Pros:
+ Tee signs at every hole are clear and accurate.
+ Scenic and popular venue.
+ Play switches from mostly open in the first twelve to mostly wooded for the rest with plenty of slopes and hills all throughout.
+ Numbered baskets have color-coded 'next' arrows attached, but...
Cons:
- ...those arrows aren't always reliable as they tend to be more general nudges than specific walking directions.
- The tee pads are small and made of a variety of materials, with lumpy rubber making up the majority.
- Some serious copy-pasting of holes.
Other Thoughts:
I liked looking at hole13 because after twelve holes of mainly wide open fields, it was gratifying to see a small bounding valley filled with trees. When I first saw that fairway, I said aloud, "Now this is more like it!" And among those wooded holes, I liked the look of hole16 because it resembled some kind of outdoor royal atrium. I personally didn't like hole6. A narrow fairway snakes in between a huge watery OB area on the right and tennis courts with dense shrubs on the left.
As a whole, Roland Park is a great place to practice whatever kind of disc golf you enjoy. I'll skip to the end for a second and say that it gets a strong recommendation regardless if you prefer wide open or dense wooded fairways because both are present in roughy equal measure.
It might not feel like it, though.
The carefree, breezey wide open fairways screech to a halt after hole12. After one look at hole13's fairway, I knew that I wouldn't be returning to grassy fields again. That's good for me because I like foresty disc golf, but I acknowledge that many players out there might find the repetitive nature of the wooded holes to be tedious and played out. Those players might be happy to find out that some of those holes have fairways wide enough to accommodate more aggressive throws, but I would be lying if I said that some of those other fairways aren't ridiculously constrictive, concerningly slanted for a rollaway and somewhat irritating overall.
My favorite hole to play was hole18 precisely because the tree cover was so densely bonkers along that uphill heave. It resembled a life-sized game of pachinko, and I loved trying to sneak my way through it. Most of the other forested holes aren't like that, but they might grate against a player's patience with so many similarly wooded holes all in a row. You might dislike it for the same reason that I did like it.
I have my complaints, though. The infrastucture needs to catch up to the rest of the course. For example, something should be done about those tee pads. All of them are pretty tiny, and the flat thin rubber on the wooded holes take the shape of whatever rocks, roots and soil lie beneath. That's not safe or comfortable to use for wind-ups. I wished there were better guiding signage in between holes. Also, I guess two of the holes are out of play? During my round in mid-June 2022, basket9 was surrounded by lots of caution tape, so I felt discouraged from throwing, and basket11 was removed entirely. I suppose that means the course is undergoing a few updates, but that's a good thing, right?
In closing, yes, you will be satisfied with Roland Park. Some of the tree-filled holes might test your patience, the tees underfoot might make you nervous, and you might feel a little lost during your first playthrough. But the golfing itself presents twenty-seven holes of the kinds of challenges that most disc golfers could want. Up, down, fade left, fade right, and so forth. Roll up to Roland and see for yourself.
By the way, most of the tee signs say "Loyd H. Roland Park," but a few of them say "Ronald Boltz." Why?