(2.769 Rating) An Advanced level openish course with several opportunities to find someone else's disc.
- CHALLENGING - For those looking to test their skills, the North Lake Park Lakeside Course would be a great selection. I'm an Intermediate level player whom can chuck around 325, and this course humbled me many times. For most of the round, I was in survival mode as there are a lot of places to get into trouble. I ended up posting a plus 6, 62, although I think more than 2 holes may have been in par 4 positions compared to what DGCR currently lists. Its going to take Advanced level skills to consistently break par here. If this description weren't challenging enough, there are also some long tees on several holes to amp up the game play even further.
- HOLE VARIETY - Above average. A mostly open layout, but with one nice wooded four-hole stretch. Water comes into play a few times and it will dictate shot options for those that want to keep their stash. For those that can bomb, there is ample opportunity here. A bunch of par 4s from the short tees depending on basket placement, and at least a couple of these were over 500 feet long. Overall, great variety on this one up until hole (13). Four of the last five are rather lackluster.
- NAVIGATION - OK I suppose. Decent tee signs with mostly helpful info. The artistic description of the hole was clearly done by someone without any talent or that hadn't seen the course in person. I noticed one Houck sign still out on the course, and it looks far more appealing than the new ones. No next tee direction on the new signs and a couple of the transitions were tricky. There is some intuitive flow and next tees can often be spotted from the prior basket.
- AMENITIES - The basic amenities were done right. As noted, OK tee signs. Also, concrete tees for the most part and Veteran baskets. Of the couple of holes that didn't have concrete pads, they were cheap turf, but I'll assume they'll be converted to concrete in the near future. I noticed several trash cans along the layout but sadly, I don't recall a single bench. It would be nice if they added a few of these on this longer than normal layout.
- LOCATION - It's always a bonus having two courses in one spot for this traveling course bagger. Torchy Tacos is also just down the road. Man I miss that place.

Plain Jane length.
- DESIGN - I personally wasn't digging the design on this course. There is a bunch of long bland featureless play here. The length of the course doesn't fit well for those with sub 350-foot arms, which is a large chunk of the regular player population. There will be a lot of mindless drive, then mindless approach, then tap in pars for good players without big arms. A couple of the wooded holes are so wack in their fairway design that it would be near impossible to get close to the basket. I'm looking at you hole (9). Four of the last five holes were snoozers and the course ends with more than a 700-foot walk back to the parking lot. I think a professional designer could have added a ¼ point or more in the rating with the same budget and site constraints.
- LOST DISC POTENTIAL - Despite being super careful, I left here without one of my discs. There are a lot of chances to lose plastic here. Water is the key play feature on 3 holes, (3), (13) and (17). Bringing a floater may help a bit, but it's a pretty big lake that could have a floater out at sea for quite some time. There are also several holes with waist high grasses. Meaning misfires could lead to some extended search efforts.
- BEGINNER FRIENDLY - For the above reasons, I do not think this course is beginner friendly. First timers are probably throwing well over 100 times and spending significant time searching and losing a couple as well. Newer players should stick with the Creekside layout. I don't take off rating points for this.
- NATURAL BEAUTY - I scored the beauty aspect roughly average. There are some really neat looking holes on this one to be fair. Hole (8) is a really nice looking split personality hole that starts out open and finishes in the woods. I liked the view from the dam bluff tee shot on (13) as well. On the flipside, there are several long near featureless flat boring plays. Holes like (1), (14), (15) and (16) are all meh. A seemingly great wooded hole like (7) has lots of relic trash littered everywhere. Much of the woods portion was also thinned out far too much and has an obliterated feel to it. I get thinning out fairway edges, but why are areas not in play having the undergrowth cleared-out as well? The near full removal of the undergrowth likely took away a lot of the natural curb appeal.
- TIME PLAY - I registered 66 minutes solo not including the long walk back to the car.
- WIND - It's going to be fun watching a nemesis's disc careen far off line and into the abyss of the lake or the tall fairway lining grasses.

