Pros:
A little background for those who may not be familiar with this area, a terrible storm (tornado) came through the park and a major ice storm earlier this year (2009), causing tremendous damage to the local area and surrounding areas including the park and the disc golf course.
*UPDATE: The rebuild is well underway, and a lot of progress has been made. Thank you to everyone who has helped to restore the course to a playable state, and for the clean-up efforts at the park.
With that in mind, here is my review.
Meade Olin is once again one of the top courses in the area. There are concrete tee pads that are in good shape, some tee signs, and Mach 3 baskets that are in good condition. There are a few new baskets on the course as well. The course flows well from hole to hole, but if you are new to the course, you will have trouble navigating the layout. The course does loop back to the parking area for hole No1 after hole 10, so in a sense it is two loops, 1-10, and 11-18. There is little to no underbrush throughout the course, and well defined fairways on most all holes. There are a few benches on the course, andplenty of trash receptacles.
There are slight to moderate elevations on all holes, and the elevations are optimized to provide all varieties of uphill, downhill, and side hill lies. There is a nice variety in hole length throughout the course, from a few ace runs, to a lot of really nice par 3's for a par54 total There are no wide open holes, and no true technical holes. This course makes great use of the large and mature deciduous trees which come into play on every hole. With this course, each hole offers a variety of shots, which is a nice feature. It is like there are multiple fairways defined for each hole, which caters to the wide variety of playing styles and preferences between rec players, am's, and pros.
Overall, the course is challenging in a very fair manner, and can be enjoyed by all skill levels.
Cons:
There are some tee signs on the course that accurately represent each hole where they are located, but several of the holes do not have signs at all. I've played there enough to know my way around the layout, but if you are playing here for the first time, navigation will be challenging and frustrating. There should definitely be some sort of navigation system in place and provide a more clear definition of the course layout.
There are some low areas on the course that are very sloppy and retain water, keep this in mind if playing after a big rain, mostly the bottom of hole1 and 11/12.
The last issue of concern is the tee pads. The pads are appropriately sized and in good shape, but a handful of the tees are unlevel, and due to some of the elevation changes, there are several tee pads that drop anywhere from 1-3ft off of the front edge. I know for me, the thought of falling off of the end of some of these tees linger in my mind as I am throwing of the box.
Other Thoughts:
This is definitely one of my favorite courses in this area. The clean up efforts have been tremendous, and the course once again has a full 18 playable holes. A lot of trees were lost from both the tornado and the ice storm, so several of the holes have been opened up from the original layout. Some alternate tee/pin positions have been identified, and will be installed in the next few months. I was able to see the new tee/pin positions, and they will certainly increase the difficulty by adding length and more protected pins. There is still some clean-up going on, but hopefully the course will be 100% very soon. This course is well on it's way to a 4 disc rating!