Pros:
Unique course in the UK - a true woods course with fun and fair holes. Huge variety of different holes testing a range of different shots for right and left handed players. 14 holes were cut through dense woodland to produce a beautiful course in the heart of the country. There's no following walking trails here, the holes have been cut with specific ideas in mind.
3 Tees - Blue playing currently about 935 to par with extensions on two holes expected to take this to 950.
Whites playing about 920 to par
Yellows - beginner 9 hole for families and first time players.
Restraurant and campsite on site. great facilities.
Peaceful and serene course playing through 30 acres of mixed woodland on the side of a shallow hill.
Lovely tee posts produced from some of the felled trees and superb tee signs and other signage.
Cons:
Woods can get crowded on a summers day with the campsite kids.
A couple of the holes (5 and first half of 16) are on the edge of throw and hope. 5 is to be professionally thinned in the next few months and the character should change dramatically when it does.
Tees are not finished yet but will only be woodchip in the short term.
Some hole son the short side and lacking a couple more longer ones
holes 8 and 9 are very similar but good holes.
holes 7 and 17 are carbon copies of each other.
The rough is still very rough in places but is already starting to thin out. Loads more work is being undertaken by the grounds crew.
Other Thoughts:
So yes, hands up, I'm the designer. I love this place. It's been a huge project over the last six months and a phenomenal amount of work has gone in to the course with 14 fairways cut through dense undergrowth. I've bled for this place and got scars in places I didn't know you could.
If you want another review from another reviewer, go and find one. Please. Encourage them to review some of the courses in the UK. I beg you. I'm fed up with it just being me. If you can't find one though, sit back, buckle up, read this and hope that I can be a bit subjective, probably not, but i'm all you've got so suck it up!
Cotswold View is beautiful. It's a beautiful place, the campsite, the B and B, the woods the fields, the view, it's all beautiful. It's a great place to come to and stay at. I don;t ever want to leave. The course is fun to play, every hole sets different challenges and asks for a range of shots to complete them. You'll feel you've been tested at the end but you'll also have enjoyed a number of birdie ops and ace runs. It's designed to not be a woodsy slog. If there's a hard hole (120 meter sinuous fairway) it's followed swiftly by an apparently easy hole (60 meter uphill tricky one) It's designed to give you the light relief to go with the punishing blows.
It starts you off easy, almost too easy, hole 1 at 75 meters across an open field gets you to the tree line. Easy right? crash it with a hyzer and away you go. Just make sure you've read the prevailing right to left well, if you are 3 meters to the left of the basket or more you can find a world of deep bushy trouble. It then jumps into two and three, two very characterfull holes that wind through a huge mix of different trees, 3 is a monster currently par 3 but with a 4 position in the works taking it back another 35 meters, 2 is a tricky winding 85 meter hole finishing right with a couple of avenues into the basket, both are extremely picturesque.
You jump straight onto 4 and see the easy uphill tunover line you want to throw, make sure you force it over though or the one tree that grabs everyone will get you too. And on it goes, hole after hole of totally different golf one hole to the next - here's a 350' backhand turnover line thorugh a tight tunnel, here's a 55 meter backhand flat to fade through an even tighter tunnel, here's a 360' downhill blast of the ride, et. etc. .
The signature is hole 11, a stunning par 4 at the bottom of the course that takes you across the ride through thick woodland to the guardian pines and then crests the hill and drifts down the funnel to the basket at the edge of the beeches on the way in to the blackness beyond It's a beauty and one that often hides deer in the long grass for a little lighthearted surprise!.
Playing the Blue tees feels like a very different course from playing the White tees with a few totally different fairways to the same baskets, it is not just a shorter version but a very different layout and round.
discs are available for hire and in time purchase, campers can play for free. come here, play here, remember why you love the game, this course will help you do just that.
The course is something very different for England and is a must play for Disc Golfing tourists hitting the country.
Did I sound biased? Yeh, but honestly, I'm not wrong!
Edit* So finally my cajoling has worked and people in the UK are reviewing thanks!!! (although you've made me look a bit stupid in this review....)