• Discover new ways to elevate your game with the updated DGCourseReview app!
    It's entirely free and enhanced with features shaped by user feedback to ensure your best experience on the course. (App Store or Google Play)

Gardner, KS

Gardner DGC

3.55(based on 5 reviews)
Filter course reviews

Filter reviews

Filter reviews

Gardner DGC reviews

Filter
5 2
Pevio
Gold level trusted reviewer
Experience: 12.1 years 189 played 120 reviews
3.00 star(s)

Some missed potential 2+ years

Reviewed: Updated: Played on:Dec 26, 2020 Played the course:once

Pros:

This course is adjacent to the Gardner Golf course, and ball and disc golf never collide. There are nice new tee pads and Prodigy baskets. A practice tee and basket is available at the start of the course, but without signs, there's no way to know it's not hole 1.

Every hole has enough obstacles that accuracy is usually at a premium, especially at 300 feet. A couple holes have significant elevation change, where distance control is important, and skips can add a lot of distance but also shove you into the rough. Multiple pins change holes significantly.

The fairways and rough are well defined, and it's always easy to find discs since nothing is super thick. The trees are tall enough that they're usually impractical to throw over. This course utilizes them pretty well, forcing certain lines despite having only a few obstacles to work with.

Nearly every hole has significant distance, but nothing is super long, so it's pretty suitable for most skill levels. There aren't any easy 2 opportunities, but also no holes that will ruin your round.

Cons:

No tee signs, but it's not too bad since the layout is pretty easy to follow. But there are a few times when the basket can't be seen from the tee pad, and there's no way to know which direction the hole goes. From the parking lot, you have to walk a little way around a pond to the start of the course. Fortunately, the basket of 18 can be seen from the parking lot, so it's easy to know which direction to walk.

The par 4's on this course don't really add anything the par 3's don't. They're just longer versions of their par 3 counterparts, and a powerful shot can have an opportunity at eagle most of the time. With the course being as open as it is, it's hard to have any doglegs, but there was some missed opportunity here. Hole 12 is most like this, being just a long hole, but holes 16 and 17 are much the same way. While I enjoy a long open hole every now and again, there are enough of them here that they need much more variety (hills, doglegs, something) to put together a good course.

No hole stood out to me as being truly amazing. There are a lot of pretty solid holes (4 and 11), but most holes are just average, and would be considered the dud of the course if they were on a top-level course. However, Kansas winds would make those holes more challenging.

A few holes are quite boring, that are just tweener holes for some skill levels, or are just filler holes. The grass on 13 is a little tall and there's no normal route to the basket. The short pin on 18 is way too short, and the long pin is out on a tiny literal island. While water shots are cool, the island is way to small to not be a complete gimmick. Holes 1, 8, and 9 don't have a whole lot interesting about them. Again, they're not horrible holes, just not holes that merit a high rating.

Other Thoughts:

Basically, this is an example of what NOT to do when putting a DG course on former ball golf land. A good course like this should have long, sweeping par 4's that are true 2-shot holes, like you would see in ball golf, likely with OB or water or something. This course has none of that, and while few holes are really lame, there's much more potential to make this course so much better. There may have been some space issues because of property lines and proximity to the ball golf course, but it still could have been better done.

Maintenance is likely to be good since the ball golf course is still open. But given that this course has been in for over a year and still doesn't have tee signs, it's not likely to receive significant improvement unless it annexes the ball golf course land. Maybe that would give more room to spread out and have more interesting holes.
Was this review helpful? Yes No
9 1
Redacted
Silver level trusted reviewer
Experience: 5.8 years 85 played 26 reviews
3.00 star(s)

Gardner Golf 2+ years

Reviewed: Played on:Dec 24, 2019 Played the course:once

Pros:

This is a new course (with brand new, highly visible neon green Prodigy baskets) that's built on part of a ball golf course. It is separate from the remaining ball golf portion, though. Solid concrete tees (although they could be just a tad longer). There is an excellent use of elevation change on many of the holes. The signature hole is 18, which (in the position in which we played it in) ends on an island in the middle of a pond (the island is connected to shore by a bridge). There are a plethora of pin locations for each hole. From what I've heard, the faculty of the golf course moves them around a decent amount. Hole 18 ends pretty close to the parking lot. Alternatively, there is a place one could park at by hole 3 and begin there. To me, the rough looked thinner and shorter here than at Big Bull Creek in Edgerton (although it is December here) which suggests to me that this rough is better maintained.

Cons:

Probably the biggest con is a LONG walk from the parking lot to hole 1's tee (it's not a half mile like this site's course description says, but it is probably 300 yards). Although many of the hole transitions are pretty logical, navigation could still be an issue (especially the first time through). The U-Disc map was extremely helpful to us. Tee signs (and next tee indicators) would help this course tremendously. There is lost disc potential on the island hole as the island is probably only 30 ft in diameter.

Other Thoughts:

This course had a par 56 layout (utilizing a mixture of short and long pins) when we played here. Only a couple of the holes were under 300 ft; a couple were over 600 ft. I was pleasantly surprised by this course as it was not as wide open as I expected a course on a ball golf course to be. This is probably on the lower end of the moderately wooded spectrum. There are a couple fun, downhill shots and a death putt or two resulting from the elevation change. Some informative tee signs (and next tee indicators) would definitely bump this course up to at least a 3.5 for me.
Was this review helpful? Yes No

Latest posts

Top