Pros:
Hood River DGC sits in a small (maybe 3 acre) extremely rugged park across the street from a skateboard park. There were about 50 kids skating while I had the park to myself. I sensed some kind of weird vibe from this. Stepping up to hole one, there is a sign pointing down and saying, "This is poison oak. Please don't remove this." And then naturally, there is nothing there so walking through the rest of the course I'm paranoid about stepping into poison oak.
Hole # 1 is listed at 220' to a blind basket. I consider skipping it due to the risk/reward of hunting for my disc in these poison oak infested roughs. But I throw a couple of overly cautious short lay ups finally finding the basket.
# 2. This hole is 420' into the Bermuda Triangle of lost discsville. I call this a NFW hole. Meaning there's No F- - - - - - Way I'm risking it.
# 3. I wander for a while and finally find the basket I just skipped and the # 3 teepad. It's short and almost safe.
#4 teepad was back with the #2 pad so you have to backtrack to get back to it. #4 is also a NFW hole.
So now I walk back to the pad where both # 3 and # 5 tee off from. By the way, this pad is about 50 feet from I-84. Cars are whizzing by at a 100 miles an hour right next to you. I think I might be clipped by one while in the middle of my back swing. But # 5 is a playable little hole.
# 6 is a short 179' little hyser shot.
# 7 Another NFW hole. I estimate needing five spotters minimum before playing this hole.
# 8 is 173' to a basket so buried that it qualifies as a NFW hole. Probably the shortest NFW hole in America.
# 9 Plays back towards the skateboard park, I think. It's another major NFW hole. The only route I saw was throwing along the street and then sending explorers to find the basket.
On the plus side, lately someone has actually done some mowing or weed-wacking on the course. Probably the FBI looking for bodies.
Cons:
Holes will here by be referred to by the PDGA and DGCR recommended number of spotters needed formula (RNOSNF) or by the more familiar RNOSNF. Pronounced Rhino-SNFFF.
Hole 1 - 1-2 spotters recommended
Hole 2 - A minimum of 5
Hole 3 - 0-1
Hole 4 - A minimum of 5
Hole 5 - Only 1
Hole 6 - 0
Hole 7 - 4-5
Hole 8 - 3-5
Hole 9 - 4 plus
Other Thoughts:
My advice here consists of two options:
Option # 1. With Parks department approval, Using park approved heavy machinery, cut, clear and trim about 90% of the underbrush. Leave baskets where they currently are.
Option # 2. Move every basket closer so that every basket is visible from pad. This would probably leave you with a course with no hole longer than 100 feet. A virtual disc golf pitch and putt course. But that would be much improved over the current inpervious thickety design.