- Multiple tee pads and basket locations (long and short on both)
- Good amount of elevation especially in the front nine
- A fun (albeit open) 'top of the world' style hole 3, more like top of the hill but who doesn't love throwing downhill?!
- Mixing tee pads and baskets (both baskets in all the time) can drastically change the difficulty
- Lots of variety of obstacles from the long, grass, open style with tall bushes defining the fairways to moderately treed holes, tight gaps, platforms, elevation, etc.
- Big wide open field near hole for warming up
- Two practice baskets, bathrooms, and benches before you climb up to hole one

- I enjoyed the back 9 much more than the front 9. The front seemed easier and more like a 'park style' short course than what the back 9 turns into
- A lot of holes are straight, only slight turns at the beginning or end with not a ton of doglegs, would be nice to have to throw something out of your comfort zone more often. I found myself throwing the same 2-3 drivers all almost all of the course
- In the back off the fairway it looks like there is signs of homelessness or something else. Someone even dumped some car parts, an old couch, etc.
- Had someone ask me "Are you green mike?" like it was some code for buying something illegal? I don't know exactly but it felt not right and I got my ass out of there after my round

This is a well designed course and suitable for pretty much anyone unless you're a 1040 or 500 rated player. Feels like it plays well for the 900-950 rated players depending on tee pad/basket layout you choose. This was another gem of a course in WI which seems to have a bevy of them. Course baggers could probably get this in in under an hour 1/2 if you play some version of short pad/basket. Very solid.

- Nice selection of course layouts
- Well maintained paths too walk on
- Both long and short tee spots and also baskets color coordinated
-Disc golf shop across the street from it
-Driving practice range when other sport activities are happening

the only con that I can think of is that we had too wait on the state park employee that was there measuring trees. It wasn't that big of a deal but only thing.

A++ of course would recommend it too anyone.

– Two pads and two baskets on every hole
– Many technical shots, but not too technical. I like when I can let the disc fly, and this course demands precision without being frustrating
– A good variety of shots
– There is an amazing store right across the street, Glide Disc Golf
– Generally lots of parking, and a lot of shade for when it gets warm
– The whole property is very well manicured and taken care of. Great tee pads, mowed/woodchipped fairways, good signage, a cool signature feature wall on hole 5
– Garbage cans at every tee pad. There are large recycling and garbage bins right at the start of the course as well.

– Like others have noted, can get very very busy during peak times in the summer
– The first part of the course is shared with a park, and sometimes there will be other people within range of some shots. Luckily not on most of the course, but still something to point out.
– Not as much a con for everyone, but something to note is this isn't an open bomber course. There are 3 holes over 400' from the longs, and most of the course sits in the 275-350 range.

Hiestand is a great local course to have in Madison. It's my home course and I'm thrilled to have it so close by after moving here last year. There is a pretty sizable league that happens on Sundays with a good group of people which I haven't been to yet but it looks like fun. A few more random things:

– This is a seasonal course, so it's closed for the winter. When it opens back up in April, they may pull baskets in the event of heavy spring rain to keep the course from getting destroyed with the mud. A really great thing that they're protecting the property, but in the spring when everyone is itching to play, it's a little bit of a drag.

– The course is largely free of trash; however, there's broken glass around many of the teepads. Not as much an issue if you're out for a round with friends, but I bring my dog with me golfing frequently and I'm always worried about her cutting her paws.

– The city of Madison has a permit for the course: $40/yr gets unlimited play at Hiestand and Elver. It's great to see the money put to use with the landscaping and equipment (even since a few months ago, there are new signs and garbage bins)

- Well designed course.
- Two tee pads and 2 baskets for each hole.
- Blue (long) baskets catch great, Red (short) baskets are decent.
- Great use of elevation.
- Variety of shots.
- Open field to practice in.
- Glide Disc Golf is right across the road.

- Course gets very busy!
- Have to park on the road. Can be limited space on busy days.
- The area the course is in isn't the greatest.

Such a great course to play! At least 2-3 weekly leagues take place here. Always plenty of people playing! Glide Disc Golf is a great shop to check out before or after your round.

- Excellent use of elevation, combining uphill, flat, and downhill holes in an order that flows well through the course.

