Plenty of holes to air it out. The mix of open and wooded is great. Placement is key on this course on many holes. If you can throw a straight drive your gonna love it. Rural is the correct name for this place as it is very seldom crowded and usually very peaceful. It gets better and better as it is being broken in. The wildlife is incredible.

Not really a con. Hopefully some alternate pins can be added as well as some alternate pin placements.

-A Course with open holes, open tees to wooded baskets, wooded tees to open baskets, water holes, guardian ditches, and wooded holes. An outstanding variety of disc golf, and the course reminded me of 7 other courses I have played, the most I have recognized in the courses I have played for the first time.

-The course is on the property of a 4-H Rural Life Center navigating clockwise. The navigation is outstanding with arrows under the basket, pointing to the next tee and in the wooded holes extra signs helping you find the next tee.

-The tee box experience is above other courses I have played. A course map greets you at the first tee with scorecards. On the tee is concrete pads. The tee signs are superior to other courses I have played with traditional par, distance, hole number, and map. The graphics on the tee signs are unique, where there is a barn, water, a house, and even a beehive etc just off the fairway is featured on the tee sign. There's also a bar code on each tee sign that you can scan with your smart phone and a video will play of the hole. I rank the tee box experience No. 1 of the courses I have played.

-The 4-H Rural Life Center course experience is unique. The course meanders around barns, houses converted to offices and classrooms, chicken coup, tractor museum and other features that you find with livestock and crops. The experience reminded me of the Currituck Rural Center Disc Course that features horses. Halifax is a far more difficult course.

-The Par 5 16th hole with its difficulty, topography, fun factor and scenery I rank No. 1 of the par 5's I have played. But it's not the most difficult I've played.

-Course designers did an excellent job of lulling you to sleep with the openness and using the terrain to make you take notice of obstacles to wake you up. The fun factor is high.

-Beginners and Recreational players will find the course extremely difficult, but fun. Intermediate players will find it challenging, but doable. Advanced if on there game should be able to do quite well, with some challenging holes.

-Maintenance will be kept up by the Life Center Staff. They were mowing as I was finishing up.


-Several of the tee areas had picnic tables.

-Easy access off of I-95 of about 3 miles.

-The focus of the Life Center is to teach 4-H techniques to students and campers. There are summer camps that start in the 2nd week of June thru end of July Monday thru Fridays. Course access could be restricted depending on the activity. The course stays out of the way of the Life Center for the most part, except for the corral areas on the left of hole 8 and other activities off a few other holes. I suggest contacting the office during those two months for course access.

-Those hole signs I pumped up, there only about two and half feet tall and the lettering and numbers were so small I had difficulty reading them without my glasses that I left in the car. I did 18 deep knee bends to take pictures. Regardless, still the best signs I have experienced yet.

-There's disc lost potential either from the ponds or heavy woods and brush on some holes.

-With winter rains, the course is likely to be swampy.

Halifax is my second Rural/Life Center course, the other Currituck. I enjoyed my time on the course and the pleasant distraction of the Rural/Life Center. But Halifax is a far more difficult, but not punishing. Halifax openness can give you a false feeling of security, but there is going to be something there to make you pay attention to every hole on the course whether it is a gap, water, trees, and barns. Halifax may appear to punish you on an errant shot but will give you a way out to recover, except for a few holes. The course is a very satisfying disc golfing experience, the seclusion even makes it better. I just happen to be hitting stride that morning and did quite well. No. 13 left me an everlasting memory with a high arching anhyzer (I'm a lefty) which is a weakness in my game.

The scenery, topography, seclusion, playing thru the Life Center, fun factor, and the challenge of the course rates a 5.0 with me. 75 minutes for the round taking pictures. I will return to the course at least once a year, and worth the two-hour drive.

-The two water holes are ponds No. 12 225 feet to carry, No. 14 245 feet to carry. Nothing else in the way.

Notable Holes:

No. 3 Par 3 at 218 feet heavily wooded with pine trees. You are not going up the middle, clutter with pines. You can either circle left or right on fairways of about 15 feet in width. Both fairways meet again about 40 feet from basket, basket has guardian trees.

