Pros:
Well-designed course that's just far enough off the beaten path.
• Variety: Good - Wonderful range of distances and fairway shapes. Extremely well wooded, with tight, but fair lines. Favors placement over distance -big time- even on the longer holes. Because of how punishing it is to leave the fairway, you'll want to lean on mids and fairways off the tee. Even if you hit your line with a distance driver, fade and skip will make you wish you'd thrown something more controllable. Several interesting alt pin placements were clearly visible during my visit. Don't let the distances fool you - the elevation makes several of the holes legit par 4's and 5's.
• Elevation: Phenomenal - Big Beaver's defining feature. This is not "gently rolling" terrain. This course is a workout, and it's laughing at your cart. Uphills, downhills, rollaways... it's all there, and often pretty steep. The relentlessly hilly terrain often makes a runup on your 2nd shot impractical, placing a premium on being able to stand and deliver.
• Challenge: Excellent - The reds are plenty challenging. You'll need good distance with a mid if you want to score well from the whites. The blues would be pretty brutal. Even the reds are decidely not beginner friendly.
• Equipment: Good - Tees are crushed gravel and pretty good for the most part. Chainstairs are in great shape. Large, orange arrows on each basket point you toward the next tee. Signage is simple, yet effective. That said, you'll still want to scout ahead to spot baskets and assess your plan of attack on many holes.
• Aesthetics: Excellent - If you enjoy a hike through the woods, with a lot of hills, and getting away from it all... you'll absolutely love this place. Several nice (labor intensive), touches add to the course's charm, such as the wall of cut logs defining the green on # 11. The carved path that zig-zags its way up the hill on #2 is eye-catching and eases the severity of the ascent (it would be a lot tougher to climb going straight up the hill).
• Fun-Factor: Excellent - but only of you really enjoy shot shaping through dense woods on steep hills.
• Routing/Nav: Very good - directional arrows on all the baskets, judicious use of next tee signs, and some pretty obvious paths, make getting around pretty easy, and tee markers were easy to spot. Good thing too, because the iffy cell signal means you may not be able to rely on U-Disc. Failure to provide helpful navigational aids on a course this hilly would really detract from the fun factor. Seems like the course is about the only thing happening on most of this land.
Cons:
Some of these are more informational than they are truly cons.
• Somewhat lacking in fairway types. Except for #1, this course is extremely hilly, and densely wooded. Many players (myself included) love that, but it gets repetitive. Even a few fairly flat or somewhat open holes to break things up, would provide some much-needed relief from shaping shots through wooded hills for 17 holes in a row. Some will absolutely love it for that very reason. But objectively, it lacks the balance needed to earn a higher rating from me in that sense.
• I really can't rip on the tees, because they're pretty good for the most part, and definitely took a lot of work, but they could be better. That said, the work required to install quality concrete tees on this course would be back-breaking, and I have to give those who did the work here a lot of credit for the tees as they are.
• Chainstars can be tough to spot in shadowy woods. A flag or splash of color would help.
• Not exactly remote, but cell service is spotty, and I didn't pass much in the way of food or gas stations coming in from the turnpike so plan accordingly.
• The wooded nature of the course means there's hardly any grass on the fairways, so they're basically dirt, and gonna be muddy after a good rain. Factor in the elevation, and you better be very surefooted if it's rained recently.
Other Thoughts:
A very solidly designed course that's obviously a labor of love, and a great addition to The Burgh's stable of wonderful courses. Big Beaver lacks the polish of North Boundary, Deer Lakes, or even Moraine, but the disc-play is top notch. A lot of thought and labor went into this course, and it shows.
I admit the tees and single-minded variety briefly had me thinking about a 3.5. But if you dig shaping shots through the hills, on a course that really challenges you to stay in the fairway as much as I do, this is a 4.0.
If you prefer grip n' rip, you'll arrive at a much lower rating, and be way happier skipping this one