Pros:
(1.074 Rating) A lightly wooded city park course that's good for beginners and for those wanting to work on distance.
- LENGTH FOR A NINE - I've only played a handful of longer 9 hole courses to date. Four holes over 350 feet and one is over 450 feet in length. With the course being as open as it is, it's perfect for the player practicing to increase their driving distance.
- QUICK TO PLAY - A had this one wrapped up in under 30 minutes and I spent some time photographing the course to post to this site. Figure a group of four or a small family could have this one tackled in an hour or so.
- BEGINNER FRIENDLY - This is the kind of course to bring newer players to. Ivan K Hill is a very forgiving layout with just about no overgrowth. There is water in play on (4) and (5), but the creek is shallow and less than 10 feet wide. So a stick should easily be able to fish a disc out.
Cons:
A lot of issues this course.
- REUSED BASKETS - Basket (2) is also Basket (8). Basket (3) is also Basket (7). This is really going to cause some flow issues when there are multiple groups on the course.
- BASKET AND TEE SEPERATION - Other than tee (1) all the tees are located within 25 feet of the prior basket. Again, this is really going to cause some flow issues when there are multiple groups on the course.
- NAVIGATION - Not good. First off, no course map on site and there wasn't one online either during my play. There is however one online now as I did make one shortly after my round and posted it to DGCR. The hole signage is very diagrammatic and looks slightly off. There is no next tee indication on the tee signage, but it really doesn't matter as the next tee is always right next to the basket. To end on a positive note, the baskets are well labeled.
- MISSING BRIDGE - Holes (4) and (5) play over a small creek. The closest bridge is 300 feet away from the center of the fairway. Thus you will have to make two 600 foot walks to play these two holes. From looking at Google street view, there use to be a bridge, so it must have washed away recently in a big storm.
- TEES - Natural and with no defined line. So far no pitting as it appears that this course doesn't get too much use.
- RAW BEAUTY - The park looks run down a bit. I rated the course about a 1.5 out of 5. Players that are fans of beautiful courses should check out The Eagle in Jasper, AL.
- CHALLENGING - Even when playing this 9 holer all par 3s, breaking 27 should be fairly easy for skilled players. Very little shot shaping required and really the only obstacle in deucing these holes is a player's length off the tee. I personally shot 25 and my drives max out at around 350 feet. I would encourage rec players to play the course as par 28 with hole (9) being a par 4.
- UNIQUENESS - Mostly straight open throws with a spattering of trees. The hole length does vary quite a bit from 170 feet to 450 feet which is nice. Water is in play on two holes but it didn't factor into my thought process to attack those holes.
- ELEVATION - Diddly squat.