No. 6 Par 4 at 536 feet has an open tee pad and directly ahead is a row of heavy pines that bend inward toward the basket on the other side, but boomerangs back toward you on the tee. The basket cannot be seen from the tee. There is a small middle gap about 12 feet wide at about 385 feet out, a left gap about 25 feet wide 335 feet out, and a right gap 20 feet wide about 360 feet out. I mistakenly thought the basket would be right behind the middle gap, but its not, its 150 feet upslope. The backdrop behind the basket is a red barn converted to an antique museum, and antique tractors. I loved the scene!

No. 10 Par 3 at 269 feet tee sits in the woods driving out to the open thru tree gaps. Two gaps to choose, one in the middle at about 8 feet wide, and one on the left at about 13 feet wide. Both gaps about 75 feet out. There a drainage ditch around 190 feet out that runs across fairway then runs along the left side all the way up 11's fairway, then cuts across 11's basket. On the other side of ditch is heavy brush with lost disc potential. The left gap angles towards the ditch and brush. Basket sits out in the open.

No. 13 Par 3 at 267 feet is a dogleg left across a pond, and canopy for the first 120 feet. As you walk from the 12 basket to 13 tee take a good look at the hole in its entirely, you will not have that view from the tee. The pond is also about 120 feet out, and to reach C1 is on the other side of pond at 235 feet. But you need a solid right to left and avoid the canopy and turning at about 35 degrees across the pond. You can go straight across the pond, but you need to clear about 230 feet or just go around the pond on the fairway and you are likely to burn a stroke. The basket is in the open, with heavy brush on the left side, and a roller about 25 feet behind the basket. I threw what is now my best anhyzer (lefty)a little too high but managed to miss branches as the disc sailed towards the green. Not possible to see the shot land from the tee.

No. 15 Par 3 at 373 feet straight uphill and nothing in between. There is heavy brush and trees all the way up to the left. This hole is where disc golf and the farm mingle. To the right were some older tractors just off fairway, a shelter, red barn going up fairway. Behind the basket another red barn and what may have once been someone's white house. I liked the setting, it was scenic, and the hole plays a lot longer than 373.

No. 18 Par 3 at 274 feet is a nice finishing touch to good round of golf. The hole is straight down hill to an unseen basket. About 220 feet out is cluster of tall trees left center in the fairway to block a direct approach to the basket. At that point, the fairway slumps down to the basket. You can go either left or right around the cluster of trees. Along the left at the point of the trees is a ditch along the fairway that meanders behind the basket just outside C1. There are more trees and brush behind the basket, and the basket sits as a roller. Another barn behind the ditch, and a bridge to take you back toward the parking lot. I liked the setting.

Signature Hole:

No. 16 Par 5 at 671 feet is like riding a roller coaster and shaped like a fishhook. There are 4 doglegs, the first three are lazy right, left, left, and the last a 90-degree left into the basket area. The hole runs along a slope of the hill all the way to the basket, sloping right to left, and on the left is heavy brush and trees all the way to the basket. From the tee is an up slope and a cluster of young pine trees in the middle running about 200 feet out. A fairway in front of you, and a line to the right. If you go straight out up slope and dogleg right at the end of the pines, and to the top of the slope and a beehive to your right just off fairway. Now you are going back down slope towards a barn along the fairway. The barn is about 400 feet from the tee, just before the barn the fairway breaks to the left with the same down slope, as if you are riding a rollercoaster with the basket arriving at the station. To the left of the barn is a line of trees that will need to be crossed to continue the fairway to the basket, the gaps are doable with one at 30 feet and smaller ones. Big arms can make a hard breaking right to left to reach the basket, others will likely end up on an upslope open fairway. If you end up on the open fairway, you will turn around and see the basket at the end of the fishhook, and your now again on a downslope, you could be as far away as 200 feet. The basket has guardian trees at 40 feet out. A lot going on with the hole, but I found it fun and now a favorite.

Trouble Hole:

No. 8 Par 5 at 742 feet is a wide-open fairway all the way down the fairway until a tree line at about 600 feet. Does not sound like much, but this hole is all about positioning. First you need to get off the tee pad, and just 20 feet off the tee pad and a little wider than the tee pad is a trio of pine trees. Hit those, and a bad way to start the hole. You need to stay right center on the fairway all the way to the tree line as you stay in line with two split pines at the tree line staying to the right of them. The basket is left center about 150 feet into heavy trees, and its pitch black in the woods from heavy canopy, nothing can be seen from the fairway. The basket has guardian trees in the middle, and the right. Behind the basket at 5 feet is a roller into a ditch if you roll could be as far as 50 feet away and putting upslope. When its time for your approach you want to come into the left of those two split pines with a very slight right to left and staying to the left of basket where its slightly open. When I made my approach, the disc flew into the tree line and disappeared into the dark, I heard it clip a tree having no clue what direction the disc had landed since you can't see anything. Found it 50 feet offline and basket high to the right and had spent some time looking for it. No open putt at all from the right and cost me a stroke.

