Pros:
Carter Park is a windy, conveniently located routing that shows its age with open, by-the-numbers golf. Bowling Green is known for being consistently breezy, and this little park course is no exception. Most holes are pretty open and may feature a couple of trees, but the wind is the primary challenge. Beginners will have an excellent time learning about headwind, tailwind, and crosswind and their various effects on discs in these conditions, which are relatively uncommon in the Midwest.
Concrete pads play to older DGA baskets that still catch surprisingly well, and almost every hole features a plaque that shows the distance, vintage rec par, and a hole diagram.
Carter is conveniently located near Bowling Green State University, a large off-campus student housing development, and I-75. College students and road trippers alike will enjoy stopping by for a quick round.
Cons:
The course was designed in 1995 and it's starting to get a bit long in the tooth. Holes 6-10 play in a fairly compact area that wouldn't have posed a safety concern 20 years ago, but sits right on the edge of comfort with modern disc technology. Courteous golfers should probably wait for nearby pads to clear in this portion of the course. There's also some fairway bleed to watch for on Holes 13-16, especially if a strong gust of wind takes your disc off its line.
Most holes are instantly forgettable, which is more a fault of the land than the design, but Carter nonetheless leaves rather little to write home about.
Water retention appears to be a real issue here, with the Hole 15 green being the first area to saturate. Other trouble spots include Holes 5 and 6 along the edge of the property, as well as a handful of other low spots scattered throughout the circuit.
The routing can be a little confusing the first time, especially after Hole 2. Head left toward the road for the Hole 3 pad, not to the right for Hole 12.
The distances seem to be off on some holes, especially in the aforementioned section of Holes 6-10.
Other Thoughts:
Carter would be a 2.5 were it not for the saturated fairways and greens nearly every time I've played. Slogging through the water kills the fun factor for me, and in my four visits I don't think I've ever seen the course completely dry. As a result, I feel obligated to dock the score.
I'm a BG alum, and I wish I had discovered disc golf in college. I would've whiled away many hours at this park instead of hacking away at the nearby, now defunct Forrest Creason ball golf course. Speaking of, that land would make a great place for a disc golf course...