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Festival Park reviews
4
2
2015 Fest 2+ years
Reviewed:
Played on:Aug 16, 2015
Played the course:2-4 times
Pros:
Really good place for a DG course. The dam and spillway provide some major elevation change and water in play while the rest of the park provides open lawns dotted with mature trees. The designer(s) was really clever utilizing roads and parking lots as OB and just did a bang up job overall.
Each hole has enough shape and/or different features to feel unique, from your short, wooded #1 to the long, wide open #8. A hallmark of an excellent course is memorable holes and Festival has a few. #9 across the dam spillway, #15 dogleg up the steep dam and #18 with its lake dock green definitely qualify as signature holes.
Holes 3 and 11 had island greens created by roads, with 11 being a stroke and distance hole comprised of a traffic circle. These and other holes define a characteristic of Festival, the balancing act of "going for it" without going OB. Lots of holes have a good mix of distances, elevation and OB that keeps it all interesting. You could shoot a hot round here or an awful one, it really depends on how well you avoid those trouble areas.
Excellently marked baskets and tee signs. Course flows very well.
Each hole has enough shape and/or different features to feel unique, from your short, wooded #1 to the long, wide open #8. A hallmark of an excellent course is memorable holes and Festival has a few. #9 across the dam spillway, #15 dogleg up the steep dam and #18 with its lake dock green definitely qualify as signature holes.
Holes 3 and 11 had island greens created by roads, with 11 being a stroke and distance hole comprised of a traffic circle. These and other holes define a characteristic of Festival, the balancing act of "going for it" without going OB. Lots of holes have a good mix of distances, elevation and OB that keeps it all interesting. You could shoot a hot round here or an awful one, it really depends on how well you avoid those trouble areas.
Excellently marked baskets and tee signs. Course flows very well.
Cons:
Huge walk from #7 to #8 (and #13 to #14; same walk) as the dam's spillway basically divides the park into halves. C'est la vie.
Tees are mixed up between appropriated spots on roads and sidewalks to natural grass. The good news is that for the most part the club picked good, flat spots and used mulch to make the natural tees as playable as possible. Only hole 10's tee really bothered me.
It's an open park so seeing multiple baskets is possible. However, I hesitate to put this in the con section b/c the club was very clever in having even numbered holes using white baskets and odd holes using black, so it was no problem at all picking out your basket.
The only transition snafu I had was wanting to skip hole 17 by going #16 to #18. The course is laid out pretty intuitively for the most part.
Tees are mixed up between appropriated spots on roads and sidewalks to natural grass. The good news is that for the most part the club picked good, flat spots and used mulch to make the natural tees as playable as possible. Only hole 10's tee really bothered me.
It's an open park so seeing multiple baskets is possible. However, I hesitate to put this in the con section b/c the club was very clever in having even numbered holes using white baskets and odd holes using black, so it was no problem at all picking out your basket.
The only transition snafu I had was wanting to skip hole 17 by going #16 to #18. The course is laid out pretty intuitively for the most part.
Other Thoughts:
This is a tremendously fun course and a crying shame it isn't available more often. The course is worth the price of tournament admission and the Oak Hollow guys are on the ball and throw a fun tourney.
