Having started to tackle courses across the Triangle, I was surprised that one of the better 9-holers was tucked in the back of the neighborhood. That's what you get with Ellis Crossing.
- The best holes here are the ones that incorporated elevation. #2 is an uphill, dogleg right. #3 is a quick, slight drop-off towards and beyond the basket. #5 also is a slight downhiller. And #9 is a fun uphiller. Upslope allows players to be aggressive so long as they're not throwing big air shots.
- Wooded layout throughout. As such, the 1600-foot layout plays significantly tougher than one would expect.
- You must hit your lines to see birdies. You miss your lines, you're hitting trees.
- As such, a very high risk-vs-reward factor. One slightly off-line tee shot and one bad kick off a tree and you could be deep in the woods. Yes, the possibility of having to scramble for a par on a 150-foot hole is a real possibility here.
- That said, you could simply jump putt, throw 75-to-100-foot tee shots, keep it in the fairway, and have simple par 3s on every hole. Try that approach and tell me how much how you had playing here.
- It's a good course for beginners. I feel this is a good second course after beginners have played an open layout, and now need a little challenge and humiliation.
- Easy course to navigate. Follow the path. There's nothing else out here.
- Great course to have in your neighborhood. Surprisingly, a good layout for a neighborhood/HOA to invest resources into.

There's enough room for about 6 cars in this parking lot/cul-de-sac. I guess you can easily park in front of houses. But, if you're a non-resident of the neighborhood, you probably don't want to be drawing too much attention to yourself.
- I think the course is open to the public. Even if it's not, you're probably good if you keep a low profile while playing.
- Zero amenities here: no trash cans, benches, or bathrooms. A round should only be 20-30 minutes so you should be ok.
- A couple of dud holes. #1could have been better. Nothing from #6 to 8 is memorable. Three days after playing, even looking at my photos, I don't remember #7 at all.

For a small neighborhood course, Ellis Crossing is solid. For an AcePlace course, this is more challenging than most. For a course with no holes longer than 210 feet, this is probably about as good as you'll find.
- That said, it felt somewhat ho-hum. I liked 4, maybe 5 holes. The other half of the course was just filler.
- Honestly, I'd be very content playing #2 & 9 multiple times over some of the other holes.
- This would be a good course for practice. If you need to work on scrambling, pick almost any point on any of these fairways and start tossing discs.
- For a short course, I can see there being a decent scoring separation between a good and bad round. For someone of my skill level, there'd have to be a lot of luck, and maybe an ace thrown in to realistically see 8 or 9 under. On a bad day, or even just a slightly off-line day, I could see almost entirely pars on my scorecard.
- All that said, I'm saying this is probably a very average 9-hole layout. I fully expect some people to really enjoy this place and others to just write it off.