is a grind, and I mean that in a good way. This is a lengthy beast of an 18-hole course. The two medium layouts here are each over 7400' long, and if that's not enough there is a championship layout over 10000'. The long tee sign posts have the word "PRO" engraved on them, and they really mean it. A short layout of about 5200' will be more approachable for beginners and rec players, although those players will have to do a fair amount of extra walking between holes.

Fairways are typically wooded and narrow enough to force shot shaping, but wide enough that players with decent control will generally feel comfortable with full power throws. I don't remember any thread-the-needle throws here, except of course after I landed off in the rough. A couple of holes on the front nine are more open. There is lots of exposed rock around, which I always personally enjoy for aesthetic reasons even if it can scuff discs a little bit. The elevation changes are mostly gentle, but persistent. Certain holes like #5 play slightly uphill the whole way, making the hole feel longer without having a huge impact on each throw. A couple of holes played near what looked to be dried-up creeks. I doubt you'd ever lose a disc in them even if there was water flowing, but a couple of baskets are located on the edge of these little gullies adding some risk/reward factor.

The four layouts are for the most part accomplished via two tee pads and two baskets per hole. Both pads are generally concrete, although I think there were a couple that were paver arrays. The short baskets are Chainstars and the long ones are yellow banded DISCatchers. I played the front nine from the short pads to the DISCatcher baskets, during which I hit the pole of the CHAINSTAR baskets TWICE with tee shots. After doing this the second time on hole 9, I decided to switch and play the short pads to Chainstar baskets for the back nine (it was also 95 degrees out haha).

There is a "Disc Golf" sign at the parking lot pointing back to the course. Between this sign and the first tee are a practice basket and kiosk. A porta potty is nearby too. There are trash cans at the parking lot, and benches at many tees.

The biggest problem out here is the signage. The tee "signs" are only small wooden posts and/or stones painted with the tee color, and the hole number painted over this in black. Adding to the confusion, I saw gold, blue, white, and red colors on these indicators but the blue and white ones (which I was trying to play) were not always present. I sometimes saw blue ones, sometimes white, sometimes both, and a couple times neither. Modern, clear tee signs would remove this issue and also make it clearer where I'm supposed to be throwing (many baskets are not visible from even the short tee).

Navigation is also not great. There were a few Next Tee arrows, but they seemed to be concentrated on the short basket locations and did not differentiate between next short and next long pad. I took a photo of the map on the kiosk and referred to it a lot, even though it was so old that it was barely legible. Some of the parts that were legible, seemed like they had gotten slightly out of date.

The Chainstar baskets are hard to see in the woods here. I thought several of them were missing, only to get close and see them. However, in the back nine I think there actually WERE two that were missing. Due to the signage issues, I couldn't tell if that was intended or not.

It seemed like there were quite a few holes where the long pads just added distance without really otherwise changing the experience of playing the hole. But since I only played from the short tees, take that with a grain of salt.

Other than the length and challenge in general, there weren't any holes that particularly stood out for me.

Iron Hill was my first course played in Delaware, which was my 19th state played overall.

This is a great long wooded course, even with the frustrating lack of signage. I think it's a touch overrated on here as things stand today, but I could see it earning the ~4.3 average rating with better signage. Still worth a spin for sure, if you're anywhere nearby.

Located along the hills of the north side of Camenish Park, this course plays up and down the slopes and occasionally across a pond. Concrete tees with... signs? Poles, with a number on them.

There is something to love about having many long downhill shots though. The course is fairly open, with a few obstacles, but overall it is just a valley course you play up and down, and maybe one along the slope (hole 9 I think).

The baskets were in good condition, though many were missing.

Honestly, I am having a hard time coming up with a real list of pros at this point. It was just a decently good course, somewhat aesthetic to look at?

The cons list is probably longer than the pros, but doesn't drag the course down a whole lot.

The biggest con is the state of the course. The tees are all in disrepair: a mix of sloped, cracked, a couple natural ones, or a combination of maladies. At every tee is a pole, and if you're lucky you can make out a number on it. If you're REALLY lucky you can see a distance or map through all the graffiti on the few that have what used to be signs.

While the baskets are nice, missing a lot of the short (white baskets), was a bummer. I was playing the long tees, but I was hoping to come back with my brother in law, and nephew. A few of the blue baskets were also overgrown (especially 5) to the point of being unreachable.

Navigation gets a little murky around 11 and 12, but I honestly just kinda think that's a first time on the course issue.

I was excited to play this course for the first time again in over a decade, but it has reallllly fallen off. If all of the little things were updated and cleaned up, and maybe a little redesigning (I would love to see more along the slope holes, and fewer uphill shots), this park could be host to a 3.5 but I don't think see this land producing anything better, and only marginally better than what's here right now.

