Pros:
Lion's Park in Placerville definitely has this old school 70's feel to it, kind of like walking into a house with shag carpet and green appliances. Everything about the course feels dated from the older baskets and crumbling concrete pads to the shorter distances to the older signs getting hard to read. Now in defense of this course, this Disco Era/Bell Bottoms feel doesn't necessarily translate to neglected or lack of love, it just means this old course is showing her age, sagging a bit here and there.
Lion's park is a large multi-use park with ballfields, tennis courts, play areas, restrooms and all the other usual park amenities. The course begins up above the tennis courts and features a course sign with info about leagues, tournies, lost discs, etc. Obviously a very active disc community around this parts. The course has benches, garbage cans and older indicator buttons on the signs for basket positions.
After # 5, the course got a little convuluted and harder to follow but I managed alright. # 6 was a cool little uphill throw and then # 8 was a great little ACE run.
# 12 was interesting shot running along the ballfield. I'd be concerned about errant throws interrupting the ballgames. It's also kind of a wild ass blind throw 300' downhill into the canopy of trees. I liked throwing it but....I see some problems here also.
Cons:
I saw a lot of areas where the ground was compacted with all the traffic from the course. I hope the enviromental community isn't coming unglued about this problem like they are in all other parts of the country (Minnesota).
These drab older baskets are difficult to spot through the trees/brush.
No boomer holes for those wishing to really crank it up.
The signs were fairly hard to read to places and the course was sometimes a little hard to navigate.
Other Thoughts:
I liked this course a lot. I'd much rather see a 12 hole course like this that fits than an 18 hole squeezed in just for the sake of having 18 holes. And it's quite apparent that Lions Park DGC gets quite a lot of play. All in all I'd be pretty content here with this weather and this course. There's a lot worse places in the country to play. And that could be a Forum topic, too!