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I noticed that this course only has two reviews, so I thought it would great to give my 2c on it. It's a course I've really enjoyed and I'd like to explain why, along with a couple improvements that could be made.

There is a lot of shot variety and routes on the various holes. I like that they included multiple ways to attack the fairways. Most holes could be played with any type of shot you prefer, versus having a dominant line. This seems like it would be a big plus to replayability, for a local or someone who comes through often.

There's a nice variety on the distances and fairway sizes. Just about every hole can be birdied with a 300 ft throw, but there isn't a single short "gimme" to be had. Even the 220-240 ft holes require precision. I like this focus on precision over distance, especially for a course that is mostly open.

There was pretty clever use of the woodlines and windows throughout the par 4 and 5's to make them legitimate. A player with 500 ft hyzer bombs won't be able to eagle them without also meeting the lines they need to throw. That's a strong feature that reminds me of my favorite holes at Sunset Gold (a relatively close by course that I enjoy). I strongly prefer when these multi shot holes favor accuracy, as I feel it caters to a wider variety of players and skill levels.

Maintenance is good for a relatively new course. When I played it this summer for the second time, it was improved a bit from the first. But, this third time, it's really looking good - hugely improved in the last 4 months. The open holes are mostly perfect, and the wooded holes are coming along nicely.

Big smooth concrete pads and Innova DisCatchers are always a pleasure. There were full color tee signs that appeared to be accurate with distances that also seemed pretty accurate. I met a young man cleaning out the ditch on 16, and he said that the spigots throughout the course were potable county water. I tried that and it tasted fine. That's a neat feature, as they are literally through the whole course. The practice basket beside the parking lot was in a really nice area with picnic tables and a bit of elevation to play with for putting. A really serene area for warming up or down.

The woods and ditches throughout can still use some work. The ditches had a fair amount of brush in them and some had a bit of standing water. An errant shot may need to retrieved from some "less-than-fresh" water. It's nice that there are no stray trees or branches in the middle of the fairways, but recovery opportunities could use improvement. If I had one suggestion for a fast way to improve the wooded holes, it would be to continue clearing brush off the fairways and cut the smallest saplings. This way, an "almost good" shot can still get up and down when followed by a high quality upshot. The fairways are fair, but they are tight. Failing to thread the needle is OK, but you should still be able to save par with an expert recovery.

When I played in July, there was really tall grass on a few holes like 16 and 17. Yesterday, it was all really nicely trimmed and freshly manicured. I'm not sure which is the norm, but it looked really nice. However, the last time around I definitely spent a few minutes looking for discs that weren't that bad of shots, just a little off. So, it's only a con if it doesn't stay mowed, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

There are buildings in play on 1, 6, 15 and 16. They aren't in the way of perfect shots but could easily be hit by slightly errant ones. Luckily, according to the maintenance worker I met they are completely unused except during the camps when the course is closed anyway. But, I know some folks do not like this sort of "artificial" obstacle, so again, worth mentioning.

It's excellent to have another strong choice along the interstate. My driving schedule sometimes has me a little early or too late to play Sunset or Bryan, south and north of here. This is another great choice that I might be able to slot in at those times. I look forward to my next stop here at Halifax County DGC.

The environment really enhances the experience for me out here. It really feels like the countryside considering that it's not far from the highway. The start and finish do play nearer to the highway, but it's not too busy. However, the back of the property really feels secluded and serene. So far I've only shared the property with some young men playing basketball, lots of stray cats, a heron, and some deer. That made it easy to slip into a groove and have a great time. Isn't that what it's all about?

Good mix of long, medium holes. Easy to navigate with score card.

Open field areas tend to hold rainwater

16 IS A BEAST!There\'s an orange and white male cat that roamed the course with us for the first 11 holes. We called him Buzz. Take Buzz some kitty treats. He\'s a sweet and friendly cat.