With its unmarked gravel entrance in a residential neighborhood, narrow fairways carved raw through the woods, and fantastic signature holes, Venhorst has the feel of a great private course...that happens to have Paul McBeth as a neighbor to help with the design.
+ A long, challenging course, that's mostly wooded but also features a few semi-open holes, and two or three dramatic water carries. Big elevational changes add to the epic feel.
+ Multiple holes here are very memorable, and could be signature holes on any other course. All of the water carries, but especially hole 5, are among the more dramatic that you'll find on any course, as they cross the entire width of these large ponds. Following these, the semi-open long par 4s (holes 7 and 18) are also fantastic, and make tremendous use of elevation and late fairway turns to create dramatic finishes to the baskets. And several of the wooded holes are also quite scenic, such as holes 9 and 10 whose fairways follow a small creek towards the baskets.
+ Two sets of tees on most holes. The concrete short tees are suitable for strong intermediate players and above, who should have opportunities to fight for birdies, though it will be a tough battle throughout.
+ The long tees, designed by none other than local resident Paul McBeth, are currently on adequate-quality turf, which I'm sure will be upgraded. Not sure how much design work McBeth really had to do, as the long tees are usually just 100 ft. further than the shorts and use the same angles and lines. But that extra distance makes a huge difference to the difficulty, and these long tees will present a considerable challenge to strong advanced and open players.
+ Most holes have two basket positions, a short B and a long A, on excellent DD Veteran baskets. These pins dramatically differ in their distance, the finishing/approach angles required, and in their difficulty. A very helpful sign on the way to hole 1 indicates which positions the pins are currently in.
+ Every teepad has its own signs, which are simple drawings but adequately display distance, shape, etc.
+ Arrows on the basket spokes help with navigation, as do additional arrows on some transitions.
+ 5- and 13-hole loops return to the parking lot, offering some opportunities for shorter run-throughs, or short breaks at your car.
+ This quiet park is seemingly only used for disc golfing and some pond fishing, largely making for peaceful play.

I enjoy long, challenging wooded courses, more than anyone I know. But Venhorst is not my favorite in the genre.
- Lack of shot variation in the woods - nearly all of these holes are laser-straight tunnels, perhaps with a left or right finish at the very end. But there are essentially zero opportunities for sweeping hyzers or big turnovers, generally you are just asked to throw straight over and over again. You also rarely have to consider early gaps or late windows, as most of the fairways are the same width the whole way down. Forests offer many opportunities to creatively shape fairways on all sorts of angles and widths, but this course ignores those possibilities and largely sticks to restrictive, straightjacket tunnels, which I have to say are not very fun after awhile. See also: the Camp Hydaway course 20 miles to the east, which this course reminded me very strongly of, and which I have similar issues with. At least Venhorst is saved by some excellent holes in the semi-open.
- Several of the basket positions require abrupt, late finishing fades that I feel are unreasonable and borderline unrealistic. This also affects scoring separation and fun, as I feel these holes will generate very few birdies, and an abundance of boring layups.
- Several of the wooded holes feel like filler, to eat up the distance between the signature holes. But perhaps this feeling is just a consequence of the lack of shot variation again.
- Emphatically not a beginner-friendly course, even from the short tees. The repetitive long wooded tunnels will be too punishing, and the water carries do not offer safe bailout zones. Beginners do have other options in the area, but perhaps red tees could be installed here, even if they're just small markers in the ground.
- Very slick clay presents serious footing concerns on some of the steep slopes, particularly the downhill drop of hole 8. Players with balance or coordination concerns will have to tread very, very carefully in many areas, especially after a recent rain.
- After throwing off the tee on hole 5, proceeding to your lie requires walking back through hole 4's green, presenting safety concerns.
- Not every hole has a long tee, which isn't made clear on any signage, and led to some fruitless searching when I played that layout. Consequently, some of these short holes felt very out of the place on the long layout.
- More navigational signage is needed in some places in the woods, as there are many old trails that can cause confusion.
- Recent tournaments started play on hole 6 and finished on hole 5, which offers dramatic starting and closing holes near the parking lot. By contrast, the 'normal' layout requires getting to hole 1 via a non-obvious walk from the parking lot across or around hole 18's green, and begins the course experience with three wooded holes that I would sequentially rate as being decent, poor, and very poor, before finally getting in gear on hole 4. Not a good first impression, and not sure why the tournament layout isn't permanently followed instead.

I expect this course will receive a lot more polish and shine in the coming months from Foundation, their rabid social media followers, local clubs, and of course foot traffic, which could all help considerably. From what I saw, I also suspect the 'A' pin positions are markedly better than the Bs, which I tried from both tees. My current rating for the course accounts for these likely improvements, and perhaps I'll revisit to play the 'A' positions to confirm that, and hopefully more.