Pros:
Central Park in Oakbrook, Illinois hosts one of the better nine hole layouts that I've encountered. This is the 2nd layout in this park. The redesign was necessitated by the park district's plans to build a field turf soccer field, maintenance garage, and a wilderness area (which is now inexplicably a foot golf course) using most of the foot print of the old course. Additional, wooded land was allocated to disc golf and after what looks like a ton of work, Oakbrook had a disc golf course again. I believe only one old fairway was partially repurposed (old 7/new 1), but it's hard to tell due to the amount of tree/brush clearing in that part of the park. The old course required you to hit a fairly tight gap on 2, maybe 3 holes. The new layout asks you to do that on at least 5 (consecutive) holes.
The course opens up with 2 fairly open holes with enough mature trees to keep you honest. Then you walk. Then you play 5 challenging, tightly wooded holes. These holes are no joke, featuring tight lines with rough that's not conducive to heroic saves. Hole 8 is mostly open, but the basket is on a slope that is made for rollaways. Hole 9 give big arms a chance to gain a stroke by clearing the water off the tee. Pretty wild finishing hole for a 9er.
Equipment is solid. There's a nice course map by the practice basket (original basket location for old hole 6). Most holes have at least 2 tees and some feature 3. Longest tees are large, level paver tees. All other tees are similarly sized, but use a nice artificial turf. Detailed signs are located at the longest tee. Baskets are Mach Vs with the numberplate.
There are a ton of different looks off the tee here. More than half of the holes really change the look between the tees. Some of the wooded holes feature totally different fairways for half the hole. A few holes also have a 2nd pin placement. With that said, you need to throw a lot of straight shots, either with slight turn or fade.
What elevation change there exists is well used. Hole 5 is a fun, tight downhill through the woods to a green on a tall mound. Hole 6 plays back up the same hill. Hole 8 tees from the flat, but the basket is on the side of a man made sled hill.
Cons:
Due to the patchwork nature of the land left over for the disc golf course, routing is a little janky. After the first two holes, you walk 500+ feet down a service road to get to hole 3. Hole 9 finishes close to hole 2s tee and hole 1s green. Depending on where you parked, you either walk around the soccer field or across the 1 to 2 transition to get back to your car. The closest, most obvious, parking to hole 1's tee is apparently not the intended lot because you'll never encounter the practice basket or course sign if you park there. They mean for you to park in the lot by the fitness center, but if you drive in for the first time looking for baskets or tees, that's likely not where you'll end up. Not something that would affect my rating, but I found it weird enough to mention.
In some areas the course equipment leaves something to be desired. While the tees are all amply sized, for some reason they were all framed with wood that sticks up at least 2" above the tee surface. It shouldn't mess with your runup unless you're a Conrad disciple, but be careful not to trip while admiring/bemoaning your shot. While the tee signs are nice, they are only at the long tees and this isn't the sort of course where you're always walking by the longs to get to the shorts. I can't tell if these are the original baskets, but they look it. Still catch fine though.
Although this redesign is now 10+ years old, in some ways it still feels like a work in progress. I had assumed, given the amount of money the park district has to work with that all tees would eventually have nice signs like the ones at the longs. No dice. There are a few trees on 5's mound green that were marked for removal when the course went in but are still there with spray paint x's. The huge brush pile (from the fairway clearing) in the woods between 5 and 6 is mostly still there. It doesn't affect hole 5, but it's adjacent to 6's green and gives the hole an unfinished look. A couple of the holes (especially 7, but also 3) feel a bit too tight. Early on, I thought a tree or two would eventually get removed after play testing, but no dice.
Other Thoughts:
I've complained a lot about what is, in reality, a really good 9er. It's hard for me to be objective though. I played my 2nd ever round of disc golf at the original Oakbrook course and probably 95% of my rounds over the next year or so were played there. Old hole 9, at 360', was out of my realistic range at the time but circumstances lined up a handful of times. I missed all those long putts. Lots of great memories and some unfinished business.
So, anyway, I'm biased and in many ways, the (not so) new Oakbrook is exactly what the Chicago suburbs need. A tight, wooded antidote to all those loose, grassy fields.