Pros:
Bear Creek makes good use of the available land and has aged well over the years, growing from a little 9-hole course back in the late 90s to a full 18-holes with multiple pin placements and dual teepads on every hole.
In most cases the long teepads not only add distance but open up (or force) differently shaped lines to the pins, offering a variety of shots for the course. The course -- from both the longs and the shorts -- flows well with very little wasted space and very little extra walking between holes. This clean design allows the course to play much faster than most courses, as long as you can keep it on the fairways.
Fortunately, the fairways are a lot more obvious than they were a few years ago. The underbrush and poison ivy used to be legendary. Now, the course has worn in to the point where only truly errant shots get penalized by bad underbrush and unreasonable foliage.
The course makes good use of the underbrush and tees that are there, forcing a lot of different lines, ranging from big hyzers to low tunnel shots to delicate anhyzers to flicks, thumbers and skip shots around corners.
The course is almost completely flat -- all of the elevation is dropoffs into creeks/ponds -- so if you are playing well, everything is flat ground. This is good for speed-of-play, but is weak from a course-design standpoint. Having at least a couple elevation changes would have been nice variety.
Cons:
My biggest pet peeves on a course are waiting to play and loosing discs, and unfortunately, Bear Creek is frequent home to both occurrences...
Bear Creek is one of the busiest courses in Texas, and lots and lots of high school kids play here recreationally (and sometimes are into other, less sanctioned activities on the side). Backups can be prevalent on the course, and often there are groups that lack the tact to allow more serious golfers to play through.
The course also has more than it's share of water hazards. With most pin placements, 9 or 10 of the holes have water hazards (9 from shorts, 10 from longs), and there are seldom good opportunities to retrieve your discs. The water is often murky or covered in foul-smelling scum, trash is abundant, broken glass, snakes, etc... are prevalent. It's just not a great place to go fishing for your discs (though I have done it before). So a bad bounce off a tree or a shot pulled early or sailing just a little too long, and you can be down in the creek with the water moccasins. This is a huge detractor for me.
I've also experienced (and heard of many other instances) where neighborhood kids have waited around the corners on blind shots and grabbed and run off with discs when the owners aren't in view. I don't think this is frequent, but it's happened to enough people -- and there are enough blind holes -- that it is worth keeping in mind as you play. On some of the shots, friends and I made a point of keeping spotters -- not to find our discs, but to make sure SOMEONE ELSE didn't find our discs before we did.
A last con worth mentioning is the poison ivy. The annual tournament called the "Poison Ivy Open" held at Bear Creek is aptly named. The poison ivy has been beaten back immensely over the years, but I still have friends who catch poison ivy every time they play Bear Creek. The poison ivy is there, and is prevalent any time you toss a disc off the fairway or skip past a basket. It's not going to kill you, but it is worth watching out for.
Other Thoughts:
My parents lived near this course for years and it's where my brother and I would play hundreds of rounds a year during summer and winter breaks when I was home from college...
So I admit I have a hard time being objective about this course because it is where I learned to play. I have a lot of fond memories about it, and a lot of experience. But it also means that it's been so long since I first navigated this course that I have no idea how hard it is to find your way through the holes... I have no idea whether the teesigns are any good, since I haven't looked at them in years; in short, I know I can't answer some of the basic questions most people would have about a course.
I can give a word of warning that holes 13-18 can be hard to find your first time through. After hole 12, walk back through the parking lot and turn right into the woods just before you get to the interstate access road to the park. There you will find the teebox for hole 13. However, there are so many people who play this course that it is always easy to find a helpful local to show you through... my brother had the pleasure of playing tour guide for Ron Russell several years ago when he was passing through -- my brother said he'd never seen so many birdies look so effortless...
I have many fond memories of Bear Creek -- aces hit or watched, great rounds of Glow golf, snakes snapping, blue-balled disc retrieval in the icy stream in the dead of winter, innumerable great times with friends and family... and this colors my perception of the course. It is home to amazing memories, but I'm also aware of how many better courses I've played all across the country.
What makes Bear Creek special -- the reason I suspect it has approximately a 4.0 rating -- is that so many people come to treat Bear Creek as their disc golf home. There are many great local golfers who call this home and have spent thousands of hours working on their games and teaching/inspiring others to play disc golf. This is an amazing course for the memories and for the people. However, it isn't an amazing course for the holes or for the land -- there are much better courses to play, but few better places to learn from such a great community of golfers.