Just a note- the lowlands course seems pretty ripped out. After walking around for a long time, I found some scattered tees, and two baskets, and only one complete hole (5), so as of this writing, this is the only course in the park.

With rec-friendly distances, abundant ace runs, and a convenient city location, Riverwalk has quickly become very popular. The course plays along both sides of the greenway bordering a small stream, passing through two pleasant and well-used community parks.

Mown grass fairways are mostly flat and open, but a fair number of holes require hitting gaps or shaping lines between mature trees. Hole #8 even throws off a decent-sized hill, with the OB stream long and left of the basket.

Two decent turf tees on every hole. Most of the long tees just add distance, but a few offer a dramatically different angle to the hole.

Post-mounted tee signs at each teepad. Tee post tops are painted green for long or red for short. I wish more courses did this. Tee signs include a hole map, tee locations, OB areas, distances, direction to the next tee, and a QR code for a hole fly-over. Nicely done.

Yellow-banded DisCatcher Pro 28 baskets are easy to spot, mounted level, catch great, and include the hole # and spoke-mounted next-tee arrows. One pin position per hole.

Ample parking and a practice basket near hole 1. Indoor bathrooms and drinking water available between holes 10 and 11, and (I think) at the pavilion near hole #3.

The course is mostly flat, and more than half of the holes are wide open. Big bombers may find the course length a little too rec-friendly, with the long tees playing a little over 5,200' and the longest hole merely 345' (short tee) or 408' (long tee).

Moderately long walks between a few of the holes, necessitated by the land available for the course. Sometimes I skip hole #2 to avoid backtracking the length of the fairway, followed by walking past a baseball field and skate park to reach the next tee. Despite the between-hole walks, this is still a pretty quick spin.

You will cross moderately busy roads several times between holes. Bring everything you need because the course does not loop back to the parking lot until the end.

Active walking path in play on several holes, and the park can get busy on nice evenings and weekends. That said, designers did what they could to separate fairways and walking paths.

Some of the rough bordering the stream is pretty thick, but with lots of play it is already starting to beat in. Watch out for poison ivy in this rough. Sneaky disc loss opportunity on hole #10, where an OB fenced area lurks in the bushes right of the fairway (ask me how I know).

The course is located within the 100-year floodplain, so heavy rains could render the course sloppy or unplayable.

Minor quibble: The sign for #8 lists the short tee as 252'. Pretty sure this is actually about 350' because the short tee is roughly 60' short of the 408' long tee.

Despite higher rated courses nearby, I often find myself playing Riverwalk when I want to enjoy a relaxing evening round with lots of birdie opportunities and a few ace runs.

Designers made good use of the limited site features available, but I would love to see trees planted on the more open holes to improve the level of challenge over time.

Some may prefer to park at Monocacy Village Park and start playing on hole #10. I often do this because I like to finish on #9, which is the longest and one of the more wooded holes on the course. If you are pressed for time there are also shorter loops that you can play.

Close to downtown Frederick so lots of breweries and restaurants nearby if you get hungry or thirsty after your round.

Cumberland Ball Fields aka Islander Park is home to a pretty basic but straightforward nine hole disc golf course. The course plays almost exactly in a counter clockwise loop around the outskirts of the four baseball fields starting and ending by the parking lot just south of the indoor ice hockey building. The only exception to the loop is that hole 9 plays toward the woods going north after holing out on hole 8. Still ends very close to the lot and at least ends on a borderline interesting hole too.

The baskets are brand spanking new looking Discatchers. These have the classic yellow top bands and stand out great. Just some awesome targets honestly. These are all in great shape and catch fantastic. One basket and pin position per hole. Best part about this course.

The course is designed pretty nicely with the very limited space available here. Yes it plays around the ball fields pretty much exclusively but it's about as well as could be achieved here. There's a tiny bit of elevation in play and holes 6 and 7 at least the trees bordering the property add at least a small semblance of danger. Plus there's the ever present risk of actually throwing over the outfield fences. The area around here is mostly farm fields for miles around so the wind should be a factor more often than not which adds some challenge. Most of the challenge really.

Free to play, I'd assume permanent and the park itself was in great shape. Nice option for an area that's kind of lacking as far as disc golf goes.

The number one con, by far, is the tee pads. These are all nicely sized and framed in by 4x4's. Plenty long and wide enough. The problem is that they're filled in with rocks. Not gravel, golf ball sized rocks you'd use to landscape your garden. These might just be the worst tee pads I've ever played on. Almost indescribable how awful these were. I ended up teeing off to the side of these by hole three. Terrible and clearly made by someone who's never thrown a disc in their life.