The North Lake courses are going to be a fine everyday local spot for those that live in the Denton area. They target two different types of players, so it's nice that this dual course site offers contrasting options. If I only had the opportunity to play one as an Intermediate level player, this is the one I hope would have been recommended to me. Lakeside offers more unique elements of the two. However, if I lived in town, I would likely play Creekside far more often and would guess that Creekside also gets more local play of the two. Overall, also a tweener 2.75 course to me. As I noted earlier in the review, I think the land here could deliver a higher rated course, but it would take a redesign. Someone like Houck, would had have this parcel at a 3.5 level without question. For those that live in the DFW area, this is not a must play course unless you are trying to play every metro area 18 hole course.

-the pond and the bunker around it are great topographical elements and are used to good effect (pond in play on 3 holes now)
-the new wooded holes are fun and a good change of pace from the remainder of the course
-most holes have at least 2 tees and 2 basket locations, some have 3
-new veteran baskets
-new signage with distances from multiple tees to multiple baskets
-the pre-existing holes have great concrete tees, the new holes and new tee locations are fairly level turf pads
-2 courses on site
-2 practice baskets
-port-o-john at the parking lot
-a number of different possible layouts for lots of variety

-a number of different possible layouts for lots of confusion
-mostly open and a few holes seem like filler
-new hole 14 is basically just another hole 12 (old hole 8)
-hole 18 leaves you with a walk back to the parking area and the walk crosses 2 or 3 fairways on the Creekside course
-hole 9 plays over the hole 10 short pad
-new signs do not indicate current pin position

I have mixed feelings about two 18-hole courses in this park. I do have to say that the local club has done a great job designing the new layouts, clearing areas for new fairways in the woods, raising the money for 20 more baskets, and continually improving the relationship with the city.

The course uses the original holes 2-11 which have always been mostly open with the pond, creek, & bunker as the main features and distance & wind as the primary challenge. The contrasting holes on the old back 9 are now part of the other course so that variety is lost. There are 5 new holes in the woods between old holes 5 & 6 to make up for that loss but they are still in pretty rough shape. Hole 18 has a gap to hit but otherwise all the other holes on the course are pretty much wide open.

The new signs are a big help with navigation and are a clue to the casual locals that the layout has changed. I imagine there will still be a number of people playing the original layout so that may add confusion or create some backups. It is cool that you can still play the original course. All of the tees are still present and the sleeves are too but the basket may be in another position.

Holes 14 and 18 are new and rather "meh". Hole 16 is a redesign of old hole 10 (also meh) and hole 17 is the old over-the-pond tourney temp hole. These holes are good for the routing but apart from 17 they offer no improvement to the golf or much challenge.

I've been playing at North Lake Park for 12 years and have seen many changes. This is the first time the changes weren't entirely for the better. That said, I think the Lakeside course ends up with a better result than the Creekside course. Lakeside is the longer, more open of the two and I think it retains more of the character of the original course than Creekside. I imagine a lot of locals will end up playing Lakeside and then the last 4 holes of the original layout for their casual rounds. For most people, more holes equals better. I think I would rather have a single course with about 28 holes (Creekside 1, Lakeside 1-18, Creekside 4-7, original hole 14, Creekside 13-15, Creekside 17.


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-- Two practice baskets.
-- Two courses on site with one parking lot; it is easy to play both courses.
-- Port-o-potty at parking lot.
-- Water is definitely in play, which you would expect from a course called Lakeside. Three is a tough water carry that requires some accuracy and distance. The other water carry is 17, and 13 skirts the edge of the lake; however, on both of those holes you can play wide to take the water out of play.
-- Tee signs are nice with distances, par and a hole map.
-- Tee pads are concrete.
-- Decent elevation for this part of the country.

-- Too many holes (1, 11, 12, 14) that have you throwing across a basically empty field. There might be a few trees, but not enough.
-- Long walk from 1 to 2.
-- No map on site.
-- Navigation issues: After 4, turn right and walk behind 10 tee and 9 basket to get to 5 tee. When you finish 18, you have to walk through several holes on the Creekside course to get back to the parking lot. Because of the redesign (two 18-hole courses where there was one), there are leftover tee pads, adding some confusion and navigation issues.
-- No. 9 has you throwing through short tee pad for 10.
-- Very little shade.

-- Holes 5-8 in woods are challenging but some of them need some more clearing done to create reasonable lines.
-- This is a borderline 2.5-3.0 course; with two courses on site, I opted to go with the higher rating.