Pros:
• A number of interesting and varied shots that are very par friendly
• Good park for beginners/intermediate types
• Very good tee boxes (rubber mat type), although when these mats get wet you can slip quite easily. Also has multiple brooms on each hole as well as poles for disc-in-tree retrieval.
• Beautiful park with nice views of the surrounding area
• Decent signage, although I would orient them differently as they're currently not in a way I'd call 'immediately obvious' which way the hole flows. These look temp to me anyway.
Cons:
• 1 port-a-potty restroom with no water
• In spots it's a bit tricky to navigate due to the terrain but if you follow the map and the nicely established paths, you'll be ok.
• One crisscross hole and a couple holes that are close together so a bit of head swiveling is required.
• Pay to park ($7. Minor quibble. No quibble at all if the money goes to the course.)
Other Thoughts:
Tips:
• Do use the map. One is at the entrance to the course.
• There are a couple holes where a spotter is a good idea (5 and 8 for sure due to the blind basket and hill shape, and maybe 9 and 18 depending on your shot choice).
Random Thoughts:
Reading the early reviews on this course, my expectations were a little low but I must say, I (and my fellow discers) really enjoyed this course. To set the scene, we played it on a Sunday morning with very little wind. The course overall was probably about half full and there was a fairly steady stream of folks coming in over the course of our round, which took about two hours (although some of the folks are headed for the trails nearby). But even though there were a good amount of people around, we never once waited or were waited on, which was great, of course. As for the course design, I really enjoyed the variety of shot shapes that are available, although like most courses, it does favor the RHBH juuuuust a little too much. I have an LHBH that plays with me and I always feel bad when I see a few holes in a row that clearly favor one style over another. I know, tell them to learn a forehand/flip shot/blah blah blah...you know what I mean. Having said that, I found the course to be very fair actually. Pars and birdies are all over the course and I left the day +1, only due to an errant OB shot on 2. It's only really 13, 16, and 18 that stretch your arm due to either being severely uphill (13, 16) or just long (18). All other shots, I would say are well within range of the average player which means......the advanced player/pros will eat this course alive (or dead). Is that a bad thing? For me, no. But I could see others saying the course is too easy (without the wind anyway). As I said, I really enjoyed my round. Even almost aced 17. I don't feel it's necessary to give a hole by hole breakdown as the map does a fine job showing you the layout. The only other thing you need to know is the baskets on 13 and 8 are on the top of the two hills which are probably 40'ish off the valley floor. That should give you the full sense of what each hole represents. Overall, a nice mixture of up and down with a few 'let it fly' and 'touchy technical' mixed in.
Bottom Line:
Yea, there's still a little bit of fine-tuning to be done and it doesn't have the amenities of other courses, but this is a very impressive use of this space. What the course designers have done here is to be commended. There's also a lot of potential for mixing in additional tee/basket positions. While the Pros might yawn and move on, I'm very much looking forward to my next visit (and getting an under-par round gawldangit!). Great job folks!