Pros:
Cane Creek is sprawled out in a lightly used area of Cane Creek Park. This has the makings of a great, out-of-the-way course, making it worth the drive.
- An almost exclusively wooded course. Darn you hole #2 and your filler existence. Being a wooded course, you get all the good and bad aspects of that: everything from being heavily shaded to run ins with wildlife.
- Course gets progressively better. Take advantage of the first five holes all being birdie chances before you get to the course's longest hole, #6 at 522 feet. Despite being the longest, I felt it might be the course's worst.
- By the time you get to hole #8, you get your first look at the lake. Enjoy it being a scenic backdrop on this hole, for it's in play on the next two holes. #9 has you throwing over the water, a very common trope of throwing over a small corner of water back to the basket far on the other side. On #9 & 10, the water isn't a factor unless you hit a tree/branch and get a bad bounce, or just throw your shot WAY, WAY, WAY too far right. Me? I got a double bouncer on #10 and had my disc sink in the water 15 feet out. In December, that disc suffered a hypothermic demise.
- The back 9 is fantastic. Really, from #8 - 16 is a fantastic, more advanced layout; while, the other nine holes (#1-7 & 17-18) are the easier layouts. The most creative layouts are the back nine. The first seven holes are all relatively forgetful, or wanted to be forgotten - #6.
- The course is relatively flat, but it does use elevation smartly when it is used. Most of it is the simpler straight up or straight down layouts - #1, for example. #11 - 13 give you a great taste of smart elevation layouts.
- #11 is an uphill, sharp dogleg right layout. It's only 260 feet, but feels much longer because of its design. Play it conservatively and you should have an easy 3. Try to be aggressive, and you'll be trying to salvage a 4.
- #12 is a longer layout - 376 feet - with a dogleg left starting halfway down the fairway. Course is flat until the green, with a steep drop-off in the couple feet around the basket. It makes a simple approach shot suddenly extremely daunting.
- #13 is a short hole - 203 feet - that plays over a valley. In the winter, the leaves stopped my disc from rolling downhill. In the summer, probably not. A fun, simple layout.
- Fantastic park overall. This is probably the best, close campground Charlotteans have been using forever. When we want to go camping, but don't want to go far, it's been Cane Creek for decades. The park has everything you could want for a family weekend getaway - from swimming and mini golf - to fishing and running trails. You're out in the middle of nowhere, but still 15 minutes from anything you need in Waxhaw.
- 'THIS IS NOT A WALKING TRAIL.' I absolutely loved the amount of warning signs throughout the course telling walkers to get off the course. For as much as the course and its paths intertwined with the walking trails, this was wonderful. Now, if we could get signs like this on some of the Charlotte courses, I'd be even happier.
Cons:
The course still needs to be smoothed out. A lot of awkwardly angled/designed holes. A lot of narrow fairways that will feel narrower when the leaves are on trees. A lot of long walks between holes. A lack of tee signs, benches, or trash cans on the course.
- The course feels like it teeters back and forth between who it's designed for. As mentioned above, it feels like a tail of two 9-hole layouts (1-7 & 17,18 vs 8-16. One of them offers most of the birdie chances; the other offers the challenge.
- If you break it down, the shorter nine is 2477 feet; the longer is 2950, an average difference of 52 feet per hole.
- I played in December, when the leaves were down, and a lot of the holes still felt tight. I was able to take advantage of the lack of leaves on the trees. For the other 8 months a year, this would be a tight course without those bail out lines.
- Too many blind holes for a course of this length and skill level. Without tee signs, I ended up throwing putter off the tee on some of the longer holes, such as #6, and just kept on following the bends in the fairway. All that said, never threw a shot longer than 200 feet and still ended up with an easy par 5.
- Layout doesn't seem like it's optimized. I get why #1 was built - the classic tight, downhill hole. But, because of that, you have a couple filler holes around the outside of a baseball field. With as much great terrain being unused, there's a valid argument to eliminate the first several holes (at least the first 3) and replace them with better land. That would keep the entire course (and parking) on one side of the park service road. More important, it would eliminate some of the ridiculously long walks. The walk from #6 to 7 alone, could be filled with two holes.
- Natural tee pads. A couple weren't completely flat. Throw in wet, slick leaves and I wasn't risking full run-ups on any hole.
Other Thoughts:
I enjoyed Cane Creek more and more throughout my round. Hole #1 was a great start. The next couple holes were ho-hum. After a frustratingly long walk from #6 to 7, the course finally hit its stride.
- The course is out there. Charlotte disc golfers aren't known to travel outside of the county. So, driving this far out means Cane Creek won't be getting a lot of play. (It's a long 35-40 minutes past Elon Park). Organizers will have to get creative with tourneys, taking advantage of the camping, to make this course known.
- I want to see the course make the necessary improvements. Tee signs and tee pads are a must, preferably sooner rather than later. Benches would be nice, especially near the lake. If I'm going to rest, I want to soak in some great views.
- The course, in and of itself, is excellent. I enjoyed an overwhelming majority of the holes. It's all the other 'stuff' that was frustrating. When you're taking long walks through the woods, transitioning from one hole to the next, you notice all this unused space. When this unused space has much more elevation than the filler holes, you can't help but think.
- This is another solid Union County course. Just like Wingate and Dry Creek, this is a great play. It's just so far out of the way. You can play the pitch-n-putt Waxhaw course a couple miles up the road. Otherwise, take advantage of everything else Cane Creek has to offer and make it a fun outdoor day.