Pros:
The course at Joe Cowan park is a great example of fitting a course into an existing park that was not made with a course in mind.
It has been a fairly busy multi sport park for years in a fairly rural area, and while the elementary school down the street has a "course" this is the first real effort in the immediate area with Deerfield being about 10 miles east of this location. Mainly used for baseball, tennis and the walking path it's a busy park on the weekend and seems pretty well maintained.
The course begins by the tennis courts and though hole 1 is totally open the rest of the course makes use of the tree cover and is used as an element on the majority of the remaining holes. 14/15 and 18 being exceptions.
The course is fairly flat but makes good use of elevation where it exists. Holes 4, 7 and 12 come to mind.
There is also a creek that runs though a lot of the other holes and creates some fun death putts and poor shot punishers.
The pads are new and pretty nice, plenty grippy and reasonably sized.
Baskets are Innova Discatchers and they have some elevated baskets which is a fun challenge.
If the walking paths are OB, which I assume they are it adds some nice challenges in choosing a shot shape and landing area. Shot shaping is something you will need to do here. If you want birdies manipulating the angles will be key.
Navigation for the most part is very easy, and there are next tee signs almost everywhere that you might need them.
Cons:
As with any course that is in a previously existing park it's going to have its foibles. There are a few holes that have the walking path intersecting with the intended line, sometimes with minimal visibility, which could be problematic.
A couple of the holes have really extreme shot shapes. 3 and 5 come to mind. I don't have an issue with it as a design choice but making hole 7(450+ uphill shot) a par 3 has drawn some early ire from some players.
On hole 8 a fence is on line with the shot about 40 ft in front of the tee, it's an added challenge but I wonder if shorter players will be unfairly punished.
No benches yet, and all signage is handwritten at this stage. I'll update if this changes.
It's more odd than bad, but the baskets here are mounted lower than average.
Other Thoughts:
Overall the course is good, and it would be hard to make a course that is markedly better on this piece of property. There are imperfections and some things that could have been done differently but overall it's a very solid effort.
It's honestly a fun course as well. There are funky shots, a couple of long bombs, ace runs, death putts and the variety gives it a high degree of playability.
It reminds me a lot of the community courses that used to me more common 10 years ago. A nice design, somewhat shoehorned into an existing park and adding some spice to the location.
In many ways it feels a little old school, but that's not a bad thing. I think for players that are starting their disc golf journey this will be a great place to hone their skills and there are enough tricky shots that an experienced player can not expect to come out and shoot a ridiculously low score every time.
Good job to the team that created this new course!