Very repetitive feeling course for the most part. It's just a bunch of wide open shots that you don't want to go over a fence to your left the whole time. Always your left too.

The course doesn't drain too well. Lots of wet and muddy areas if it has rained recently.

There are tee signs wedged into the front left corner of each tee pad. These have the logo for the park and the hole number. Cute but useless for the most part.

This one was a tough one to rate. The baskets are great but the tee pads are some of the worst I've ever seen. The tees can be avoided by standing off to the side and not changing the hole at all though. The baskets are pretty vital and get the job done great. The golf is bland but better than nothing. If you happen to be near here it's not going to take too much time to play. I wouldn't bother but you can do worse too. Passable is about right here.

Stillwater Middle School DGC has been around for seven years now and has exactly one review on this site before this one. That kind of tells you all you need to know about the course right there. That said, it's not as bad as I was anticipating it to be, but just barely. The course plays mostly around the edges of the track and field area with holes 1,2,8 and 9 being in a tiny little area on the east side of that track area. The others play around the border of it.

The baskets are older Mach's. Decent condition on these but they're not the greatest catchers of the disc. Good enough though. One basket and pin placement per hole.

The course does have some obstacles in the form of random track equipment, a small set of bleachers and some fences. A tree line does run along the left side on all the holes that run alongside the track too.

Free to play and should be well mowed being on school grounds. There were also restrooms available if you need to drop a deuce after dropping some deuces on the course.

The baskets are older and don't catch the best. A few of them are starting to lean a bit, or a lot.

No tee signs or pads. Not a huge deal for the pads. The grass was plenty fine for teeing off from. The navigation is impossible without a map unless you just play safari golf. Even then it'd play similar to the "intended" layout I played today.

The fences around the edges of the track, inside the bordering fences are easy enough to manage. The outer fences would be a pain in the ass to get a disc out of. Try your best to not throw over these. It kind of feels like you're playing disc golf in a prison yard with all the fences around you. So that's kind of a pro actually if you're a con.

A few neighboring yards could come into play but you'd need to shank a shot and punch through the trees to find these.

Hole 8 is a super short filler hole. Basically a waste of a basket. That was the leaniest basket at least.

Not playable during school hours or if any events are going on.

Avoid this one if at all possible. If you need to play it you better have the Udisc available or it'll be a total nightmare. It's manageable and just a bad dream with the map. Good to get this one off my radar at least.

Dodson DGC is a pretty fun and varied 9 hole course. The course starts out pretty short but heavily wooded for the first six holes before opening up in both space and distance for the last three holes. The woods holes offer some nice ace runs, though you need to hit your line and weigh the risk/reward of missing long. These have a surprisingly good mix of left to right and right to left shapes for so such a small sliver of woods. The last three, well two really, let you open up and air it out. These two holes are both par 5's and measure in at 433' and 671'.

The baskets are Mach III's. All are in good shape and catch pretty well. They're all painted orange except for one that's purple. Not sure why one's purple exactly but they all stand out nicely and the paint doesn't affect their catching ability. One basket and pin position per hole.

Concrete tee pads on each hole. These are all nicely done and of good size. There's even short pads on five of the nine holes which is great to have, especially on the much longer open holes.

Great design here. I'd played this one about four years ago and really enjoyed it. Liked it just as much my second time around. You'll need to be pretty decent to score well out here. Even the short holes are tough. I loved the different amount of shots available out here off the tee.

The flow is pretty easy to follow to. You won't need a map out here. You'll have to backtrack to the next tee in a few spots but it's pretty simple to figure out, plus there's little yellow plastic arrows on the top of the cage that point toward the next tee as well as a next tee arrow on the signs. Very straightforward.

Speaking of the tee signs, these are nice too. There's actually two on each hole. There's what I'm assuming are the originals which are just a yellow sign with a large number for the hole and the par and distance in smaller font below. Then there's the newer, more detailed ones below which have all that same info along with a pretty nice little hole map and the next tee arrows I mentioned above. Very well done here.

Free to play, clean and in kind of the middle of nowhere. very relaxing place to throw a round at.

A couple of the wooded holes are a little too tight for most players. If you're accurate with both a BH and FH you'll fair OK. But opening these up a little wouldn't be a bad idea. Not much, just a tad.

Not sure where the property line ends or anything but it'd be cool if they were able to expand this one to a full 18 at some point. There's space for sure north of the current course in the open prairie type area to potentially fit 9 more in. Not a con it'd probably get this place more visits.

Pretty far away from any major highways or cities. You'll need to be passing by or staying near here for this one to be practical to play.

The bugs are brutal. It's the middle of nowhere WI so that's to be expected though. Just be sure to bring bug spray.

