Pros:
After reading some of the reviews of this course, I was not looking forward to anything more than an open 18, and checking it off my played list. But I ended up waking early on my last day in El Paso to play it again.
This course was just fun. In 18 holes, you never get the sense of same-hole-twice. There is diversity in elevation, left-right fairways, trees around the tee or the basket that influences your decisions.
Using elevation and slopes can be tricky, but this course does it well. You're never throwing up or down anything severely steep, and even the baskets are on the slope instead of the top of a hill, which is a an easy to do trap many courses fall into. The sloped putting area really makes you think about your approach, and adds to the pressure of making the putt if you're going downhill. Coming from Louisiana, where the only course around me that has hills is also too wooded to use them, I especially loved the way this course elegantly plays to its terrain.
On that note, hole 14 tee puts you on the edge of a hill about 10 feet above a wide open fairway, and you just get to rip it. Every time I played that hole I threw every driver I had just because I could.
It is also worth mentioning, every person I met at the park, golfers and non-golfers, was incredibly friendly and helpful. I want to highlight this because in many park courses, there is some resentment between the golfers and the walkers, both of whom believe the other is in their way. But this was one community and they shared the space very well. I loved some of my interactions with the locals who were there to play, and not play.
Cons:
There are however, some glaringly obvious safety concerns on this course: Some fairways cross each other, and walking from one basket to the next tee puts you walking through a fairway. This course was never crowded enough while I was there for it to be a big issue, but on a crowded day it would be a problem.
The other safety concern is hole 6 plays very close to the playground. At one point I bounced off a tree into the swing area near by. Thankfully there were no kids there at that time, but it could have caused a major injury.
Many of the holes also play very close to, or towards a busy street. It can be a little intimidating, and may even cause some more throws to go errant. Hole 2 also has a barbed wire section fenced off which you have to throw around, but it's uphill and any backhand that gets lifted too high is going to cross over, and going under the fence is incredibly difficult. (said from experience)
The walk from 13 basket to 14 tee is a steep downhill concrete slope. It needs stairs.
There are no real signs on any tees, and only some have posts with distance on them. If you use the map, and get a local to show you the one or two holes where the map is off after a recent redesign, you shouldn't have any real problems. I managed to get around only using the map a few times, and I'm a navigational idiot.
The tees are also a mix of concrete, sidewalk, and natural. I think someone comes around and spray paints the natural tees every once in a while, but the sidewalk ones are faded and need to be repainted too.
To really nit-pick, I'll say that play slows down around holes 4-6, but really they're pretty good holes and the rest of the course is fun enough to balance out a couple average holes.
Other Thoughts:
The main design faults mean this course can never host a tournament, or get too busy. Which is a bummer, because I got the feel that the local golfers really enjoy playing and put a lot of elbow-grease into building and maintaining this course, and the diversity of the holes would make for a great tournament.
If you are visiting El Paso, or you live there and are thinking about playing, I highly recommend this course. It quickly became one of my favorites.
(edited for grammar and spelling)