Pros:
- great incorporation of natural elevation change from some high hills all the way down to dropoff into a natural creek
- full color tee signs
- quality Dynamic Discs Veteran baskets in great shape
- well mown and maintained park
- some garbage cans and benches
- really cool shots on holes 5 and 6 along creek ravine
- some decent technical challenge for a city park with plenty of tree obstacles requiring accurate throws
Cons:
- some pretty big safety concerns
- tee signs all seem to point wrong directions, and a couple are missing
- concrete tees, but the most ridiculously narrow ones I've ever seen
- shared space with walking path, skatepark, playground, etc.
Other Thoughts:
Overall, I enjoyed Carl Albert Park. My main concern was safety, as this is a heavily multi-use park and the disc golf course, while generally having some of its own space, plays very close to a lot of other activities, particularly the walking path. There are also some downright dangerous plays near roads/parking lots with hole 1 being the biggest violator. Throwing across the road leading into the parking lot is a no-no for me.
With that being said, this course is a lot of fun. There's great elevation change, particularly on holes 1-3. Add natural obstacles from trees and other plants and these are holes with some decent challenge. Holes 7-9 probably are the most basic with more open and flat space, but the course is an enjoyable mix of shots. I really prefer courses like this to be 9 holes and not try to do to much. These are 9 good holes and cramming more into this space would just create repetition and cut length from good holes. I do wish the creek could be incorporated a bit more, but considering it appears to be on the edge of the park I think the designers used it as well as they could.
Hopefully the course is just undergoing some maintenance, because when I was there multiple tee signs were up out of the ground. The remainder seem to face weird directions not corresponding to the throw direction, which is rather confusing. Thankfully, the full color maps on the tee signs made it clear where to throw next. I found navigation here a bit confusing. There are 2 parking lots you can use; hole 1 is close to the larger parking lot that you will pass first (closer to major roads). If you are getting to the pool area you have gone too far and will end up in the lot between holes 2 and 3.
The concrete tees here are apparently an improvement over the original natural tees, but they are ridiculously narrow. I've never seen anything like this. I made them work but I don't know who came up with this. Ironically, they're quite long and probably used as much concrete as a "normal" tee.
This park is light on some of the amenities, but most park district type parks are. I had an enjoyable round here and as long as you can look out for the safety hazards, I expect others will enjoy it too.