Foundation Park's Recreational 18 is a great compliment to the Championship course that's been in the park since 2006. This newer 18-hole experience provides a fun mix of open and wooded holes that make for a more accessible disc golf experience for those working their way up to taking on the harder course across the roadway.
Location of Centralia is just short of an hour and 15 from St. Louis, and a little bit off of I-64 or I-57. While this may not be the most convenient course to get to, its out-of-the-way location makes for typically less crowded courses on site. I didn't run into anyone on my round on the rec course during a nice Saturday, and only one group on the champ course. There are gas stations and food options in town for whatever needs you have. There aren't too many course nearby, but the 36 holes on site can easily make for a fun day of disc golf on their own.
Park Amenities check all of the boxes for your day of disc golf. At the parking lot for the two courses, you will find a bathroom and water fountain, as well as a shelter. There are other bathrooms and water fountains around the park as well. Foundation park is actually a private park open to the public, and is very well maintained. In addition to the two disc golf courses, you will find plenty of nice features across the 300 acres of park land here, including plenty of hiking trails, an ice skating pond, a chapel in the woods, an outdoor amphitheater, restored prairie areas, and a labyrinth. This is a well taken care of and beloved park for the community, and you will see plenty of other park goers while you walk around. At the same time, neither course overlaps with other park uses.
Course Equipment is in fantastic shape on the rec course. The baskets are Gateway Titans since this is a Dave McCormack/Gateway design, and they are in great shape being only 5 of so years old. Each basket also has a next tee marker in the basket itself, making it easy to navigate around the course. Each hole has 3 tees on the rec course, with the reds and blues being marked by colored posts and the white tees being concrete. The tee signs are at the white tees, and include a nice graphic, hole pars and distances from each tee to each placement, next hole directions, and little plaques showing past aces. The posts at the red and blue tees also have distances to each pin, which is a nice extra touch. Next to the parking area closest to the rec course, you will also find maps of the disc golf courses as well as the park as a whole. Around the course, you will also see directional signs to help with some of the longer or potentially confusing transitions between holes. Based on other reviews of this course, the tee signs seem to be a pretty new development, and are actually a step above the signage on the older champ course in my opinion.
Course Design at the rec course includes some similar features as the champ course but overall is more accessible in terms of difficulty. The rec course builds up as you go forward in your round, with the majority of the first 7 holes being open and easy to play safe before adding difficulty via the woods or shot shaping requirements. The pars on the rec course favor newer players who may not have the arm strength or distance to throw past 300 feet yet, while still providing some challenges to intermediate players. This course also really allows you to pick your challenge level, with three tee options that range from easy on the reds to some more risky shots via the blues that may include a water carry or more technical wooded shots than from the shorter tees.
While many shots are pretty open and straight on this course, there are still shot shaping challenges to be found here. Holes 4, 6, 10, 13, 15, 17, and 18 all have left turning hooks to them, while holes 3 and 7 have slight favoring to right ending shots, making this course more accessible to RHBH or LHFH players. Some of the straighter shots have their own challenges, with hole 8, 9, and 12 being straight shots that have woods or rough areas to avoid. That being said, most of the holes have very safe misses that players can fall back on, which is something the champ course does not have as much of. Distances vary on this course, with shorter wooded holes coming in between 200 and 250 feet and some of the longer and open par 4s going out to around 400. Overall, this course maintains a recreational feel while still providing a great amount of variety throughout the 18 holes.
Course Difficulty is more accessible for newer players, with intermediate players likely being able to challenge for a few strokes under par from the white tees on their first round. More experienced players can use the blue tees to make for a harder round if they want a challenge on this course.