- Fair use of wooding throughout the course. Nothing felt too overwhelmingly wooded and there weren't too many "gimme" open holes.

- Excellent facilities, including color tee signs, benches, and can crushers at every teepad and next tee signs at most holes. Glide Disc Golf is just across the street if you need to replace a disc you lost (somehow, there's not too many places to do so) or browse for a new addition to your bag.

- The scenery is pleasant for being in a city, with nice vistas on certain holes and pretty woods.

- Two sets of tees on every hole (except 3) and two easily discernable baskets on each hole provide four ways to play the course in a fairly compact space.

- This course is BUSY, and for good reason, especially on a weekday night like I played. Try to play before 4pm on weekdays if at all possible to avoid running into a group on nearly every hole.

- There's not all too much varitation in hole design in terms of holes being straight or curving to the right slightly, but the elevation masks it fairly well.

The course is pay-to-play, $5 per visit or $40 for a season pass, but in my opinion it is well worth it. This course is well worth a visit if you're in Madison or the surrounding area, just make sure to visit on off hours if you don't like groups behind you breathing down your neck while you play.

Hiestand Park's "Pros" are that it uses it's elevation good. There are a couple uphill holes, a couple of downhill holes, and even hole 3 where you are essentially throwing off a massive hill into a wide open green space below. The course also has a good mix of wooded and semi-open holes throughout its layout. So not all the holes are in the wide open and not all the holes are in the woods. Hiestand also has nice concrete tee pads that are usually kept in good shape other than getting a little sandy here and there. Every hole has a long and short tee pad and every hole also has two basket locations with both baskets in at the same time. So you choose if you want to play long or short pins.

This course is extremely popular with locals especially with the Glide disc golf pro shop right across the street. If you are looking at going any weekday I would avoid going after 4pm unless you okay with waiting on every hole as the course will be packed. Also I would avoid going on Tuesdays during the summer as this is when Hiestand has a weekly flex start league on Tuesdays and the course will be pretty busy all day. The weekends can get a little busy but not too bad.

This is a great course and if you are ever in the area I would recommend giving it a round! Although I wouldn't go way out of my way to play this course. This course is always in pretty good shape and the locals are pretty friendly for the most part. If playing in the evening bring bug spray as the mosquitoes can get bad on the wooded holes.

- 2 permanent baskets and 2 teepads at every hole, and some holes have up to 3 potential basket locations. This allows multiple ways to play the course and widens the appeal to all levels, from beginner to pro
- Shot variety: nice mix of long and short holes, technical wooded, open with obstacles.
- Beautiful and secluded. Plays through some gorgeous old growth trees, winds up around a slight hill. Apparently this is a mixed use park - you won't know it. The disc golf area is pretty much exclusively disc golf.
- Concrete teepads
- Great tee signage - shows all basket positions and the distances to each of those positions from each teepad. Perfect.
- Players of all skill levels will enjoy this course but it's challenging enough that when you birdie you'll feel like you earned it.
- Clean and well maintained. They put work and attention into this course and it shows.
- Two practices baskets and a huge wide open field next to hole 1 for fieldwork. Really nice touch (I don't know if it was designed for that intentionally but it certainly functions that way).
- Top of the world shot on 3

- Can get crowded during peak times. It's a popular course (for good reason).
- Some of the red/blue baskets are pretty close together (not a huge deal but on some holes it could be spaced a bit more).
- Navigation in a few spots may give new players pause, as occasionally you can see another set of baskets from the fairway of one hole, but they have some signage and the layout is intuitive. There's no weird double back or anything so if you think you're going the right way you probably are.
- No water holes if that's your thing (except the creek behind 3 but that really doesn't come into play).

Full disclosure, Hiestand will always have a special place in my heart. It's where I learned and fell in love with the game, and it's the course I've played the most often. Today was my first time playing it in 7 years and I was interested to see if it still held up. I'm happy to say it did and then some. There have been numerous improvements (the second set of baskets, new tee signs, the updated steps and retaining wall on 5 just to name a few) made to what was already a great course. In years past I would've mentioned graffiti and beer bottles in the Cons - that's changed to a pro, as I saw almost none (they may have taken the benches out due to Covid but still, it's obvious the course is well maintained). To me, it just doesn't really get much better than this. The course has pretty much everything in terms of shots and challenge, it's well laid out, there are some gorgeous holes and most of all they are just fun to play! The cons are so minor. Outside of destination courses or dedicated complexes, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a better course. Will always be one of my favorites and a must play if you're in the Madison area!

