Pros:
Edwards is about 10-15 minutiae north of Dalton proper and a bit harder to get to for out of town players, but I will say it's worth it.
Driving though the large, and either new or recently renovated multi use park with its many baseball and soccer fields, tennis courts and sprawling walking party I had a slight pause. It felt like other mid level park courses and I was afraid it might be boring.
My fears it turned out were unfounded.
From the large gravel car park, orient yourself with the pavilion on your left and take the walking path right. As you descend the path towards the woods, holes 1 and 10 greet you. As with all of the holes the tee pads are on the larger size, turf and on a hit dry day gripped excellently.
There are discrete wood and metal benches and you will also find on every hole.
The first shot is a fairly open 300ft rip across a valley with woods to the left and an incredibly interesting long pin position at the top of the large hill.
You then turn into the woods and begin a series of winding shots meandering up and down though the hilly forest and finding some OB creeks and paths to add some challenge.
Many of these holes are 220-350ft and can be attacked with your preferred mid or fairway, but with a few like hole 5 is over 400 and a tight par three in the woods, you can easily make costly errors in shot selection to hurt your score.
Hole 10 emerges back into the open and you get to throw a long 500ft par three to shake things up and back into the woods for a few more holes. The creek plays on many of these as well. On hole 16(my personal favorite) you throw a shot from the woods of this 500+ft par 4 into an open field and then again up the hill on the other side of this field into some more woods. It was overall very cool.
17 is trying to force a righty backhand Hyzer shot though a tree tunnel, and you finish on 18 which is a largely open hole but at near 800 ft and OB longs and right of the basket it's no easy hole.
I had a very good time here and it feels like the love child of Etowah and Westside. The hills and woods blend to make an interesting course that is just diverse enough to be excellent in my opinion.
Tee signs are accurate and full color, and the prodigy baskets are a nice blue and catch pretty darn good.
Cons:
The cons are few but they do exist. Navigation is mainly intuitive, but not without its foibles. No next tee signs or event course start sign, took me a minute to find hole one, the way to 2, and got entirely lost after 10 and got to 17 before I realized I had nearly missed half the course.
This course feels very professional, especially for its setting and I don't see them putting next tee direction tape on baskets, but we need something.
Only one hole that I had a problem with and that is hole 11. This entire course has interesting and defined fairways, and then this downhill poke and hope throw away hole was plopped into the course. I'm sure it is mainly there to help flow, but it's the only hole that didn't feel in place here. The biggest gap is less than 6ft.
I mentioned it feels very professional, and I mean that in the best way but it lacks the whimsical touch my favorite courses have. The touches that are a designers signature, those are largely absent here. I'm not docking points for it, but for people who love courses to have a bit of DIY funk like I do, this doesn't have that Flip City, Hornings Hideout, Etowah type vibe I dig.
Other Thoughts:
Overall and amazing addition to an area that thanks to Prodigy is becoming a DG Mecca. The mix of holes and playability make this a course that you could easily, and maybe will see, on Tournament coverage.
Between Edwards and Westside you could easily have an A tier in Dalton now.