Pros:
(3.210 Rating) An old-school wooded course on awesome terrain.
- RAW BEAUTY - One thing that most courses have little control over is the beauty of the landscape. Thankfully for the two courses located at Meeman-Shelby, the natural environment here is exotic. A wooded paradise with moving terrain and dicing dry washes. Normally I would score a course with this level of blissful features 90 percentile on my beauty ledger, but I slotted it just below 85 percentile. The course conditions were borderline terrible and unnecessary unnatural happenings vandalized the potential tranquility.
- ELEVATION - With this course and park located along the Mississippi flood plain, I had predicted a very flat course. Turns out that the course is just outside the flood plain area and this course has constant modest grade changes up and down and side to side. This is punctuated on hole (15) which throws over a 30 to 35 foot deep valley. I was very surprised to see this much elevation change in the Memphis area.
- CHALLENGING - Its near impossible to score well here if the new basket placements I experienced stay. Perhaps those that enjoy courses with a masochistic element will enjoy it. Mommas boys are going to throw tantrums and abandon ship before the end of the round. If they were to abandon the distasteful edits and go back to the easier placements, I would quantify this one as an Intermediate level technical course. Now it's a super flawed Advanced or Pro level course.
- AMENITIES - The core equipment items are fantastic, DISCatcher baskets and concrete tees. The course also has several benches and a hoard of basket placements. The original placements are mostly good, but all of the new ones are very poorly placed. There is also a pavilion near the start of both courses and a faded course map that is no longer readable.
Cons:
A basket placement fairy is wrecking the course.
- DESIGN UPDATES - The East layout has apparently gotten a ton of new unmarked basket updates recently and it has unequivocally ruined the course. The new placements pay no regard to how a disc flies or what a plausible line is. Basket placements could have randomly fell from the sky and it would have been better than this clown show of an altered course layout. The placements I got, which were zero original and zero marked alt placements, were often tucked into spots where amazing shots couldn't get within 50 feet. 80 percent of the placements I had to deal with I would define as plinko plays. Players will need to bring a rabbit's foot or their favorite lucky charm, cause their 'A' game and skills are not required here.
- NOT FUN - I can see how the original course layout was fun. Tight but plausible adrenaline packed lines where birdie was achievable on a very accurate throw. Now it's a round full of tree kicks into unsavory positions and then scrambling to try and save par. The constant searching in the overgrowth and vines got old. I didn't have one decent birdie look the entire round.
- MAINTENANCE - As noted, lots of recent work has been done here to ruin holes with new hideous placements. Other than this unnecessary course construction update, it appeared no other work had been done by the locals to keep the course in check. Every line was hairy for my late May 2022 visit. The grass height along the couple small open patches was shin high. Many of the benches and signs were falling apart. Money and wisely spent labor is not going into this course at the moment.
- SPRAY PAINTED MANDOS - As noted in the pros, the one remaining clear pro for this course is the raw beauty of the landscape. Apparently in north Memphis, it's OK to destroy beautiful landscapes by spray painting big trees with neon orange to make mandos. Two holes have 6 feet of vertical neon orange paint on trees making a once appealing and photogenic tee shot a turd.
- NAVIGATION AND SIGNAGE - Due to all the unmarked placement updates, this one is going to be a nightmare to try and follow until new signs are installed. I walked around aimlessly several times. The beginning 4 or 5 holes are somewhat straightforward to follow, but after that, it was a sh!tshow.
- TIME PLAY - Solo first time players will need to set aside more time than they think. It took me over 90 minutes first-time solo.
- OVERGROWTH - Discs are going to hit trees here and fly well off-course and into hard-to-reach areas. I think the disc loss potential is slightly higher here than a normal course despite no water features. Likely lots of mosquitoes after wet periods and also ticks and snakes. Poison ivy was also prevalent in many areas.
- BEGINNER FRIENDLY - This is probably not a surprise to those reading the entire review, but this is not a good course for beginners. I don't take off points for this.
Other Thoughts:
Meeman-Shelby East was once a really good layout. Likely very similar to Seven Oaks in Nashville and the Sinks in Nooga. This was likely one of the better courses in Memphis for quite some time, especially to those that enjoy wooded courses. Fast forward to today and to observe the wanna-be designer destruction of a very good technical course was extremely depressing. Had I played here before the lunacy edits, I likely would have scored this one a strong 3.5. I think enough bad design choices have been made to shave off a quarter point from every prior review. I went back and forth on whether to give this one a low 3.5 or high 3.0 and decided on the latter. The value of Meeman Shelby is still going to be the natural beauty of this place and that's never going to change. Anyways, for those living in Memphis who have still yet to play this oldie, I would say check it out between January and April. For those from out of town, I would head to nearby Bud Hill instead of here.