Eleanor park is a newer course ( 2016 ) located just north of I-64 between Huntington and Charleston . Driving through the park , If you intend on playing all 18 holes , realize that you are not going to finish where you started . My advice would be to disregard the face page and park in the large lot past the pool . it will put you between 1 & 18 . The baskets are new numbered Discatchers . Many of the tee pads are cement . Some of the woods holes are either dirt or rubber . The signage is okay , showing hole number and distance . It looks like some of these holes have alternate pin placements . The course flows kind of counter clockwise around the perimeter of the park and fairgrounds . There is good usage of the land here , as several of the holes work their way into the woods . As far as elevation goes , this course plays flat for West Virginia's standards . Johnny Sias designed the course , so he took advantage of what he was given to work with . Starting off near a creek bed and in the open , your first drive will take you over the creek to the basket guarded by a couple of trees . You will walk almost straight ahead and play #2 , which has woods and rough on your right and the road to your left . The basket sits on a small flat part of a hillside , where you can have a difficult putt if you miss it . You head into the woods on your left to #3 which is a short very tight throw through brush on your left and brush and an uphill to your left . #4 is a downhill putter shot ( 198' ) to the basket on the right . 5 is a little more open but between trees to the basket at the edge of some rough and a dropoff . 6 tee is behind a cool old time schoolhouse on cement blocks . the tee is elevated and your drive will have to pass with a tree to your immediate right , under a tree canopy to a basket on a little hill . 7 is a straighter open shot but with a creek gully in play on the left . 8 takes you up the hill and into the woods . I won't go into detail about the next several holes but on #10 , the basket sits on top of a boulder . The hint to Deucing this is to throw for the right of the boulder and decrease the uphill putting angle . You pop out of the woods after 13 heading to the more open flat . The holes lengthen considerably with the 600' + #15 . #18 is a flat wide open drive 511' to the basket , which is attached to a pole which elevates the basket to whatever height for the day . The course is not long and mostly flat , enabling a pretty fast play . I did it solo in a little over an hour . Group of 4 , maybe 2 hours . The park looks well taken care of . Disc Risk : minimal . There is some rough to negotiate and some sides of hills that can create a rollaway , but the holes that can create the most chances of missing a disc are shorter holes or drives where you can see where it goes . There is some fun factor here . From hole to hole the course gives you a lot of variety . My signature hole would be #16 , a long hole with the road on the left of the fairway and woods to the right . The basket is tucked into a grove of trees. .

Navigation . There is no kiosk or online map to keep you on course . The worst spots are 2-3 ( go into the path and woods behind you on your left of #2 basket ) , 5-6 ( down the path and behind schoolhouse , 7-8 (uphill & into the woods ) more importantly 13-14 , they direct you to a path using arrows on trees , but it puts you down and out of the woods near the basket , where you have to walk backwards 100 yards to the cement tee . and 16-17 . I never found the tee pad for 17 and had to make one up . #2 rain . The woods holes would be hard to play if muddy , and the flat parts of the course look like they could hold water for lengths of time . #3 playing the woods holes on the die of a hill . I personally don't like throwing at the basket where the fairway is sloping ( in this case , right to left ) , leading to rollaways and skips down hill . Other than that , make sure you coat yourself in Deet , because the bugs here will bit in warmer weather . No benches or trash cans , so carry out what you carry in .

I think for a newer course , this course is coming along well . I hear that cement tees are going to be poured for the woods holes , and possibly some alternate tees added . Don't pay attention to the course length on the scorecard . Some of these holes are a lot longer , especially towards the end . I thought this course was a fun fast play . I hope to play this course in a couple of years to see the improvements . Thank you , Eleanor Parks and Rec for letting me play here . My Recommendation : Families , rec players , locals , newbies , travelers ( couple this course with Valley Park ) and even intermediates are going to enjoy playing here . Give Eleanor Park a chance !!

Eleanor Park is one of the many Johnny Sias courses in WV, and is on its way to being one of the better ones. That being said, its got a long, long way to go. Playing around the Putnam County Fairgrounds, the biggest complement I have heard for this course from the locals is the variety, and it did not disappoint in this category. There are about 10 park-style/open holes and 8 wooded holes. Brand new Pro28's are great, and the park is in the process of installing concrete tees. Many of the holes also have alternate pins. Eventually the course will have dual tees, but that could be a very long time as the shorts are not complete.

The course is a hike through a beautiful park. The open start plays along the park entrance, and holes 5 and 6 are definitely the highlights of the front, with 5 playing in a semi-wooded field and 6 playing across the creek and another field to a pin on a mound. On the back, hole 15 and 16 shine, as these are really the only two true par 4's on the course in my opinion. They have interesting trees in the fairway as well as a road on the left that I would presume is OB, making for some challenging shots.

While it is undeniable that the course has plenty of variety, the variety within these holes are not the best. Every single wooded hole is on a right to left slope, and all are very short. With all of them occurring in a row, this stretch gets very monotonous. The course picks back up on 14, but 18 is a pretty poor finishing hole in my opinion (Wide open 500' with a really strange and completely unnecessary basket element where the pin is attached to a chain hanging off a pole at essentially normal basket height). The only holes on the course that I truly enjoyed were 1-7 and 14-17, which is just over half.

In my opinion, the course also has too many sloped greens or greens with a cliff behind them (2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 13). There are also a couple holes with serious safety concerns in my opinion. Hole 8 in the position I played it in had no line through the trees, and I'm assuming the pin is intended to be played over the nearby road. It is completely blind, and if I hadn't walked up to see the pin I could have caught a windshield. 10, for most arguably the signature hole, is a hole I just won't play. The basket is perched up on a boulder at least 10' high at as highest side. While it looks pretty, it is so unbelievably dangerous. There is now a sign on the hole that informs players to pick up their shot if it lands on the rock instead of playing from it, but I don't think that loophole will hold up in tournament play, and having a disclaimer that affects rules of play for safety should be proof enough that the hole is dangerous.

The only other complaint I have about the course is the maintenance. I have played a lot of "WV" courses where the wooded holes are on the sides of mountains, so I understand that it is hard to mow those holes. Still, these holes were not well kept and even some of the open holes needed a mowing. It's probably very difficult to mow the low-lying end holes, as even after a dry spell these will probably be wet. Also, the signs are apparently being "upgraded", but if the better version is like the ones on the earlier holes, it's hardly an upgrade (No map, just distance and par info for the pin placements). Navigation is also not great in some spots, namely 5-6, 12-14, and 15-17.

Eleanor has fantastic variety, and may one day be a great course once all of the improvements are completed. If the orange flags are markings for the long tees, they may change the course enough to get the score to a 3.5. In its current state, it just isn't getting the attention it needs. Knee high grass in the woods, ponds in some of the open fairways, and greens that are not only frustratingly steep, but also very susceptible to erosion and mud caused by foot traffic really detract from the experience as a whole. The open holes are very refreshing (minus 18), but the wooded holes play like just about any other wooded mountainside course in the state. If you're on your way through or Valley Park is closed for some reason it's a totally fine alternative. Otherwise, I would give the course some time to reach its lofty aspirations and check it out once it's actually complete. I would give the course a 3.25 in its current state, but the course needs to be complete and better kept for me to justify rounding up instead of down.