Pros:
Designed and manicured very well. Lots of perfectly placed autumn olive shrubs and the like make its many open holes not feel at all like open holes.
Long and short tees and baskets for each hole means 18^4 different game permutations are available! Long tee to long basket setup is over 9,500 feet for the pro and advanced player. Short to short is in the 4,500 feet range, and you could devise anything between the two to suit your desires. There's something for everybody.
Artificial O.B. is created niftily in many spots throughout the course. There are several unique features, too, such as the brick wall on #2's long tee, the "island" basket placement nearer the end of the course, and the breathtaking use of box elder trees that grew diagonally for the long tee on one of the holes later in the course.
Pay to enter and pay to play (as much as $9/day for out-of-county residents) probably helps keep the riff-raff to a minimum.
Cons:
Anything in the "con" category is merely nit-picking...
I dislike the basket placements on top of pimple-like artificial mounds.
There could be a few more tightly wooded holes to balance the game-feel. Only #8 sticks out in my memory as I sit here as primarily a wooded hole.
The logistics between #10, #11 and #15 can be confusing if you miss the signs.
Other Thoughts:
Burchfield Park (in combination with the brand-new River course) is a destination Disc Golf facility all day long. I played it today for the first time, and the excitement I've got is similar to when Hudson Mills first put in their Monster course back in about 1997, and many of the holes feel similar. In fact, my 79 and 81 playing the Long to Long setup is commensurate to what I'd shoot playing Hudson Mills' Monster...except that Burchfield is only 18 holes, HMM 24!...and I loved nearly every inch of it.
I want to draw particular attention to Hole #10. Every course should have several holes like this one. It's not even close to the best hole here in terms of cool terrain, unusual trees, or some sort of unique device on it (such as #2's brick wall!), and it's dead flat in terms of elevation, but I just adore the designer's eye for creating an actual GOLF hole here. There is risk/reward if you choose to go right...You risk going O.B. due to the perfectly-placed park road, and if your Disc barely peters off to the left, you've got the large circle of dense shrubbery...BUT, if you pinpoint a great 300ish foot drive, you've got an easier (not a breeze, though!) upshot at the basket. If the drive to the right seems too risky for your desires at the moment, you can instead aim way left and have a longer, tighter tunnel to the basket for a second shot. Less risk at the beginning, but more at the middle to end of this option. #10 is simple, yet outstanding...And I'd like to see a lot more of this kind of thing throughout all of our courses (especially since it doesn't take a lot of special terrain or obstacles to make it happen).
The four permutation-per-hole setup is...is...astonishingly awesome, and this layout is a prime example of how you're supposed to make "open" holes. My 1996 self is giddy to see that we've finally arrived at a time and place in our sport's history when courses like this seem to be popping up on the map all the time. To think I used to travel this far for courses much more banal...