Hiestand Park is a comprehensively above average city parks course that covers all the bases well.

1) Dual Tees & Pins - Every hole has two concrete tees (except hole 3, which has a single tee), which are all suitably large and pretty grippy, as well as one Am (red) and Pro (blue) basket per hole. Thus, the variety of golf you can experience is very good - the am to am configuration is littered with ace runs galore, the pro to pro configuration will give a stiff test to your length & accuracy, and mixing and matching the above will yield a different round entirely. Pro baskets are all new blue banded DISCatchers, and the Am baskets are red powder coated Mach 5(?)'s, all in good condition. All tees had good signage showing hole length and pin locations.

2) Seclusion & Navigation: The part of the park that the disc golf course occupies is nearly 100% DG exclusive - there looked like a walking trail that came kind of nearby a few times, and a badly shanked drive on a few of the early holes may get entangled with other park uses, but this is a disc golf centric park for the most part. Hole to hole transitions were mostly no-brainers, and the only ones that were even semi counter-intuitive had next tee signs clearly directing you where to go.

3) Beauty & Maintenance: I may be emphasizing this because I played in mid color change fall, but goodness, the course was absolutely beautiful this time of year. Some of the wooded corridors you will shoot down look like what you will see in professional nature photos. It follows that the maintenance of fairways and rough on this course is mostly very good - as on any wooded course, you'll be doing some weed-whacking if you really shank one, but the fairways are generally quite well-defined (no real "poke and pray" holes!), and you shouldn't be spending a ton of time looking for shots that only get into the edges of the rough. I don't remember seeing much, if any trash, laying around.

4) Elevation: Hiestand plays on and around a large hill, so elevation comes prominently into play on many holes, which is cool. Hole 5's pro basket, in particular, plays on top of a sizeable ridge with a retaining wall beneath it.

5) Extras: Community board and a pair of practice baskets by tee #1, and nice stone benches/trash cans by many, if not all tees. Plenty of shaded areas and benches under the tree canopy for hot days.

Mostly nitpicks, but Hiestand does have some limitations.

1) No single signature moment: Hiestand does just about everything very well, but nothing superlatively well. There's no Silver Fox Hole 17 here. The closest thing I can come to a "signature hole" is 3's downhill bomb (to be fair, it is a cool hole!), and even that type of hole is not terribly uncommon in this area.

2) Parking: Can't really fault the course designers here, but there only street parking here. I played just a bit before dusk when there were few other players on the course, so it wasn't a major problem for me, but I understand Hiestand is often pretty crowded, and I can see parking being an absolute nightmare if you've got a group every other hole on the course.

3) Bugs: Even on a cool fall evening, there were still insane swarms of mosquitos in places. This can't be fun to deal with in the height of summer.

4) Pro/Am Basket Spacing: The red and blue baskets were awfully close to each other on a handful of holes. 18 was the worst offender - IIRC, a gray ace on either pin would still have you attempting a putt inside the circle at the other basket. A few holes could have used some more spacing between basket locations to avoid having them both play as a nearly identical hole.

A quick note regarding P2P: I will personally attest to this: Before playing this course in October of 2019, it had been a decade+ since the last time I played Hiestand (it was free then), and one thing that struck me is that the general condition of the course in that timeframe has improved substantially. I can tell the P2P $$$ is being returned to the course. I'd happily pay the $40 (I think?) annual pass if I lived in Madison (I do so for the Milwaukee County Parks courses), and while I don't love dropping $5 spots to go thru single plays of city park courses, this is one I can live with.

There was also what appeared to be a disc golf shop across the street, which is cool too. I wasn't in need of anything, but that's a nice amenity to have if you need it.

