Chassell Elementary Schools DGC is a 9-holer on the school property south of Houghton, MI.

The course plays through an underutilized area behind the school. There is a field that is used for three or four holes, and the rest of the course is located in thickly wooded areas that border the field. It's clear that thought went into the pin placement on at least some of these holes.

The baskets are new, very nice looking deep blue Prodigy models with yellow numbers on them.

There is a cool "amphitheater" kind of area hidden in the woods between holes 4 and 5 - complete with wooden bench seating that would fit about 25-30 people. Behind what would be the stage is a huge, dead-looking tree with all kinds of branches sticking out in every direction. You don't see that every day!

There is basically no infrastructure other than the baskets. I saw a couple of unmarked posts and tiny white flags that maybe were supposed to indicate tee locations at some holes, but that's it.

Navigation in particular was quite challenging, even though the course was actually laid out decently well as far as I could tell. This is because everything was extremely overgrown - I would guess that 2022 maintenance of the entire course was zero. Wolfhaley noted this in his review, but I figured things would likely be in better shape during the school year. Nah. As a result, this "course" when I visited in late September was essentially just 9 baskets in a wild area behind the school. The most memorable part of playing here for me was watching my approach shot on hole 7 land about 15 feet from the basket - but in incredibly thick waist-high brush that surrounded that basket on three sides. I took a deep breath and waded in, thankful that there had been a couple of early fall frosts to eliminate the bugs that no doubt had roamed there freely until just a few days prior. As I kicked through the tall grass with increasing frustration, the sun set and I started to debate whether it would be worth it to actually return to this brush pile almost two hours drive away from my hotel and over a half hour's drive out of the way of my planned bagging route for the rest of my trip, just to dig up one of my favorite discs. Fortunately, after about fifteen minutes I somehow found the disc - and I was able to locate and play the two remaining holes before twilight deepened enough to make the course actually unplayable, instead of just non-bagger unplayable.

It's also worth pointing out again that this course is in theory intended for ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS. So while the layout itself doesn't have any safety concerns, the lack of any kind of upkeep makes this an unsafe place for elementary school students to be, in my opinion.

The course is mostly flat, with no water hazards. The hole distances are quite short other than the 400' opener.

Before I re-read my notes, the only thing I really remembered about this course less than 3 months after playing was the hole 7 experience described above. Maybe with some maintenance and real tees this could become a decent 9er in the future. But in the meantime, I strongly recommend that anyone wanting to play disc golf drive 10 mins up the road to Michigan Tech's course. That recommendation even applies to the Chassell Elementary Schools student population! (er, let your parent or guardian do the driving).

Chassell Elentary schools DGC is located on the south side of the school in a prairie area for holes 1, 7 and 8 and the other 6 holes located in dense woods.

The baskets are nice new blue Prodigy baskets. These are all in excellent shape and catch well. These don't catch soft or off the pole putts that great but center putts stick well. One pin position per hole.

The course starts and ends near the south parking lot.

The design of the course is actually pretty solid. It just needs maintenence and some TLC to reach it's potential. Would be a solid late fall, winter and early spring course.


Course is permanent and free to play. Outside of school hours of course.

The course, as of yesterday, was an overgrown mess on numerous holes. The prairie holes had waist high grass in most spots. The wooded holes haven't been cleared properly. At least not this year.

The flow of the course itself is actually really nice. Locating some of the tees on the other hand, not so nice. They had little electrical flags denoting the tee areas. Most of the were long gone. Even using the Udisc map it was not making much sense without wandering for far longer than I'd wanted to. Some kind of permanent tee signs would go a long way here. And navigating from hole 4 to 5 with the map would've been a nightmare.

Chance of a lost disc here is a very real possibility. The prairie grass gets thick and the ferns in the woods get huge. Be sure to bring some bright discs, or better yet one's you don't mind losing.

Not really a good course for an elementary school aged kid to learn the game. Not in it's current state. Hole 1 at nearly 400' through thick praire grass is not a great start.

The Mosquitoes here were some of the worst I've honestly ever seen. Literally clouds of them on all the wooded holes. Bug spray is a must in the summer. Some even seemed immune to it.

I won't feel good about myself if I suggested this course to anybody. The only people who will want to play here are course baggers. And they'll regret it and curse my name for adding this course to the site. But at least I reviewed it, so don't say I didn't warn you.