Pros:
A medium-length course with great use of steep and gentler hills.
-Beauty: A bit above average. Lots of hills dotted with trees keep the rest of the park out of site. Also a nice lake in the (13)-(18) area and some thick woods in (10)-(12).
-Elevation: This is White Oak's signature line. The elevation here is the most and best of any of my first 55 courses, with the possible exception of Skyline Wilderness in Napa Valley, CA. Every single hole goes up, down, along, around, or over a hill. This opens it up for some booming drives like (1), (9), and (14), forces an uphill struggle like (2), (5), (11), and (15), creates a valley to throw over like (8) and (18), or requires careful management of shot choice to avoid a rollaway or giant skip on holes like (7), (8), or (16). The flattest hole is (7), which plays just on top of a hill with lots of air to the right, and the steepest hole is (12), which winds probably 70-90 ft downhill through woods. There is literally every gradation of elevation change in between those two.
-Shot Shaping/Gameplay: Requires some shaping, fair power, and very smart choices. The course starts generally open with just a few ditches, trees, and woods boundaries to avoid (and hills to negotiate--my favorite being (6), which tempts you to throw the shortcut over the hillside, which funnels discs down on their edge). Some more obstacles come into play on (8)-(10), which includes two valley shots. (11)-(12) are the two technical holes on the course, playing up and down steep woods--(12) may be the signature hole, a 350-foot forwards, 80-foot downhill twist with a sloped green just on the other side of a creek. The course ends with generally open holes, and brings water risk on fast greens and a water carry with a couple of different options depending on your distance and aggressiveness. Overall, the shaping requirements vary hole-by-hole, from minimal to moderate to precise, and you'll throw into, out of, and around obstacles/woods.
Cons:
White Oak is mostly the barebones elements of golf still. Other than tees, none of these affect actual gameplay, but may affect how enjoyable your round is.
-Amenities: The DISCatchers are good, but otherwise there ain't much here. Tees are natural and the grass on them is long gone, leaving dirt/mud. Tee signage consists of a post with the hole number--I sometimes didn't know where the basket was until after my first throw (you would have to go a long way down some fairways to peek over the top of the hill and spot the basket). No next tee signage. A course map is at the beginning and may prove very useful, but its hole distances are often dubious.
-Navigation and Course Flow: Difficult. Without good tee signs or any next tee signs, many transitions are not obvious. For example, (2)-(3) and (6)-(7) required backtracks of a couple hundred feet. The (17)-(18) transition requires a long walk through woods. Additionally, there's not as much infrastructure as would be nice. A couple of ditches could use bridges (I took a flying leap once or twice), and the creek in play on (12) only has a thin metal beam across it.
-Safety and Fairway Overlap: Many fairways play suspiciously close to each other or to the next tee. Especially considering that wind is probably dominant here, drives could find other holes. There is also the egregious hole (17)--after throwing the water carry, you must walk back past the basket and through the fairway of (12) to get to the other side of the pond/lake. On the flip side, I don't think White Oak gets very busy considering that I didn't see any other golfers during my round on the middle of a temperate Saturday.
-Lost Disc Potential: Moderately high. There are some blind shots where you could roll away into woods. The lake is a risk on (16)'s green and obviously a major hazard on the water carry (17). Lastly, there is a hidden property line off to the right on hole (12) that is marked off with barbed wire.
-Rollaway: Yes, rollaways are going to happen. I don't take points off for that because I think it's no different then controlling an approach shot's propensity to skip out of the circle.
-Variety: (10) and (17) have guarded baskets and (11)-(12) play in the thick woods, but other than that there is no technical challenge. It would be nice to see a couple more holes with more stringent shot-shaping requirements. Also, the longest hole tops off around 550 feet. I think if you added a par 5 with some interesting shaping it would greatly benefit White Oak.
Other Thoughts:
I had a blast at White Oak. It was really fun to play up and down and over and along hills. Add in a few holes with good approaches (like (6), (10), and (17)) and the absolutely stunning (12), and it's high-quality golf. That said, the tees and navigation/flow/safety take a bit off the course, and there isn't enough variety for an Excellent. The terrain use is so good that I give it a Very Good, though.
-Wind: I'm not sure how strong the wind gets here. During my round, it started still and picked up to a consistent medium breeze. The medium breeze was actually kind of fun, made me think carefully about each shot. Perhaps it gets really gusty out here, which wouldn't be so fun as it would induce all sorts of rollaways and careens.
-Redesign/Renovation: Reading previous reviews, it looked like White Oak was maybe headed for the dumps. I'm pleased to say that it was in fine shape when I was here. It does appear that there was a small redesign (not enough to warrant a new listing) since the course photos were taken. Below is a summary of those for anyone who wants to get accurate info from photos.
No more red tees exist.
Hole 1: Same.
2: Moved out of the woods. Mostly open uphill with a couple of trees.
3-7: Same.
8-9: Same, but there's a LOT more big trees and bushes to work around in 8's valley and blocking the basket on 9.
10: A new hole. Plays slight left downhill to the mouth of a 20'x100' uphill tunnel to the basket.
11-12: The pictures for old holes 10-11 are now new holes 11-12. It looks like the picture for old 12 shows the creek and sloped green that now reside on new 12.
13: A new hole. Large bushes halfway down the fairway require a 280ft hyzer around either side.
14-18: Same, except (18) has a lot of rough early on the left now.