Pros:
WHAT TO EXPECT: Heavily wooded throughout most of the course, park style golf for the rest. This HB Clark design is crammed in a small strip of woods next to the baseball and soccer complex at Preston Miller Water Park. Expect short holes, tiny gaps, dense rough, slippery slopes, and lots of frustrating tree kicks.
AMENITIES: Several Pavilions, Modern Bathrooms, Massive Parking Lot, Soccer Fields to warm up on.
TEES/SIGNAGE/BASKETS: In typical HB Clark fashion Preston Miller gets most of this section right. Tees are large textured concrete, minimalistic tee signs showing their age but contain all relevant information, par, distance, and hole map depicting shape. Baskets are aging and in need of replacing old DGA's. Course Map Kiosk has all relevant info but like most of the rest of this course, is definitely showing its age.
DESIGN: (This course has had to be redesigned several times over the years from its initial design due to park expansion, new parking lots, and larger sports fields, so I will only focus on the current design) If you are into beautiful technical wooded lines that punish errant throws, this is exactly what Preston will provide. The course opens up with a wide open Hole #1, follows up with a semi open downhill toss into the woods, and then goes full on precision gap hitting in some seriously dense woods for the remainder of the front 9. You pop out of the woods on Hole #10 through #13 then dive back into the woods for some of the most difficult short wooded holes I've seen in Bowling Green before finishing with a wide open short #18. Holes shape extremely well for the RHFH and RHBH (in the woods) as there are a lot of stock right to left shots through clearly defined (but tight) gaps, as well as multiple two angle left to right shots that require a RHFH flex angle. Lefties (like me) will struggle to score the birdie on these holes as it's very hard to execute the shape required. Extremely punishing rough when trees kicks happen.
GAMEPLAY: This course is massive assortment of "how to throw your disc 250 feet" without hitting a tree, with a random open bomber Par 3 mixed in. Elevation is used smartly and effectively on most every hole, slippery sloped greens, angle control off the tee, uphill/downhill tee shots, etc. Definitely a course that favors "luck" slightly more than "skill" on any given day. You can shoot -7 one round and turn and around and play through again and shoot +10. The trees giveth, and the trees taketh away. Not a gimmicky course by any means, but very luck involved when it comes to where your disc lands after tree kicks. Have your scramble game ready.
SIGNATURES: Holes #3 (A very short left to right forgiving Ace Run over a nice bridge to a mildly protected sloped green), #4 (A very short tight downhill tunnel shot with a wide creek just behind the basket, a not so forgiving Ace Run), and Hole #5 (a medium length HEAVILY wooded downhill Ace Run, with no clear defined gap that you feel comfortable attempting, whose basket is perched on the bank of the creek) will certainly get love from a lot of people for very different reasons, all valid. To me the signature hole is Hole #15. This hole is a round wrecker and in tournament play can shake up the entire leaderboard. There is a needle thin gap slightly larger than shoulder width to hit roughly 30 feet off the tee, canted slightly off center to the left of the pad. The entire fairway is only as wide as a small walking trail, with both sides walled in by extremely thick vines, trees, and underbrush. The hole
then snakes down the hill to the right in a similarly wide gap before straightening back out and finishing just barely left, with the basket placed roughly 10 feet from the bank of the creek. This hole is extremely difficult to birdie, and can be absolutely maddening if you make a mistake and hit something
early. I love score separators like this.
Cons:
UPKEEP: While the "park" portion and open holes are well mowed and maintained, the wooded section of the course is left to grow however it chooses. There is a deep trenched out walking path down the main fairways of each hole that stay muddy and wet, but immediately on either side is thick, dense, thorny underbrush. It can be extremely frustrating and downright painful to take a bad tree kick (which happens often).
BASKETS: This course has VERY old DGA's, the basket on Hole #3 has maybe 12 chains on it. Some of the baskets are no longer close to being level, some have obvious signs of trees falling on them and bending/damaging them and not being repaired.
DIFFICULTY: The gaps are razor thin, the tree kicks unpredictable, and scrambling is often not as easy as one would like. While the distances are appealing for newer players, the skill needed to navigate this course is quite high.
LACK OF DISTANCE: There is one hole where you can open up and let it rip (and it's a weird angle Par 3 that is insanely hard to reach for a chance at birdie) If you rely on, or really enjoy letting a disc fly, this course won't be high on your list.
NAVIGATION: You criss-cross back and forth several times as you exit the woods and re-enter, then re-exit. Take a picture of the course map or use U-DISC as you will easily get confused. You have to walk past other baskets on your way out of the woods so be extremely careful that people aren't throwing at you.
Other Thoughts:
While not at all a bad design (given the tiny property to work with), and the immense amount of skill it manages to require over such a short course, Preston Miller rides a fine line between being too punishing and mostly unfun which is not a great combination for a park course with tons of local course competition. Most will come through expecting a short wooded pitch and putt and get wrecked by the technicality required. I play the Bowling Green Open every year and always dread having this course on my list. While I would certainly bag it if I were on a trip to Bowling Green, it would not be a highlight stop amongst the other courses in the area. Not a bad course, just not a course I personally enjoy. Probably a 3 star course, but the poor upkeep and dense underbrush bring it down to a 2.5 for me.