Pros:
Some of the really negative things that have been said about this course are, to my mind, undeserved. A few caveats:
1. I am a relatively new player. Been playing on and off (mostly off) for about 4 years, but I picked it up again this summer with a goal of trying to actual improve.
2.I played 4-5 times a week this summer, and Leigh Farms was the course I played more than any other. I only played the rec course, so this does not include any information about the advanced course. The one time I tried to play the advanced course, the holes were indeed very confusing to find, and I ended up resorting to the rec course halfway through.
3. I admit that perhaps some of my admiration comes from the fact that this was, for the most part, the course I attempted to teach myself to play disc golf on. I tried my damnedest to make this course my own, to play it until I knew every nook and cranny. Perhaps many of the negative things people have said about this course are things I just forced myself to get used to and play through, things that others used to more well-manicured courses would not have tolerated. I also managed to somehow score an Ace on hole 7, the only ace I have ever scored, out of freak luck. So, I'll admit I'm a bit emotionally attached.
4. The first time I tried playing this course, I didn't take one of the brochures with me, and I got lost, and frustrated, and quit. I went back months later, grabbed a brochure, learned the layout, and fell in love with the course.
But there are a bunch of things to love about this course.
Hole 1 and 2 are both short shots that are fun to shoot for ace on with a mid-range forearm and you can easily overshoot.
This course is both so frustrating and so rewarding because almost every hole can either end up as an easy birdie or a double-bogey. You are ensconced in trees the whole time, and slight deflections can send your disc into an abyss of brush and trees. But the reward for a perfectly delivered drive through the trees is oh-so-sweet. This course is an excellent course to drill if you are trying to get better at throwing through trees.
The first 3-4 holes are all pretty similar, but there is some great variation as you get into the later parts of the course.
Hole 12 is a fun shot to practice changes in elevation and shooting down hill.
Hole 13 is one of the longer holes on the course, and requires some interesting choices about which route to take to try to clear the mini-creek. The creek creates a low-risk OB type opportunity for you to practice - discs are easily retrievable, but you do have to climb down into the creekbed to get them.
Hole 14, the gulley hole, is one of my favorites.
Hole 17, around the barn, is just such an incredibly fun, tricky shot to have to drive from.
Leigh Farm takes all of the wonderful, frustrating things about NC courses and packs them all into a tiny little package. I get why some people don't like this course, but I loved learning to play disc on it.
Cons:
The key to not getting lost on this course is to grab one of the brochures at the front of the course and take it with you until you learn the course structure. As many have noted, the layout is a bit counter-intuitive, and with the two courses laid on top of one another, it's REALLY easy to get lost. Get yourself the brochure, and read the instructions carefully. For the most part, the instructions do a pretty good job of walking you from basket to basket.
You might get lost a few times, but once you learn the layout, it makes sense and is really easy to navigate. When you're done with hole 13, you'll need to cross the street to the other side of the park closer to the highway. Look for a wooden plank marking the trail from the road/sidewalk to the second part of the course.
The brush is pretty bad, as some have noted, but I think some people's reviews are exaggerating it quite a bit. This is not much different than any other heavily wooded NC course. Pretty standard fair for NC courses in terms of how bad it is if your disc gets out into the rough. The one thing that is a bit worse here than at other courses is spiderwebs. When walking through the rough to get to my disc, I definitely liked to carry another disc with me to wave in front of my face to prevent me from walking into spiderwebs ("Sorry, I'm not home right now... " Sing along if you know the words, kids).
The teeboxes could definitely be better maintained.
If you have no problem moving your disc through trees with ease, you will probably find this course very easy. There are not many holes which require much in the way of distance driving. It is almost entirely enclosed in the woods, so if you need 900 ft fairways and enormous par 5's, the rec course is definitely not the place for you.
Other Thoughts:
I get why people may not like this course. It's a bit rough around the edges. But for me, this was a great course to learn how to play disc golf on. It honed my skills in the woods, taught me to throw a variety of shots, and was a fun place to get some good disc golf muscle memory down. Don't let these reviews scare you away. But seriously, use the instructions, or go with someone who knows the layout.