(3.191 Rating) A flat woods course with a few openish holes.
- TWO TEES TWO BASKETS - I love it when niners have two baskets and two tees and this is an 18 holer with two baskets and two tees! Thus, there are 4 easy to follow 18-hole layouts to throw. Long tee to basket A, Long tee to basket B, Short tee to Basket A and Short tee to basket B. For the Record, I threw the Short tee to basket A layout. The options here substantially add to the play variety which I'll touch on more below.
- HOLE VARIETY - For an almost glass flat course, the variety is about as good as it gets. The hole distance variation is great with several sub 200 footers and several plus 600 footers. There are technical chip-shot ace runs, open bombs and technical multi-play holes. Fairways break both left and right a few times each. There are baskets in protected pockets and there are lots of tunnel shots. Water comes into play along the right a few times and at least one basket is on a slight slope along the water's edge. The great variety here makes Lagoon worthy of many repeat visits.
- AMENITIES AND NAVIGATION - As noted above, 36 tees and 36 baskets. Concrete pads for all 36 tees. Baskets are MVP Black holes for placement A and old 24 chain DISCatchers for position B. Benches are present a few times and hopefully more are on the way. The tee signage was very good. All the required info was present on them. My only gripe was that both the back tee signs and front tee signs used the same image, making it difficult to distinguish which pad I was at, when both pad locations were not apparent. I appreciated all the navigational cues attached to the baskets. I had very little issue figuring it out even with all the options.
- NATURAL BEAUTY - Some parts of the course are serene, while other parts are not so much. The western edge of the layout is the best part. The west side has all the lake views and is more quiet. Sure they may be gators on this side of the course, but there is no chance of hitting a car. The eastern side of the course is far less appealing due to the highway. Overall I scored the beauty at 55 percentile.
- CHALLENGE - I played terrible and shot 1 over from the short tees. It was terribly windy with gusts exceeding 30 mph. On a normal day, I think MA3s are breaking par routinely from the shorts, but they aren't going well under. It'll be a great time and time again challenge for those at that level. I peaked at many of the back tees and they definitely amp the challenge up quite a bit. I could see MA1s being tickled by the demands from the longs.

Road Rage
- NOISE - To me, the biggest drawback in throwing here is the vehicular noise coming from US231. It's a super busy 4 lane highway with cars zipping by every couple seconds. I could see players accidentally grip locking one onto the highway on rare occasions on hole (14). The highway kinda kills much of the Zen-ness that otherwise would have been here, and it impacts the course beauty substantially.
- FLAT - Almost no elevation change. I don't think one hole had even 10 feet of grade change in it. I suspect drainage is an issue in spots. There is pallet bridge between (7) and (8) that lead to my suspicion despite not seeing standing water.
- SPACING - The fairway edges in the woods feel shared many times. Ricochets off trees will often find other fairways. (4) and (14), which are both openish par 4s that somewhat share an open field.
- LAYOUT GAP - Holes (4) and (14) also bridge the two distinct woods sections of the course. Not ideal in a perfect world, but I get why it had to be done.
- TIME PLAY - I guess if someone elects to throw short tees to short baskets, a round could fly. It took me 56 minutes from tee (1) to taping out on (18), and I'm a quick player.

Lagoon was recommended to me by my friend Joe who is also a fellow course bagger. It was a fantastic pit stop and I very much enjoyed the course. I am sure that residents of Montgomery are thrilled to finally have a second legit 18-hole course to throw and thankfully the style here compliments the more open gameplay over at AUM. In my opinion, I think this course is the new King of the metro area. It may not have the hills that AUM has, but it does just about everything else better than that track. So for players that find themselves in this neck of the woods, I would recommend here first if time only allows for one round. Even though I think the course is top dog for Montgomery, I don't think it's a destination course beyond an hour's drive. Regardless, still a solid 3.0 to 3.25 "good" course to me. It reminded me of courses like Cottage Hill in Mobile, North Water Tower in Sarasota minus the palms, Rainbow City in Gadsden Alabama and The Sinks in Chattanooga minus the sinkholes.

Update 7/1/23: By far the biggest flaw of the course (lack of a permanent teepads solution) has been remedied. Brand new 5x10 concrete pads are installed on all the short and long (bar one long using an existing paved walkway), and it makes the world of difference. Also, there has been another round of mulching, which has cleared out undergrowth on many holes.

Disclaimer: Though I have tried to make this review as unbiased as possible, I designed the course and am heavily involved in its development and upkeep.

