Pros:
-some challenging holes
-more technical than most local courses
-definitely not crowded
- beautiful scenery, plenty of wildlife
Cons:
-not much variation
-usually just one path to the basket
-the baskets are nearly impossible to see against the background
-extremely tight
-in the middle of nowhere
Other Thoughts:
Haw River Nature Trail is a short little course that really requires you to follow the intended line, and often that line is extremely tight. There's no place aside from holes 5 & 9 where you can let it loose, and even then it's probably not the best idea. It's definitely a great course to practice your control, but there are more enjoyable courses to do that.
The tees are wood chips, but as there's really no need to let loose anywhere it isn't an issue. The tee signs are quite nice, the course map adequate, and the scorecards are beautiful. They wisely set up the card so you can play and score two rounds in a row. The real letdown is the baskets, a set of old Chainstars, which might as well be invisible. Good luck finding them in the pics I took. They weren't any easier finding in person, and the never-ending foliage makes it difficult to judge distances as well.
The designer, who wasn't listed, took care to make each hole different, which was appreciated, but all the holes are very short. Holes 5-9 are the most interesting. 5 finally opens up a bit, and 6 provides some well-needed length. 7 welcomes a steep drop off behind and to the right of the basket leading to a creek bed which was a surprise I didn't see from the tee. 8 consists of a steep uphill grade that is longer than it looks, and 9 is your really only opportunity to air it out, though "it" for most players is only a midrange driver. It also ends just feet away from the first tee, which leads to another issue- several of the baskets are extremely close to the next pad. However, as I don't expect much traffic on the course, it's probably not that big of an issue. As a filler course it's just fine, but it's too isolated and too short for anyone but the golfer who is a completist. Perhaps if they thinned it out a bit and installed some baskets that you could see I'd enjoy it more, but there was too narrow a line, too little to keep me interested, and waaaayyyy too many spider webs for me to spend much time here.