Pros:
Newaygo State Park sits about a 45 minute drive north of Grand Rapids, MI. The park backs up to the Hardy Dam pond, and includes a boat launch, campground, and walking trails.
The 18-hole disc golf course here wraps around the perimeter of the campground area. This is a technical course playing through mostly deciduous forest. The fairways cut through the forest are narrow enough to provide challenge, but not too narrow. I thought there was a good mix of left turns, right turns, and straight throws. The rough off the fairways is full of young spindly trees that can prevent easy recovery throws, but are thin enough on the ground that disc loss is highly unlikely.
The middle of the course plays near the pond, but it is well off to the right and/or behind baskets. It would take a very errant throw or very unfortunate tree kick and roll for a disc to get wet.
The ending hole 18 was the most interesting for me. It plays 365' down a fairway that curls sharply to the left, but then the basket is tucked back to the right behind a dense thicket of saplings. I don't remember any other signature holes, but overall this is a very nice place to play a round. When I visited on a warm early November Sunday, there were only a couple of other groups in the park. The leaves were starting to fall and a light wind was whispering through the trees. It was very serene throwing through the peaceful woods and near the lake.
The baskets are yellow banded DISCatchers. These were in good shape when I played and were easy to see in the woods. There is also a practice basket (behind the picnic area to the left).
The "long" tee pads are concrete with drainage holes. They were a little bumpy, but overall large and flat enough. I think each hole also had a second short tee location, though this was marked only by a kick plate. The long tees also have plain brown signs with the hole number, and each tee sign post had a trash can on it.
There were Next Tee signs where needed, in the same plain "state park" style as the tee signs. The course flows well and navigation is a breeze.
There was a vault toilet available at the parking lot.
Cons:
Better tee signs with a map of the hole would be nice. There are several blind holes where I used the old map uploaded here to determine which way the fairway turned.
The course is mostly flat, and most holes are fairly short. There isn't a lot here to challenge better players, even from the long tees. I would call this a beginner friendly course.
A couple of holes play near walking trails, or relatively near campsites. I didn't judge it to be a major concern as long as DG'ers are aware of their surroundings.
There is a course kiosk and scorecard box, but when I visited there was no map posted or scorecards available.
There were a couple of plastic benches scattered around. While these are better than nothing for taking a quick break, they were low to the ground and looked more like a camper left them there vs. official course infrastructure. A few wood benches would be a nice improvement.
Other Thoughts:
This is not a "pay to play" course per se, but you need a current State of Michigan Recreation Passport to enter the area.
Overall, I enjoyed this course. It is not very challenging, and not spectacular, but more just a nice walk through the woods. With better tee signs and a couple other improvements I would probably give a 3.5 rating. Beyond that it's kind of limited by the space available.
This isn't one that travelling DG'ers need to put on their bucket lists, or even go out of their way to play. But it may be worth a look if you are in the area, particularly if you have non-DGers in tow and/or are looking for a nice place to set up camp for a night or two.