Overall, Hiestand is a delighful course that scores highly across the board, and while I'll stop short of calling it a true destination course that you need to come and play no matter the travel, it's worth a play and the drive if you're within a 100 or so mile radius. Price of admission also entitles you to play at fellow Madison course Elver Park, as well, if you want to make a day of discing in Mad-Town.

- Challenging length and difficulty without being ridiculous
- Great use of natural elevation changes
- Course easy to follow

- Mosquitos get bad the second you step off the fairway and into the woods to find a stray disc
- Can be a bit tricky to locate the baskets from the tee, even with the maps

- $5 fee is worth it. This was a genuinely fun course to play.

-nice tee signs
-multiple tee and pin locations for virtually every hole
-very nice, large concrete tees
-course well-maintained
-great elevation change
-good variety of shots, some open, some tight fairways
-red baskets are easier to pick out from a distance
-good challenge for a decent player, still easy enough for anyone to enjoy

-maybe could use some more trees on some of the more wooded holes for a bit more challenge
-pay to play, but $5 didn't bother me and it makes for a nicely maintained course
-is known for being a fairly busy course - I played at 6:30 AM and therefore can't comment

This was a very fun course. It is well-maintained and all the course signage is in good shape. It is pay to play on a bit of an honor system, though park rangers will come around to check your receipt.

This course was definitely challenging, yet still a lot of fun. It is not impossible by any means, and features a variety of hole lengths and shot types. There are only a few par 4s with most holes at par 3.

There is sort of a water hazard that comes in to play on a few holes, but realistically it is more of a ditch/creek than anything. The big pros here and the wooded holes and the elevation change.

It is right in the city of Madison, but still has a nice, quiet, peaceful feel. This course is fun to play and as an added bonus Glide Disc Golf (pro shop) is right across the street. The pro shop is one of the coolest parts - a legitimate disc golf shop open 7 days a week! They have more selection than anywhere else I've ever been and is definitely worth a visit.

All in all, I highly recommend this course.

Multiple tee pads. Good mix of shots and good use of elevation. We played the long pads. Rewards smart style players that stay in the fairway. Aggressive scoring opportunities but make you pay if you go in the rough. Good value for the $. Local Discgolf store located across the street from parking for the course. Well designed in terms of flow.

Although the course is designed well for flow, the short pads looked really close, and many times we had groups behind us cut across our fairway not even realizing that we were in process of teeing off from the long pads. Course could use some warning signs in a few places for safety. I think some of the short pads could benefit from maybe a little longer layout. Didn't look like there was many places to park a car. Didn't see any bathrooms or water on the course. I may have missed where they were though.

Really liked this course, it fits in well with the other courses in the area. Played it right after I played Elver in the same day. These two courses are great for 2 rounds in the same day, I think they compliment each other well.

different looks, not too technical but offering a challenge to my group. Hilly and very nice views. The course is hidden from most of the urban area that surrounds it. The pay to play aspect is a bit disconcerting for a city as liberal as Madison, but, in this day and age I suppose it has become a necessity. Well marked, with directional arrow to the next tees. I WOULD travel here from Milwaukee again to play.

As long as it continues to be maintained and as long as the crowds don't start to back up it is a lot of fun. No parking lot (park on the street nearby).

I am not promoting anything in particular, but I always like to say thanks to people who have disc golf shops nearby . . . . this one is across the street at the end of a small strip mall . . . they guy is getting it together, and he has more discs than most shops I have seen . . . . if you want something (I was looking for lighter weight disks that I can't find on the internet . . . .he came up with three).
Just sayin'

A wooded, technical, hilly beast of a course on the east side of Madison. I've logged well over 1000 rounds here and gotten 15 aces on three of its holes alone, but it's still a challenge that rewards great shot making and penalizes a person for being off just a little (clip a tree on 6 and go left and have to make that 150 foot lefty spike anhyzer recovery and you'll see what I mean).

It was once overrun with trash and disc thieves, but the city has gone to pay for play and the course is now clean and they have made numerous improvements in the infrastructure.

Hiestand Park is a nice, city course with some really fun holes. Its clearly a busy course that gets a lot of traffic but really has its great characteristics. Here are my pros:

1) Its always good to start out with a bang and I really liked hole 1. Its a sharply uphill hole that plays like 375 feet from the long tees (listed at 307 feet). It really just gives you the opportunity to air crash the first hole. Getting off of the fairway will still punish you but there's lot of room here and I just enjoyed this hole.

