Other Thoughts: The course's signature hole is, as others say, the first hole, which plays off the dam and requires a low, downhill throw to prevent a wind-driven hyzer that will fade your disc into the drink. It's a fair par 3 if one can simply get the thought of skinny-dipping in the cold water out of their consciousness. Many, like myself, lack the mental fortitude and strength of character to accomplish this; I lost a favorite red Discraft Nuke and still see it--in my mind, each and every time I close my eyes--splashing twenty feet offshore into the lake at that awkward angle that makes your guts churn. Replay image, try to sleep, replay image, give up on sleep.
Other memorable holes include hole 3, which is a pretty little, short downhill mid-range play across a brook and over a classic New England rock wall. It is quintessential western Massachusetts.
Hole 6 will stay in your head as not having a formal pad when played long (there is a recreational pad closer to the pin, but pros will tee off in the dirt just beyond the rocks in the road), having you drive straight up an access road to a left sided basket that is no more honestly located the listed 360 feet than is my honest ability to maintain an erection my professed 15 minutes. I'd estimate the basket at 250 feet, at best (but feels longer due to the uphill shot, so put your back into it just the same).
Hole 8 is a par 4, 663-foot doozy that will teach you how to play disc golf. The tee pad is far left of the road, giving you no look at all to the crumbled asphalt road fairway ahead. So, one tends to hyzer the shot and wind up on the forested banking to the left of the road. Having a spotter on the road to sight your disc is mandatory for anyone other than Paul McBeth; play alone and you might as well say "sayonara" to your driver as you'll not have a clue where it went into the woods. It's a great hole, nonetheless, with a challenging paved fairway opening up to the dry field bed of the coffer dam, and a basket placed right alongside it. Beautiful.
Hole 9 displays the lovely Route 32 arching bridge over the dry creek bed, and the twin shoulder rocky walls where a young high schooler by the name of Danny Murphy, about thirty years ago, jumped his muscle car off Route 32, from the east wall to the west wall, at nearly 100 mph, leaving little more than a windshield on the far rocks to show for it. I always say a respectful prayer for Mr. Murphy--with whom I studied freshman arithmetic merely two seats away (the irascible Larry Wheeler between us) under Mr. Donnie Ferrari, at Athol High School--when I play Tully Lake DGC hole 9. I call it his memorial hole. RIP Danny.
Hole 10 is, oddly, a favorite of many, and yet it's one of the jinkiest layouts in disc golf, as though planned by a man that had not in his life thrown a Frisbee. There's no tee pad, but the area one is expected to tee from is, literally, about 95 feet from a ninety degree, sharp dogleg left to a looong straight road. So, put any "arm" at all into your initial shot and you will either go straight into the far trees, or hyzer into the deep ditch on the left of the roadway; that is to say, there's no good way to play the tee shot other than a counterintuitive putter shot to lay up at the "joint" 95 feet away, and then have a stab at the 300 foot perfectly straight downhill to the pin on your second shot. Anything off the road on either side will force you to use the ropes to climb into the steep ditch, and will score you a triple bogey in less time than it takes to soil yourself when you spy what you're up against from the bottom of the roadside trench. I favor this hole about as much as I favor ants at my picnic.
Holes 11 and 12 are in the darkest hollows of the course, dim even in broad daylight due to the closeness of the trees, and the eeriness of these holes is intensified by a wolf (perhaps a dog, for those less imaginative) that seemed to be barking in the distance regardless of the day or time that we played these holes. The signage is so wrong for these holes that a new player will have to walk the fairway to get a gander at the baskets before tossing. Frankly, if playing alone at dusk, when your errant tee shot thunks a tree deep in the darkness--and that beast is howling off where you can't see him, and its at least ten degrees colder in those damp woods, and your skin feels like that of a refrigerated turkey--you'll wind up poking around the forest floor for your pretty pink Discraft Mantis when you seriously ought to be watching your back. It'll put hair on your chest. If the boogeyman exists, and he's intent on malice, these are the holes to unleash his mayhem. You may not get a memorable score on these short but difficult holes, but I guarantee you a memorable case of the "willies" that will have you telling your grandchildren about it around a campfire someday.
Hole 15 is a personal favorite as you once again come into the wide open, to the generous meadow below the dry coffer dam, and you can air it out for an unobstructed 500-footer that plays toward a guarded basket, deep left. In the far distance you can see the basket of hole 1 (if you squint, you'll typically make out the small figure of a disc golfer next to basket 1, shading his eyes and scanning directly into the lake about twenty feet offshore). 15 is a gorgeous hole.
I highly recommend Tully Lake Disc Golf Course, despite its shortcomings. It truly represents the woods and water, topography and trees, and the haunting beauty of north central Massachusetts. Play it with your brother, and a soft cooler full of beers, and it'll mean that much more. Enjoy!