Dubuque, IA

Crystal Lake Cave

15(based on 2 reviews)
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4 0
Johnsondere
Silver level trusted reviewer
Experience: 1.3 years 136 played 83 reviews
1.00 star(s)

It had promise drive by

Reviewed: Played on:Dec 12, 2020 Played the course:2-4 times

Pros:

- 9 Holes of disc golf surrounding the Crystal Lake Caves
- Plenty of elevation for a 9 hole course
- Navigation is simple
- Tee signs and concrete pads for each hole
- Solid prodigy baskets

Cons:

- Not a well maintained course (reasoning in other)
- Some of the holes play over the driveway, can get tricky when cars are there.
- The driveway is not plowed right away in the winter. Can get very tricky...I got my car stuck...LOL

Other Thoughts:

This course was put in by Kronk Disc Golf at the request of the previous owner. She felt that adding a 9 hole disc golf course to the caves would be a great addition to the area. Since then she has passed away and the maintenance of the course has gone down. Overall the course is fun to play but with the current conditions, probably wouldn't go back.
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7 0
wolfhaley
Diamond level trusted reviewer
Premium Member
Experience: 20.5 years 1165 played 745 reviews
1.00 star(s)

Reviewed: Played on:Aug 12, 2023 Played the course:once

Pros:

Crystal Lake Cave DGC is a pay to play 9 hole course that wraps around the building for the cave. There's a good amount of elevation in play here to go along with enough trees to keep things interesting.

The baskets are Yellow banded Prodigy's. These are all in great shape and caught nicely. Same color scheme as Discatchers so that means that they're easy to spot. All of these were mounted nicely too. One basket and pin position per hole.

Concrete tees on each hole. Nicely sized, level, and grippy. These are more than enough for a course of this length. One tee per hole.

The course plays on the shorter side with all the holes being between 140' to 280'. Only two holes are under 200' so the lengths are all pretty similar for the most part. They play quite a bit different though due to the elevation in play here.

There are tee signs at every hole. They have the basic info on them to get you around. Hole map. hole #, par and distance. They also have any applicable OB listed which is a bonus.

Cons:

The course appears to not have been mowed all year. A couple months at the very least. There's knee to waist high prairie grass on the fairways of holes 3 through 9. Hole 1 has a gulley in front of the basket that had 5 to 6 ft tall weeds ands nettles in it. Hole 2 was the only hole that was legit "playable".

The tee signs aren't even attached to anything on most of the holes. They're just laying on the ground or the frames of the tee pads. It's a miracle most of them were still there.

Holes 1 and 2 throw over the entrance road. There were cars parked all along this road on a hot mid August afternoon making the first two holes borderline unplayable. Extra obnoxious for it being a pay to play.

Hole 5 tees off blind over a rise to a basket mere feet from hole 6's tee. Ditto for holes 7 and 8. Terrible design if there's more than one group out here.

Other Thoughts:

It's called Crystal Cave for a reason. There's a pretty cool cave onsite that you can tour, which we did. Definitely worth the price of admission for this. The disc golf? Not so much.

If this course would've been maintained even slightly it would've been a pretty solid course. The condition it was in when I played it was unacceptable for a pay to play. Early or late in the year would be fine if they just let it grow. Summer should be avoided at all costs. The design flaws are pretty terrible too. I'm feeling very generous giving it a 1.
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