Pros:
- beautifully manicured park with native flowers throughout
- lightly wooded with some decent technical challenge from mature trees
- decent equipment - concrete tees, Innova DISCatcher baskets, color tee signs with maps
- wood chips on ground to prevent mud
- gravel around some baskets
- most navigation is pretty clear
- rough is generally more forgiving than others have noted
- multiuse park has general park amenities in areas outside of disc golf course
- course is mostly in a dedicated area away from other park activities
- hole numbers on baskets
- course sign at beginning with map
Cons:
- concrete tees are very narrow
- mostly flat
- fairly easy with not a ton of challenge for more advanced players
- a few significant safety hazards, including crossing fairways and blind tee shots
- a little backtracking
- no real amenities on course; no practice basket
Other Thoughts:
I think Central Park in Oak Brook is still my preferred Central Park (and a lot more challenging), but I really enjoyed my round at Central Park of Grayslake. While the course is in a heavily used multi-use park, the disc golf course was isolated and deserted. This is one of the prettier parks I've been to in the Chicago suburbs, with well mown and maintained fairways, abundant native flowers, and several fallen trees (not obstructing play) with some interesting bark falling off all over. I got to know the bark firsthand trying to climb up on to a trunk looking for a disc, only to lose my balance and fall off sending bark exploding into little bits and raining down into my shoes - go me.
This course is a little low on the technical challenge. It does incorporate a few minor rolling hills, and about half the holes have some decent distance. Overall, it is quite short, fairly open, and doesn't have a huge amount of intrigue that would prompt driving a distance. I think the natural beauty of the course, which may not be world-class but is quite high for Chicagoland, made a soft spot in my heart for this one - I'd probably put it as high as a 2.75 personally.
Other reviewers have noted the rough being bad - I didn't really find this to be the case. There is some ability to lose a disc here, but most holes aren't exceptionally long, and most rough is pretty short and open. Perhaps in late summer it would be worse than in the first days of June.
The biggest cons here are the crossing fairways on 6 and 7, which have been thoroughly documented. This always makes me sad on an otherwise very nice course; there surely was another way to lay this out. This does cause a bit of backtracking, as does the play from 4 to 5, but this isn't too bad, and most navigation is pretty clear. The course sign shows the map and it is also available on DGCR. Hole 7 also had a bit of a minor safety hazard in that you really can't see the basket from the tee. It follows the fairway so that's the best guide.
On hole 9, I did have to shorten it up a bit due to pavilions being in use for parties and people walking everywhere - this was the only hole that was really impacted by other park activities. While some of the holes are a bit on the short side, this is a fun course that I think is worth playing. It's kind of a combination of pitch and putt with several longer holes you'd actually use your driver for - a bit for everyone. There are many 9 holes near this one so it's worth a short trip if admittedly not a longer one.