Fairmount Park is an easy course that features good-quality baskets, a variety of shot shapes and distances, and some challenge no matter what your skill level is. Maintenance is pretty good; the grass is short and there aren't any weeds. I played during some rain and there was no standing water or muddy spots.

There are quite a few trees, even though a lot of them are a little short. They define fairway boundaries between 1 and 8, and between 2/6/5/4. When they grow up, they'll turn some of those holes into really challenging tunnel shots. On other holes, they'll block only one side of the fairway, leaving room to air it out elsewhere, on holes like 4 and 8.

For what might seem like an ordinary town course, this place has some significant distance. Birdies won't come as easy here as they would plenty of other small courses. The bushes around several baskets (3-6) can make upshots tricky and give difficult putts. In addition, several holes favor difference shot shapes - holes 1 and 2 favor right-to-left because of the baseball fields, and holes 3 and 9 favor left-to-right.

The course is rather hard to follow because… the red-and-white posts that define the tees are missing on all holes except 1 and 9. If you study the map and the pictures, you can probably figure out where they're supposed to be, but there's no guarantee you'll be accurate. Playing from the wrong spot can give you a significant advantage or disadvantage on several holes, like getting around the mando on 2, the angle into the basket on 3, or the fairway positions on 4-6. I found myself playing roughly from the previous basket on several holes, which sometimes meant I was playing down an adjacent fairway, and then throwing my upshots across the bushline.

The baseball fields are a little annoying. They're correctly labeled OB, and the mando on hole 2 helps you stay away from it, but it still doesn't make much sense. Of course, there wasn't room to put holes of this length elsewhere in the park, and if there's no one on the fields, it's not a big deal. The fence is short enough that discs can be retrieved, but it's still not super fun to play around.

Until the trees grow up, the only holes with obstacles of decent size will be holes 3 and 4 - everything else has small trees or bushes that can be thrown around (or over) easily. There's also the water tower on 9 that pretends to be a tree. Combined with having no elevation change to speak of, there are several holes here that don't offer any actual challenge right now other than having decent distance and some slightly obstructed putts due to trees around the basket.

If the trees grow a little more and tee markings are installed on 2-8, this course will instantly get a lot better. It wouldn't even take much money or effort since the design of this course is pretty good.

There are a few holes that play really close to one another, namely 4, 5, and 6. If you're throwing over the trees, that could put adjacent players in danger, but given how small of a town this is in, it probably won't matter.

If you're looking to check North Dakota off your list, this is a good place to come. It's quick and easy but won't leave you bored.