Pros:
(1.958 Rating) A lightly wooded medium length university course.
- GAMEPLAY - It took me awhile to land on a subject to begin this review on. There really aren't any super strong or mildly strong aspects regarding this course. I personally thought the overall gameplay here was respectable. I used several different discs from the tee and pondered how to attack the basket a few times. The length of the course is medium length in my opinion for an 18 holer. There are some par 4s and there are some launching perches. It's a little light in the technical department, but hole (5) is a rather tough tunnel shot fairway to thread. The course seems to be most ideal for MA3s with blend over appeal to the adjacent PDGA skill level designations.
- CHAINS - Older DISCatchers, but they still caught everything for me, that they should have. It's rather sad that this was the only other pro that I could come up with.
Cons:
Playing a course that never hit its full potential in its 20 years of existence.
- LAYOUT AND NAVIGATION - I am baffled as to how a course could have survived this long and never got proper signage. Sorry, but numbered pavers flush with the ground is not acceptable signage. No distance or any other information is on them either. To make matters worse, the layout is super spread out and difficult to follow, even with a map. Those that show up here without a map may never figure it out.
- THE WALK BACK TO TEE 1 - I generally begin to consider it a course flaw when basket (18) is more than a 200-foot walk back to the parking area. It's a very minor flaw at this 200-foot threshold, but here at Union, that gap is almost 2,000 feet. Woah!
- AMENITIES - As noted, the signage here is very sub-par, but the baskets are good. Other amenities and extras are generally not here. The tees are mostly natural ground and there's lots of lane pitting and even roots protruding. No extra tees or alternate pin placements. There is a beat-up practice basket near tee (1) though. No benches or finishing shelter. I'm sure there are restrooms in every campus building, but I also assume that only students and staff can access them. It's obvious that the school has not invested anything in years other than mowing, something that they would have done anyways, even if there wasn't a course here.
- NATURAL BEAUTY - I went with 40 percentile. Considering the campus location, the grounds will likely always be in decent shape. Too much of the built environment is constantly in view for me to have this attribute ranked higher. Roads and parking lots are in view and/or play on just about every hole. I did like the view on (18) with the ornate dome building in the backdrop directly behind the basket.
Other Thoughts:
Union is one of those courses that went in and then froze in time. It's disappointing to play an older course that never experienced an evolution. The potential for a better course would be easy with a little investment. Concrete tees and proper signage would likely raise every prior review by at least a ½ point. This should have been an easy 2.5 level course on my ledger if had gotten the upgrades I had just noted. Anyways, 2.0 course to me as is. I played the Bend at Highland before here, and even in that course's unfinished state, it was already better than this track. Union DGC reminds me of University courses such as Montevallo University, University of Mobile and UNG if that one were an 18 holer.
- TIME PLAY - Just over an hour for this quick solo.