Layout Variety: With 2 active teepads and basket positions on each hole, there is a layout for players of all skill levels. There are 8 layouts available to play: White to A/B/Short/Long & Blue to A/B/Short/Long. The Blue tees play 6-8 strokes higher than the White. It's worth staying for a second round to try out the other tees or basket positions. Lots of thought went into the long tees and non-original basket positions; they aren't an afterthought.

Shot Shape & Gap Variety: The course has it all in terms of shot variety: basic backhand/forehand hyzers, straight shots, stall/dumpy hyzers, hyzerflip to turn/fade etc. The shot variety is heightened by the different gaps that you can take. 11 of the 13 wooded holes have multiple gaps, which require different shot shapes to access the pin. The different basket locations almost always change the shot or gap required while about 1/3 of the long tees change the shot or gap required (2/3 of the long tees are longer versions of the short tees and don't change the shot/gap considerably).

Open/Wooded Mix: 5/18 (Holes 1, 2, 4, 8, and 14) holes are generally open while the other 13 are moderately wooded. It's nice having the open holes interspersed throughout rather than having the first 5 be open and the rest wooded. The open holes aren't boring either; most of them have a narrow fairway and/or non-gimmicky OB.

Compactness: The course's small footprint makes it easy to play quickly. A solo round on Whites takes just under an hour while a round with four people takes about 1.75 hours. The walk between holes is generally very short. The course was also designed to have two distinct loops: Holes 1-4 & 14-18 make up the Front Loop while Holes 5-13 made up the Back Loop. There's additional parking near Hole 11 to access the Back Loop, which is perfect to play on a lunch break. You can knock it out in 25 minutes.

Par 4s: With the prevalence of Par 54 courses in the Southeast, it's great that Lagoon has 8 Par 4 basket locations: Holes 1, 4, 13, 14 (x2), 16, and 18 (x2). Though only about a third of those positions have a dedicated landing zone, none of them are just holes where you throw the same boring hyzer twice. Though the positions aren't the longest (many are tweeners), Holes 13, 16, and 18 provide challenging but gettable eagle opportunities.

Signage: Signs are 8"x12", colorful, and look like they'll last a long time. They have all the standard information but no bells and whistles (elevation, qr code with drone footage, etc.). They're very detailed and match up well with the trees. Two signs on each hole for each teepad is a nice bonus.

Fun Short Aceable Holes: This is a great course for somebody to get their first ace. On the Back Loop in particular, 2/3 of the holes are pretty aceable. They're in the 175-225ft range. They aren't just gimmy open shots either. You have to navigate tricky gaps, which make the aces feel rewarding. I've got four aces on the course after about 150 rounds played on it.

Distance/Land Limitations: If you look at the shape of the course, you can tell how limited the space is. The course has two shallow sections of woods separated by a lengthy, even narrower connector. The White layouts average around 5,200ft while the Blue layouts average 6,200ft. Holes 1 and 16 in their longer positions are the only true distance driver shots on the White tees. There are also 5ish holes that are sub 200ft and the par 4s on Whites average around 515ft with multiple being sub 450ft. Though flow is generally good, the walk from 4 to 5 and 13 to 14 along the connector is a little long. It's a shame that it's too narrow to do anything with.

Safety: The compactness creates another issue with holes being too close together. Shots on Hole 3 can leak onto Hole 15's tee or 16's fairway. Holes 4 and 14 play next to each other separated by an OB line of small trees. Holes 5 and 13 are next to each other; drives on 13 routinely end up in 5's fairway. Same for 17 and 18. And though the short walks between tees is nice, it is often risky to be teeing off when there is a group on the tee in front of you. The course is rarely busy enough to where this presents a true safety concern, but I imagine this will be an issue during tournaments. There are also a few blind shots (Hole 8 with its sharp dogleg left and Hole 16's tee shot over the big downed tree). Lastly, Hole 14 plays pretty close to a service road, which is separated by a median to the pretty busy Highway 231. There is routinely a headwind on 14, which can cause less careful power players to turn their RHBH drives into the median or potentially the highway.

Lack of Elevation: There is little to no elevation to speak of on the course. The only spot is the Hole 3/16 area where you have a slightly uphill shot on 3 and the reverse of that on 16. Montgomery is very flat in general and the land that the course is on doesn't help.

Lack of Signature Hole: Though I think all of the holes are good, none of them stick out. The closest thing would be Hole 16's teeshot over the big downed tree.

Progress: The best thing this course has going for it is a dedicated group of volunteers willing it to progress. The course opened in April 2022 and has progressed a ton in this short period of time. I'm excited to see how the course progresses over the next few years.