Courses you hate

[Will Aubrey]

Stuart Nelson Park - Paducah, KY - A swamp if it has rained within a week. Just a pathetic piece of land.

Anderson Dean Park - Harrodsburg KY - Completely wide open and very long. Just a driving contest.

Mole Hill - Jackson TN - Home made course. Ticks and mosquitos in abundance.

 

[swel3041]

I havent played alot of different courses, but I do hate the ones that are just wide open and every hole is super long. I just dont have the arm for a course where you have to crush every drive off the tee . I end up haveing a terrible day because Im trying so hard to drive my max D every shot I just end up makeing lots of mistakes. I know there are people out there that can play these kind of courses but IMO I think its a poor course design if every level of player cant enjoy it and at least have a chance at a decent round. Some of them do cut some slack by posting different pars for each hole, but it still gets a little redundant when its more like field practice than a round of golf.

 

[Fritz]

I hate courses that are put together in a crappy way.
Example:
Orchard Mesa Middle School here in Grand Junction looks like they just randomly drove around in a golf cart on the field and said put a basket here ok here ok now here. There is a course like this in Broomfield too. Just wish they'd actually plan out the course. I mean why waste the money? No one will play it if it's just half ass thrown together.

 

[domromer]

Emerald park in Mesa Az, just a big drain field with basketts around it. And Like swel said, just big open courses where all you need is a big arm..boring. I like to mix it up with the trees!

 

[Bradley Walker]

The new uber course in Rockwall, Texas.

What a joke.

Did anyone stop to consider that this course was in North Texas? Did John Houke even bother to check for drainage after a rain? Did anyone consider it will be 100 degrees soon? I don't think so... never, never, design a woods course in the Winter in Texas.

What a mosquito infested, poison ivy invested, mud bog, stagnant water SWAMP, and so ridiculously punitive as to appeal to what, 1% of the total cross section of disc golf players?

The natural fescue grass is going to be about a foot tall in the open holes, and I doubt the plan is to mow (do you know what a chigger is? They love long grass). Just being able to see your disc from any distance, even in the fairway is challenging.

Hikes between holes were as long as the holes, not to mention, several times you must cross in front of other fairways.

Everyone who has played it just raves about it. I thought it sucked.

If this is the future of disc golf in North Texas. I am moving back to Tulsa. Davillio in Tulsa, now there's a hard and NICE course. You can play a challenging course and not have to worry about catching frigging malaria.

I really am starting to think that people in the Dallas area think that a disc golf course SHOULD be cut out of the biggest piece of shit property you can find (typically in a low lying flood plane) and that way it is "hard" and is then "really cool". The tromping through the mud, mosquitoes, and poison ivy just make the experience that much more enjoyable, because we are all men, and that makes the experience that much more manly.

 

[roadkill1]

Three from anywhere courses

- Holes should provide separation between players of different skill levels. If a course has an abundance of holes that everyone is scoring the same it's pretty lame. I hate it when you turn your card in and half the field is within two strokes of each other. You may be two strokes off the lead and starting on the fourth card. Holes that result in the same score whether or not you have a good drive or a bad drive are just boring. Either make them longer, make them shorter or provide some kind of risk reward element but they should give each player the opportunity to gain or lose strokes on the field.

Flat and open with no obstacles

Long Flat and Open is a distance competition. Short Flat and Open is either a CTP contest or a putting duel. Courses should have obstacles, risk reward factors and utlize any elevation change to the fullest extent.

Courses that leave you in need of a blood transfusion

Some courses are just overgrown with nasty briers. Being that we're often out in the wilderness I understand that this occasionally comes with the territory but if you routinely have to gingerly approach your lie and go through pain extricating yourself from painful positions it just ain't worth it in my book.


Courses with bad flow or crossing fairways

Bad flow is confusing and tiring if it needlessly makes you walk too far from green to tee or the eighteenth green is a half mile from the parking lot. Crossing fairways are downright dangerous.


Lastly one of my biggest pet peeves with course design is when the tee sign is placed too close to the tee pad. It should not only be impossible to strike your hand on a tee sign (or tree) on a follow through when teeing but it shouldn't even enter your mind. They should have a standard of no trees or signs within 6' of the teeing area.

 

[targetdrone]

Courses in bad neighborhoods.

I just played at Freedom Park in Las Vegas. All of the tee signs had been obliterated by graffiti or torn off completely. Some chains had been stolen off of the baskets. The park had a lot of immigrants sleeping, laying around, or drinking beer.

I didn't know where the tees were supposed to be for most of the holes. There were no concrete pads to clue me in. What a waste of time.

 

[geoloseth1]

Yes brad is right again, Rockwell was ambitious but rubbish. Houck designed durring the winter and at the end of a three year 'drought'. Hole 1 was supposed to have a sloping green but after the first good rain the pond reappeared and now you have a sloping green with the water 5' past the basket. This also means that some of the holes that are in the low lying areas get flooded or don't drain well. The biggest problem that I have found is that the park forms a huge basin so the wind is twice what it is outside the course and there is no set direction you could end up with a r to l to r to straight at you wind all on the same hole. Holes 2 and 3 are nice signature holes that require skill to shoot well but those are really the only well remembered ones out there.

On the other hand Houck did a really really good job with Wilco.

Another type of course I can't stand are the short wide open ones that decide to make a 9 hole course into an 18 by adding 3 baskets and no additional signage telling you where to throw to. Welcome to Shawnee park in plano.

 

[Steezo]

If this is the future of disc golf in North Texas. I am moving back to Tulsa.