One of the better courses, variety wise, in the state in my opinion. Absolutely worth a visit if you find yourself out this way. There's a very basic 9er just a few minutes away now too that should be available when schools out to make this one more tempting to bag. Pretty awesome 9 as a standalone course though anyway. Really like this one.

2 baskets per hole
longs are Marksmen
Shorts are regular DD Vet baskets
Good variety of shots even though the course is mostly open.

Most of the holes are pitch and putt for any seasoned player
Oh man, at least the day I played was super windy and there is nothing on the top of that hill to cut down the wind.

So, I was thinking I was just doing to play a quick little short course real fast. NOPE, This course is located on top of a hill and it uses the elevation very well.

Up and down, up and down. But it was a GREAT use of the hills. Over shot or miss your putt on some of the holes are you looking at a long come back.

Oh, I should mention there are 2 baskets on each hole. A short DD Vet basket, and a Long Marksmen just to piss you off.

I will say this, there are tree's in the park, but they tend to be few and far between. I think the designer did a decent job on the course design. If he had tree's, he used them. If there were not a lot of trees, you had the elevation to deal with .

I must also say not every hole is just up and down, you do have some that are almost on level ground, but it may have a drop off or OB that will come into play.

One hole even has an OB area marked off between the short and long basket.

So, this course is kind of a pitch and putt, but with plenty of elevation or using baskets you got to be dead on to finish the hole.

Would I play here again? yea, I think I would. it was so windy when I played it and I had already played 5 courses before this including 2 that could be considered championship or pro courses. I was tired. I would like another shot at this and might even venture to play the marksmen baskets instead of the Vet baskets.

I will preface this by saying a couple of holes and the usually recommended parking area are currently under construction for non disc golf related things.

I played this course once years ago when it was still Southern Poly, but didn't remember it well enough to review it. I think the course as it currently stands is slightly better than the original version.

There are now tee signs and pavers for tee pads that are quite nice. Though it's generally pretty short there is a good use of the trees such as they are and a little bit of elevation. Baskets are in good shape and number three is slightly elevated which is fun for a change.

I feel like you need a good roughly backhand and some sort of relatively straight shot to score here but for the target market of students after class and newer players it's a good intro to disc golf.

Biggest issue is if you play any time during class hours people are everywhere. I played after 5 on a summer weekday and it was basically fine but still a lot of cars around.

A bit of a one note course, which is fine for a beginner course but overall not much of a challenge. If you have a 300ft righty hyzer you should be able to score on most holes.

Navigation is tricky the first time and you can easily get turned around.

As we are generally not students we are not exactly the target market and registering a car/finding a visitor spot and the hassle that it is makes it question of its super worth it unless you have a local guide.

For it's intended purpose it's quite good and not a bad course for a campus, not on par with the best I've played at schools but far from the worst.

The property has enormous potential.

The pads are good.

The baskets are new.

The fairways are clear.

There's probably ghosts on the property.

The layout leaves the imagination wondering what it could be.

Have you ever thought to yourself, "wouldn't it be fun to chuck a disc right at someone else at the disc golf course?" Or, "wouldn't it be fun to have a disc thrown at me while I'm putting?"

No? Well what if I told you it's probably haunted and there's a filthy pond with an island that you don't get to play over and most holes are 300 or shorter? Sounds better already I know.

I won't spoil which holes put you in danger that's part of the fun of the thunderdome.

The property is beautiful and seems to be cut out of the former glory of a sprawling hospital complex that was abandoned featuring a large pond with an island that should have a basket on it and a tiny pond and some rolling hills through the woods.

Couple typical disc golf hole types including the classic power line easement, throwing over road, throwing over a valley instead of through it, down a hill, up a hill, edge of a hill. Some of the mature trees are massive and beautiful. Some of the cleared fairways are through what used to be thick undergrowth so if you like to shank drives don't do it on those holes. There's big gaps to hit if there are gaps it's very forgiving off the tee for novice players.

Hole 12 had evidence of a recent sanitary sewer overflow on one of the recently installed pvc lamp hole riser stacks leading to a manhole next to the pond and my friends disc landed in some of the mystery. Obviously the disc golf course can't do anything about what happens to the underground infastructure but it is there and does pose a slight health risk if it persists, if you play it and it's capped you're good to go, if it's uncapped, might want to decontaminate your disc before you throw it if it lands downstream of it.

The ground around the basket on hole 12 A position seems to be comprised of 1/3rd broken glass. Don't slip on the rock outcrop.

Several of the holes seem like filler material to get to other pieces of the property.

Lots of potential here for something amazing. As it sits it's leaving more to be desired from the land.

Had a good time will play again.