- Nice mix of more open and wooded fairways with good use of rolling hills.

- Great course equipment with three sets of tees and two or three basket positions on each hole.

- Well maintained park is a joy to play through.

- Too many holes with wide open fairways that play to a basket tucked just into the woodline.

- Incredibly thick rough in many spots of the course.

- Too many blind shots off the tee.

The La Vista Park disc golf course is one of many new courses in the St. Louis area since my last visit almost a decade ago and was at the top of my list to check out during my latest visit. The course relies a bit too heavily on a couple design features for my taste, but overall I was impressed with the layout and had a great time.

The park is well maintained and pleasant to play through with great course equipment. There is a porta-pottie and kiosk with a course map at the parking lot. The concrete tee pads (for white and blue tees) are large and grippy with imprinted logos for the local Rotary Club that I assume donated to the course in some capacity. Tee signs have almost an overload of information with large, colorful depictions of the fairway and listed distance information for all 9 (on most holes) potential layouts with 3 pads and 3 pins per hole. Bolts indicate the current pin position, which can be easy to miss early on where the screw heads are dark and blend in a bit with the sign. The red tees are natural with much smaller and more simple tee signs. I played the white tees and felt it a good fit for my ~930 rated skill level. Most tees have benches, and trash cans were scattered throughout as well. Next tee signage is simple but effective with colored or numbered arrows pointing the correct way to go. One of my favorite course features were the brooms located at each tee sign and I made use of them a few times during the round. The Gateway baskets catch well and are in good shape.

The pin position indicators on the tee signs is almost a necessity because this course features the most blind shots that I can recall playing on a course, at least with the pin positions in place at the time of my round. This isn't as much of a problem for locals who play frequently, but it got mildly frustrating for a first play through. My other nitpick with the course design is that there are an overabundance of fairways that play mostly open to start and then end with the basket tucked into the woodline, both on par 3s and 4s. This is a fine design element, but there were several holes that featured it. Combine that with the incredibly thick rough that is present in many locations and you can find yourself at the edge of the circle, having just missed the gap to the basket, and have to pitch backwards the mouth for a putt of the same distance.

With those minor issues out of the way, the course design overall is quite good. It leans a bit toward straight shots off the tee, especially to the short basket positions, but with the longer pins in particular there is a good balance of left and right turning shots as well. The course also shifts back and forth between tight woods and open fairways very well and helps maintain interest throughout the whole round. It does play on the long side in the current configuration, with 7 of the back 9 holes as par 4s, but positioning is more important than raw distance on most of these. The rolling elevation is also used to good effect. There are a number of great holes, but 12 is probably my favorite and the signature hole of the course. A 416 ft valley shot with the basket protected by a tight bunker of trees making approach angle and position incredibly important. Hole 18 is also a great finishing hole as a long par 4/5 with the gold basket location (one of two, along with hole 11, that have two permanent basket locations per hole) on a built up landscaped green.

La Vista is a great addition to the area with a layout suitable to just about all skill levels. This a course that should be toward the top of your list when coming to the St. Louis area.

La Vista Park DGC is a relatively new course, opened in 2019, that's just across the river from St. Louis in Godfrey IL. This was the best course I've played to date in the general STL vicinity.

The course features a good mix of tightly wooded and more open holes. Plays about 2/3 open and 1/3 in the woods. The thing I liked best about this is that it's not all the woods holes right in a row. Rather, they're interspersed throughout to keep it interesting for the entire round. You never know what to expect next.

There's three different tee pads on almost every hole. The longs (blue) and middle (white) pads are concrete. These things are huge. Some of the bigger tee pads I've seen in awhile. There are a couple, two I believe, that share the same pad for both blue and white. Not only are the pads huge but they're all poured nice and level and have great traction to them. The short (red) tees are just natural. It's nice to have a shorter option in play for less powerful players due to the length of the course overall.

The baskets are Gateway Titan Pro-24's. These are all over the place down in this area. I like them. They catch well and are the sturdiest baskets I've ever seen. There's one basket per hole except for holes 11 and 18. Those two holes feature two baskets. The Gold position is an extra long placement for each hole. Hole 18's is atop an elevated, large stone circle green. Hole 11's is tucked to the left, downhill past the long position. These appear to new as of 2023.