2) Almost every hole had two concrete tees and the difference between the long and short tees was about 1700 feet. This offered a really nice difference and really added value to the course. A lot of the longer tees are actually much harder than the shorter tees.

3) Hole 3 is a "pro" all by itself. Who doesn't love to throw a shot down a big hill to a green with a creek around it? Its a wide open shot and is a nice par 3. Its probably my favorite hole on the course. Hole 15 is also a nice hole that really allows you to crush a drive. Its 476 feet but probably plays more like 425 feet. Its a long and challenging par 3 that does have some pretty deep rough so make sure to keep it on the fairway.

4) The course is manicured very well. Its obviously driven by the $5 charge/$40 yearly pass to play the course, but the money is being well spent. There wasn't a lot out of place on the course and the grass was manicured extremely well. It wasn't country club feel but it was at least public golf course feel. And for disc golf that's a good thing!

5) The course actually offered a nice challenge from the long tees. The par 3's on the course were not easy by any means and the course featured many par 3's over 350 feet that really could offer some nice score separation.

6) Navigation on the course was pretty much perfect. I never got lost and everything flowed very nicely. The fun factor was also very high on this course.

Favorite feature on the course: The green areas of hole 1 and hole 14 had some overlap and contained some really neat rock areas. This was an awesome little feature that really stood out.

Honestly Hiestand Park is a course without a lot of cons. I think the park is a very nice course but lacks the grandeur of some of the top rated courses. Here is my limited list of cons:

1) In my opinion, nothing on the course stood out as putting this course into Excellent (4.0) or above. I honestly can't really think of a signature hole on the course, except for maybe hole number 3. Essentially this course had a lot of above average holes but nothing that blew you away. Because this course is in a public park it doesn't have the natural beauty that other local courses had, such as Vallarta or Birds Ruins. I actually rated all three courses the same (3.5) and had different reasons for arriving at that number.

2) The design of the course was solid but in my opinion the course had some tweener holes. Hole 5 was a nice hole but was definitely a tweener hole. A smoked drive on that hole will probably leave you with a 50 to 60 foot jump putt that really isn't that makeable over the retaining wall. Hole 10 was kind of the same way for me as it wasn't a par 3 and could barely be called a par 4. I think that ten years ago this course probably would have been a 4.0 but I think with players simply throwing further some of these holes have become obsolete distance wise.

3) The course is extremely worn. Two locals told me that the course could be closed for a portion of next year so they can reseed and replant certain areas. Multiple areas of the course were just dirt, as heavy play has eroded a lot of places in the park. It didn't really take a lot away from the course, in my opinion, but its just worth noting.

4) With any course and alternate pins, I would like to see some kind of indication of the current location of the pin. It wasn't always evident which pin was in the ground. Likewise, some of the distances on the sign were not correct even if the pin seemed to be correct. This may be because of outdated signs or new pins but the distances on the signs did not match up to the distances that were given out in the player's guide for the recent A Tier in Madison. For instance, Hole 3 and Hole 9's distances did not match the signs and were off by about 45 feet (sign had it listed too short).

Hiestand Park is a great compliment to the other courses in Madison. Its a solidly above average city course with a greens fee of $5. Normally a pay to play course keeps the chuckers away but there were multiple chuckers playing a round at this course when I did a practice round before the Mad City Open.

All in all, this is a nice course and WELL worth the visit. I would definitely recommend hitting this up along with the first 18 holes at Token Creek if you have a day to spend here. I would then recommend Glass Nickel Pizza! They are a huge sponsor of the local A Tier and most importantly have great pizza!

Very well maintained course in a city park. Scenery is definitely above average, especially for being stuck in the middle of town!

Two concrete tee pads on nearly every hole, almost all in good repair. Grippy and 12' long. A few that could use some updating (hole 9 long, I'm looking at you).

Tee signs have distances, minimal topography, and pin placements. Only thing missing is a way to identify which placement is in.

Nice use of elevation in certain places. Also, the different am and pro tees offer much different lines and distances. Very well done on this part of the design.

