Glen Helen Regional Park is one of many San Bernardino County parks, and has a very similar vibe as the other two courses in these parks, Prado and Yucaipa. All of the fairways are grass, with a variety of trees scattered throughout.
During our visit, the course was still under construction. There were only flags to mark the tee pads, and there were no directional signs pointing to the next tee. Both of these will be necessary in the long run due to the length of the course, however these missing elements were not factored into my rating.
The course begins at a lower section of the park, with probably the three easiest holes on the course. While close to each other, enough foliage exists to separate the fairways and create obvious lines and specific shot selections.
While these first three holes may have seduced you into thinking you are going to tear this course up, this all changes at hole 4. A very long uphill shot, with a mandatory requiring you to shoot around a left turning curve with an OB road. This leads you to drive into essentially the fairway for holes 8 and 9, but there should be enough space for all of the holes to be played simultaneously. Hole 5 is similar, continuing around the left turn, however the pin on this hole is in a brushy area with a considerable drop off behind it.
After a short uphill shot, the course begins to work its way downward. Hole 7 is a wonderful, long downhill shot, however BE WARNED that the brush on the left is totally inundated with poison oak. If you are immune, there are two discs in there somewhere with phone numbers on them
Continuing downhill, you play right alongside the holes that led you to this area. These are slightly graded downhill holes, that more or less have trees, but they are all small and the general strategy was just to go up and over them.
Hole 10 is by far the longest hole on the course, working down a considerable hill then another 500 feet out across a flat fairway. A large oak at the beginning really determines how you are going to play this hole, as it blocks most of the fairway, and shooting to the left will result in OB, or at the very least, some disc finding time.
Honestly, after hole 10, we started getting kind of bored with the place. Another park shot, around some trees, pin over here, tee pad over there, blah blah blah. 11 - 15 are all very basic, par 3, flat park holes with scattered trees, but not enough to force any crazy decisions or wacky shots.
16 and 17 are across the parking lot and sort of out of the way, and are by far the most lackluster holes on the course. Essentially, they are pitch and putts on open fields. There is a lake behind them that doesn't come into play, and I guess the scenery there is their only saving grace.
Crossing the parking lot again, you reach 18, another flat hole with no tee, fairway, or pin protection. People seem to use pin 18 as a practice pin (its near hole 1, and there is no practice pin), so keep an eye out and make sure you don't nail anyone.
Our immediate thoughts after playing the course is that it started out strong and fun, but lost all of its personality by the end. Perhaps utilizing the back half of the course at the beginning would have created a design that would be more fun to finish and make people want to come out again. Inconsistent grass over most of the course prevents any consistency with rollers. Weird gopher holes and mounds of dirt are everywhere, so even if it appears to be easy footing, you still need to keep your eye out at all times. We were joking around and referring to it as 'sloppy prado,' since it basically played the same way but had more random crap (mounds of dirt, poison oak, picnic pavilions, grass changes). Big arms will enjoy their time here, to the extent that most of the course requires a long drive to have placement for any possible birdie action. That being said, it was not particularly scenic to me, it felt scattered, and it just always felt like something great was going to happen, but then it never did. I am glad the Inland Empire got yet another p2p course, but that being said if I am golfing in the area I will probably skip it and go straight to Sky High or Yucaipa.