Pros:
Sandy soil, rolling elevation and gusty winds provide "links-style" golf on a course with a great design but way too little upkeep
+ You're close enough to the water to have prevailing wind with strong gusts - so the wind can be a factor on every shot
+ I have played a handful of courses on operating or former ball/foot golf courses, and this is by far the best design I've come across. Even though there are wide fairways (with sand traps), the course makes great use of woods and treelines. There are several heavily-wooded holes, plus a handful of others where trees guard the green or require you to shape your teeshots. The back nine is a bit more open, but I never felt the disc golf design was compromised by being on a ball golf course
+ Multiple tees - the back tees add angles and/or hazards in addition to length. Worth playing several rounds. UPDATE: I returned a month later and played from both tees. I was really impressed by the difference between them. It's more than just added length: a handful of the holes required completely different strategies to score
+ The tees are marked with easy-to-spot white PVC posts, topped with flags indicating the Blue or White tee, although some of the blue flags have bleached out over the years. Teeposts have hole number decals affixed
Some holes of note:
+ Hole #1 is a good, open 300+ starter, with the basket placed on a small mound just inside a treeline. Don't be long: there's a 12'-15' dropoff hidden behind the basket
+ Hole #3 is a short, tight wooded hole with a sharp left dogleg. The rough is heavy on both sides, and there's a pond lurking in the woods all along the left side
+ Hole #4 is long with a narrow fairway that requires careful placement of your teeshot. Then your approach up to an elevated green. A really good hole that rewards accuracy. It's worth noting here that par for the White tees are vastly different (uDisc:54, DGCR 63, making this 550' hole either a par 5 or a par 3 depending on which card you're using to score). I'm here to tell you it *should* be a 4 from the whites: 5 is too soft, and 3 is just punitive
+ Hole #7 is a left dogleg that puts you in the woods, with a substantial difference in how the hole plays from the two tees, The Blue tee requires a carry across an open fairway before entering the trees
+ Hole #11 has a steep right-to-left downslope all along the hole. The basket is slightly above the tee near the edge of the ridge, and it's protected by a few guardian trees. A great test of a righty forehand or a backhand turnover, because anything that goes left is well below the basket. The course Facebook feed indicates this is one of the holes that's been changed ("due to Township requirements") since opening. The original layout was along the valley and required a long water carry. I can understand how the new layout is a lot less dramatic, but the designer cleverly moved both the tee and the basket to create a forehand/turnover challenge
+ Holes #12 - #14 are in an open section with tall grasses, rolling fairways and lots of sandtraps. With a stiff wind blowing, you're playing links-style golf: keep it low and release it flat. Any nose up or bad angle will sail on you
+ Hole #16 was probably designed as a signature hole, with large crescent-shaped artificial ponds protecting the green from both the nearer White tee and the distant, opposite Blue tee. Unfortunately for the experience the ponds aren't kept full. The day I played they were almost empty, looking like a lake in Nevada during a drought
Cons:
- The single biggest drawback is the lack of maintenance. The course was opened in 2015, and it doesn't appear to receive any attention other than mowing. It's evident that the real money-maker here is paintball. I was on the only golfer (disc or foot) on a Sunday morning in July, but there were dozens of paintballers there for organized matches on the other side of the property
- Next Tee signs are decent, but sometimes they point to the Blue (back) tee. Carry a map or uDisc
- A few long walks between holes, but it's usually pretty obvious which way to go (and the teeposts are easy to spot from a distance). The most difficult transitions are to #12 and to #16. The uDisc map helps a lot on these, but you might wander around a bit your first time
- I'm not opposed to pay-to-play, but $10 is a bit steep relative to other courses I've played, and it's maddening to pay and find no maintenance to the course
Other Thoughts:
~ As mentioned above, par from the White tees varies widely whether you're using uDisc or DGCR. As an 800ish golfer, I think the par 54 on uDisc is a little tough, and the 63 on DGCR is very soft. I imagine there's a scorecard available in the pro shop - but it was closed for my visit during the time of COVID
~ Calverton is a great test of the relative weight you give to elements when rating a course. Lack of maintenance has hurt the experience: no signage, old and rutted teemats, water hazards that have been drained. It's easy to focus on those things, especially when you're in the midst of a tough round. But I found myself liking this course the more I reflected on it, because the excellent hole design and the demands it puts on play overshadows the acknowledged drawbacks
~ Lastly, my previous review described a problem with the basket placement on one of the holes (#8). When I came back a month later, the basket had been moved and the problem fixed. Maybe it's just a coincidence - but it's clear there's a club doing it's best with a course that isn't getting maintenance beyond mowing. Nice work!