Oakboro Park is a great, beginner-friendly course. With two sets of tees, you get a mix of ace runs to tough, near evil tee shots.
- I was pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed this course. Lots of great work and effort put in by parks department, Pat & Stan. A good mix of fun and challenge makes this a very solid course...for what it's intended to be.
- There's a fair amount of variety here. Yes, it's mainly a wooded course, but it still offers a little bit of everything - doglegs, tight & wider fairways, one tee shot over water (love this layout) and a little elevation that comes into play. The shortest hole on the course, #17 also has the tightest fairway, so prepare yourself for a gauntlet-light shot. The sparse amount of elevation is used nicely on #7 - slight downhill, short, narrow layout - and on #15 - basket on top of a mound, with a big drop-off behind,, bringing in a huge risk/reward element.
- The tee shot on #8 long is fun. It's a semi-narrow shot over the edge of the park's pond, over an open field, to a basket protected by trees. You shouldn't have an issue avoiding the trees and clearing the water. The challenge is avoiding the trees that are protecting the basket. This is the type of hole where you could be 25 feet from the basket, but have 3 trees in the way.
- There's a very nice flow to the course. The course, overall, gets tougher as it progresses. I appreciate that the toughest four hole stretch are the closing hole #15 - 18. It's easy to be on cruise control through #14, as I was, only to be slapped in the face by the jump in difficulty. The approach to the basket on #15, the intimidating tee shot over the rocks on #16, the gauntlet on #17 and tight tee shot that might actually require a driver on #18 can all go wrong, and suddenly bring bogeys onto an otherwise blemish-free scorecard. First time I played here, from the long tees, I was under par through 14, then played the last four holes 4 over par.
- Great, great, great course for beginners and casual players. The short layout avoids most of the potential pitfalls that you see on the long course, i.e., you're not throwing over water on #8, you avoid the crazy rocks and have a reduced dogleg tee shot on #16. Average hole length from the short tees is just under 200 feet, with only one hole longer than 300 feet - #18 - and only one other more than 250 feet - #16. Plenty of chances for birdies and a lack of blow-up holes and/or lost disc chances should also appeal to beginners and families.
- Great mid-range practice course for more experienced players. From the short tees, more experienced players probably will be throwing mid-range or putters almost exclusively. Even from the long tees, there are only three holes longer than 300 feet, so the driver won't be needed much. I only threw my Eagle on #6 & 18; other than that, mid-range discs for me off the tee on the other 16 holes.
- The long and short tees give a nice variety of looks. There weren't many holes where the long pad was directly behind the short. And even on some of those holes, as in #15, just 20 - 40 feet difference created a different look.
- Amazing all-around park. One of the best small town, community parks I've seen anywhere. Everything was immaculate, clean and well designed. The first thing that caught my eye was the pond, with its water fountain and great bridge. Add in walking trails that run throughout the park, various playgrounds, ball park, shelters and restrooms, park is wonderful throughout. I had to Google Oakboro's population (1,864 in 2012), and it seemed 10% of them were at the park on the Friday morning I was there.