Pros:
Patriot's Park is a solid, mostly wooded course. With some open holes sprinkled in, your accuracy doesn't need to be dialed in the entire round.
- There's a good mix of hole layouts here. There are several open holes (hello easy birdie on #5), several tight layouts (#14 & 11), straight holes and dog legs. There's also a good variety in distances with four holes longer than 400 feet; four less than 250 feet and another seven in the 251 - 300 range.
- If you can control your mid-range shots, you will do well here. Even on the longer holes (mainly #6, 9 & 15), those are multi-shot, dogleg, station-to-station types of holes. So, by hitting a good landing spot at 250 feet, you're in great shape for birdie chances on those holes.
- I really enjoyed hole #10, my favorite on the course. It's a slight dogleg right, slight uphill, 275-foot layout. Good hole for you to carve a shot, with minimal trees meaning you can be aggressive. It didn't hurt my feelings about the hole that I had a birdie putt. Much less painful than missing the 25-foot putt, but that's the story of my disc golf life.
- There are a couple holes where you can pull out your driver. #1 and 2 are good, simple ways to start your round. #18 is a good closing hole. It's a 370 foot, decently wide tee shot to a back in the woods to the right. This was a solid closing hole for this course.
- Course is very isolated from the rest of the park. Other than walking past the playground (to get to hole #1) or the walks from #4 to 5 & #15 to 16, amongst others, the course itself isn't impacted by other park activities.
- This is a great, big park overall. Lots of facilities for other activities: ball fields, tennis courts, running trail, a gym and playground. Everything looked to be in great shape. Now just pass along some of that attention to the course, and we'll all be happy.
Cons:
Navigation and signage is horrible, truly taking away from the course's quality. There aren't maps on the tee signs, meaning, with so many blind tee shots, you'll have to do a lot of extra walking to scout. Or, like me, after doing this enough times, you'll stop doing that, instead begin throwing short, straight shots, choosing to take your chances.
- This didn't make a lick of sense to me. On some of these longer, blind shot holes, they had arrows/next tee signs pointing in the direction of the basket. That's great for me once I'm walking the hole. My discs, on the other hand, can't read that well, especially when they're soaring by the arrows, making it hard for them to know where to go. Perhaps bigger signs or elevated arrows will help my discs see when they're supposed to turn. Plus, I told them there would be no reading at this course, so they weren't prepared for that.
- There are a couple of long walks between holes, which again, could be helped out with better signage. The online map also doesn't offer that much help, mainly because it's so difficult to read. The map maker chose to color all the wooded areas, making 2/3 of the map gray right off the bat. Add to that the holes are thin lines (often a black line in the gray wooded area, which is easy to see) and tiny numbers for the holes.
- A few too many bland or gimmicky holes. I thought one of the worst holes on the course was #4. It's a 780-foot hole that starts in the woods, and then is long and straight for the remainder. It's the same shot two or three times in a row setting up your approach shot, while just trying to stay out of the woods.
- As for gimmicky, when I say that, I simply mean the designers tried to get creative, but ended up going a little overboard in a couple of spots. I wasn't a fan of #11 mainly due to the overly thick rough along the left hand side of the fairway in comparison to the narrow gap to hit. Make that gap a little wider, and I fully appreciate having a thick rough if you can't make the throw. Compare that to #12, which I thought was one of the better holes on the course. Look at the pics on here. It looks like virtually the same view from the tee. What makes #12 far superior is that the gap is much wider, meaning you can start your shot out further to the right, setting yourself up for this dogleg left shot back towards the woods. Just a slight difference separates a good hole from one that isn't.
- I hardly remember seeing many, if any, benches or trashcans throughout. You at least pass trashcans when you come across other parts of the park.
Other Thoughts:
All in all, Patriot's Park is an enjoyable course. It's a frustrating play for a first timer; but, the regulars probably don't even notice the missing tee signs, long walks or other navigation issues. This does seem like the type of course that could grow on a person the more it's played.
- There's a good general flow to the course around the outskirts of the park property. The park does still have a lot of wooded, unused space. Maybe down the road, some of that land can be utilized for some disc golf holes, replacing some of the lesser qualities ones.
- The back nine is far superior to the front. While playing, I marked down the holes that I enjoyed or thought were really good. Five of the six I noted were on the back nine. The only one that stood out to me on the front side was #9, which was another blind tee shot layout that could have been better with improved signage.
- Whether right or wrong, I think this course will be often compared to the three layouts at the IDGC. I played there first, then drove straight here for another round. I surmise that many out-of-towners take this same route when travelling to the Augusta area. That said, it doesn't help this course's identity that it's so close to three elite layouts, making its flaws stand out.
- This is a solid, if not spectacular course. My hopes were a little higher for the course than was actually experienced. The positive aspect is that the issues are ones that can be easily addressed. With better signage and a little more maintenance (clearing out some rough and knocking down a few trees), the course will be better. It's not the reason I'm driving to Augusta, but it's worth the play if you have the time, and perhaps more importantly, the energy, after experiencing the IDGC and Hippodrome.