Good mix of open and wooded holes. The short tee fairways are mostly pretty open here, so the beginning and intermediate players should not be intimidated. The long tees offer a far larger challenge. Long lines, and tight. Your game gets a workout, but every hole has some sort of fair line to it.

There's not a ton to gripe about with this course. It does get quite busy during peak times, being right in town.

Like many of the Madison area courses, there's a lot of straight, or left to right type holes. They're mixed in pretty well, but you definitely notice it by the end of the round.

$5 pay to play is a bit steep, IMO. It's a nice course, but that much, for a city park, seems like gouging, especially if you factor in how much traffic there is.

This is a really solid course, especially from the longs. It's definitely the sibling of Elver, and has much the same feel to it.

Glide disc golf shop is directly across the street from hole 1, and offers up a huge selection of fairly priced discs, as well as an owner (and employees) that are more than willing to help with your disc selections. Just don't get suckered into buying a Champ Viking.

Nice course to run, and if you mix it with Elver, will make for a great day of throwing!

The course is well-balanced, with a nice blend of lengths and shot shapes. The course varies from open fields to tight wooded holes. Each hole has two concrete tee pads and multiple pin locations (though they don't seem to get changed very often).

This a popular city course, so it's usually very busy. The course also suffers from trash and vandalism, though the new pay-to-play requirement seems to be improving that. More than any other course in Madison, this one seems to attract the beer-drinking, pot-smoking crowd. This can lead to some slow groups and, on occasion, belligerent players.

This is a nice course overall. I'd rank it second among Madison courses, behind Token Creek/Vallarta-Ast. The scenery of the course is pleasant, as are the views of the city.

- Very easy to navigate where each hole leads
- Very nice mixture of open and wooded
- Great course for anybody (Lefty, righty, Backhand, etc.)
- Good mix of distances
- Quality baskets
- Pro shop across the street

- Brush is tough to find discs in when it is fully grown
- Some teepads are very dusty which causes a lot of error
- Too much broken glass, cigarette buts, and grass pulled up

$5 to play for afternoon or $40 for a season pass
(Pay to play only for ages 17 and up)

A wonderfully maintained park on the outskirts of town, this pay-to-play is worth every penny. The fairways are grassy and wide with most of the peril located on the rough edges. Shank a shot and you may be pitching out for a lost stroke. There is elevation on every single hole but one, and of varying degree. The fairways are balanced from wide open, but those that have trees in them are rather modestly treed.

Variety is the key- two tee pads on each hole provide a basic/intermediate on the shorts and advances front the longs. I played the shorts and found them fun but really want to try the longs next time for a better challenge. The dual pin placements on many holes were a bonus.

This may be due to the current pin placement, but the course leaned a bit heavily on the right turning shot.

Friendly locals let me join their group for two rounds - an loaned me lights to play a night round wih them. Thanks guys!

Variety of shots, I used every one of my "go to" discs in my bag. The course in right near downtown Madison so you can eat or shop just about anywhere you'd like after the course. It's also worth mentioning that there is a Disc store right across the street, the owner is pleasant and informative. He even let my gf borrow a 2 discs to take and throw a few times to see which one she liked! He also voluntarily serves as a lost and found. Definite plus for us.

Pay to play, $5.00 a day per person or $40.00 for a season pass.

We drove an hour and a half to hit a few courses in the Madison area and this is easily the funnest course we played today. Well worth the drive if your looking for something new and challenging.

Good course, rotation of pin placement, and variation of hole type.This WAS the "Go To" course for our group, until we started going to Token. Off Peak hours are best: discing in the morning is pretty much the only way to ensure you wont have to wait behind large groups.

I don't mind if you bring a beer or even a few. I also don't mind if you prefer "herbal supplements" even though I don't. However, if your relaxation gets in the way or slows others down, let them play through. The course is too busy at times, especially once highschool is out for the summer.

I'm not too happy with the cost of the Madison courses. Originally I was ok with the cost of the season pass, but to find out it only covers Hiestand and Elver kinda sucks. I appreciate the fact that there is more of an effort to keep up this course, but I just assumed the $40 was to include other Madison "area" courses. A little variety would be nice now that the course is several years old.