Just come down south a bit more. Manor is the future of disc golf 8)

 

[DiscGolfTeeSigns.com]

you will have all kinds of complaints about manor....

it's THAT good

 

[Lakewoodhillsdgleague]

I hate wooded courses where they leave all the buckthorne in the rough so you get completely torn up any time you go three ft astray.

 

[t i m]

you will have all kinds of complaints about manor....

it's THAT good

Where is manor and what's the story on it? I lived down in Dallas for a while and pass through TX a couple of times a year. I try to check out a new course or two every time I'm down there.

I've actually enjoyed Rockwall the few times I've played it, but I haven't played it in the summer months yet. What pisses me off about Rockwall is the lousy, lousy (read non-existent) marking of the arbitrary OB line on hole 17. There are 30 freakin' trees in the field, all of which look the same, and you are supposed to guess which ones define the OB line as depicted on the teesign. I am fine with the OB being there, just mark the OB trees with orange tape or something and tell us which ones we are supposed to play. I've played through there with several groups of people and no one seemed to have a clear idea what the intent was on that hole.

But if you want a clear winner for worst course in D/FW, I think Denton should win without contest. Of ~200 courses I've played across the country, it stands out for abysmal design, zero maintenance, miserable conditions, lack of obstacles, stagnant filth and being out in BFE to boot. Utterly despicable... I'm trying to think of any course that I hold in similar contempt, and nothing is coming to mind that competes with it.

 

[DiscGolfTeeSigns.com]

Manor is just outside Austin... real name is East Metro Park DGC. just a tiny suburb of Austin, but they had some land at the back of the park and Mike Olse spent like a year carving out this masterpiece. it's just crazy... talking to some pros and hearing their personal bests out there... dang. it takes precision and no-nonsense decision-making. there is nothing outside the fairway, and the lines are tough. it's not just stupid hard, it's extremely mental and challenging and fun fun fun.

regarding Rockwall 17, that hole definitely needs to have the "blessed" trees marked. when i did the signs, it was my understanding that the artificially planted trees were the ones, and that they had mulch around them (so the OB trees are illustrated accordingly). apparently it sounds like upkeep and maintenance at that course is lacking. i have multiple photos of each hole from when it was designed, and it doesn't look bad -- really nice, actually. maybe the parks people chose a less than optimal time and place to contract for a design, but i've heard a lot of good stuff about it. updates and addressing issues that come up are never out of the question for a course, if the client wants it.

 

[deaddisc1]

4c's in Cape Cod MA
Pye Brooke in Topsfield MA

 

[sleepy1]

Hate may be a bit harsh, but I am not a fan of the famed Toboggan course that goes in once a year at Kensington Metropark here in Michigan. Too long for me and my Jr. Girls Division arm!


sleepy

 

[plastic_fondler1]

The Toboggan was my favorite new courses played this year and is on my top 5 list. Really emphasized course management and playing within your game. To each there own though...

 

[daytondiscARN]

Sycamore Trails, Miamisburg OH. First two holes have to be the most poorly designed holes ive ever seen. Most of the baskets have large trees within a foot away. So you have to throw a crazy hyzer putt or throw your midrange past the basket and putt from the other side. They claim it took years to plan out. Maybe they overthought it.

 

[BenKrishman]

I wouldn't say I hate it, but I don't like Will Rogers in OKC. It's a really short course, so I throw my putters on 80% of the holes. The one thing that really bothers me is many of the teepads are narrow and short, and after many years of rain much of the ground around the pad has washed away so many of the teepads are a foot above the ground which really confines you to the shape and size of the pad(which I don't like). It has decent shot variety and elevation change so it's not a bad course at all, i just don't like to play it often at all.

 

[geoloseth1]

Ive played many courses all over the country and very few really stand out as being supurb. So I suggest this to all the people on here that don't have a fantastic courses near them; make up your own course from the ones you have. I've found that many courses that don't play well forward play incredibly well backwards. Greenbelt park here in Dallas is a prime example. Forward all it is are hyzer shots and putts. Backward you have tunnel shots, anhyzers, placement drives, about 4 par 4s and a 1000' par five that Snakes along a sidewalk with large trees on the other side.

Just take what you have and make it better. It really isn't that hard to make a good course out of nothing much. It takes a real effort to make a pitch'n'putt course.

 

[BenKrishman]

Ive played many courses all over the country and very few really stand out as being supurb. So I suggest this to all the people on here that don't have a fantastic courses near them; make up your own course from the ones you have. I've found that many courses that don't play well forward play incredibly well backwards. Greenbelt park here in Dallas is a prime example. Forward all it is are hyzer shots and putts. Backward you have tunnel shots, anhyzers, placement drives, about 4 par 4s and a 1000' par five that Snakes along a sidewalk with large trees on the other side.

Just take what you have and make it better. It really isn't that hard to make a good course out of nothing much. It takes a real effort to make a pitch'n'putt course.

Do you mean play from the teepad of one hole to the basket of the last hole?(i.e. play to the 17 basket from the 18 teepad)

One thing a few of my friends and I have done is to go to parks in neighborhoods we are familiar with and make our own course in the park, either playing to trees or lightpoles. It's not as challenging as having a basket, but we usually make up for it with difficult tee shots. It's a lot of fun as long as the park isn't crowded(we sometimes have to skip holes due to people in the area, we can't expect people to know what we're doing there) but we just make up another one to get a full 18 in. The only hard part is describing to your friends which of the 10 trees 350' away you're talking about,