The flow of the course is generally pretty easy to follow. There's numerous next tee arrows and signs throughout the course and in highly visible spots from the previous basket. A map was useful in a couple spots but it's easily doable without one.

There's a nice kiosk by hole one with a large course map if you don't have Udisc so you can snap a picture of the course map there.

The tee signs are top notch. Some of the best I've seen. They feature a detailed and accurate topographical map of the hole showing all the pin placements, all 3 tee locations, a next tee arrow, any OB in play and even show nearby tees or baskets which I absolutely love. In addition to all that they have the hole # and distances and pars for every different tee and pin position. Oh yeah, they also have a bolt inserted next to the pin position that's currently installed. Literally everything you could possibly need from a tee sign. Phenomenal.

Lots of awesome greens out here. Lots of risk/reward scenarios on your putts with drop offs and roll aways waiting on every other hole it seems. The use of the elevation out here is top notch. Really the use of the entire area they had to work with is next level. Fabulous course design all around.

The course, and park itself, was in spectacular shape when we visited. The way the grass was mowed on the fairways, especially hole 18's, looked like it was a private country club. Just a gorgeous park in general, but the maintenance was next level.

The course is permanent and free to play. There's ample parking and a restroom by the parking lot. The two halves of the course both start and end by the parking lot too.

The course plays on the longer side. If you don't throw far this is going to be a tough course. Lots of par 4's and a couple 5's out here. Not a con per se, but worth noting.

The rough on a few holes is pretty gnarly. Lost disc potential is very possible on some of the wooded holes. Hole 12 being the thickest.

Even with all the great navigational aids, I manage to screw it up and jump over to hole 7 after finishing hole 1. Didn't notice until we got to hole 8. Totally me fault in every way. But I will say that the next tee arrows on the bottom of most of the baskets are facing the wrong direction. Be sure to look at the signs, not trust the ones on the cages.

I'm struggling to think of any other cons at the moment.

This course is vastly underrated as of right now. This is a top 10 course in the state for me. I haven't played all the top ones yet, but this one compares favorably to all the ones I have played.

This is a course to put on your wishlist, it's that good. And I normally don't really care for open style, long holes. This one does it right. If it had a few more wooded holes like the ones that are already here it'd be a 4.5 easy for me. If I could rate this a 4.25 that's what I'd give it. Must play course if you're anywhere nearby. Loved it.

- The course looks so good, it almost makes you forget about the honeysuckle. There are large teepads for the white and blue tees, and great signage, including directional signage to help navigate from hole to hole. I love that they have red tees for kids/beginners. The course can be as challenging as you want it to be.

- The other amenities like brooms on the back of tee signs to help sweep away brush, as well as benches on many of the holes really make a difference. It looks like they have good buy-in from the community.

- There is a good balance of wooded (6) and open shots, and they bounce back and forth a bit to keep you focused.

- Where this course shines are the open holes that bring in the danger of the woods/honeysuckle. Holes 9, 13 and 14 are excellent - there's true risk/reward for going for birdies. The fairways aren't huge, but they're wide enough where you are punished for an errant shot.

- I'm couching this in that I've only played the white tees and only one set of pin positions, maybe blue tees or different pin positions would have been different. But the 6 woods holes are all very similar - 225-275 foot dead straight holes where you need to hit one of two 5-7 foot gaps 100-120 feet away. I wish one was a par 4, or had a line something other than throwing a dead straight shot or a baby flex. I feel like there's room to grow. Bottom line - no hole is a bad hole, but it does feel like it repeats.

- Sort of in the same vein, but there's only one hole (15) that requires you to throw a strong hyzer or anhyzer. Almost every drive for a par 3 can land in circle 1 with a straight shot, so right to left placement isn't so much a thing, but you do have to gauge your distances well.

- I really liked this course. I do feel like this could be bumped up to a 4.5 when I get the chance to play the blue tees or different pins and see if shot shaping changes. (Looking at the map, maybe a couple would.)

- I saw someone else mention blind shots. Again, only playing one set of pins may skew my opinion, but this didn't bother me much. Almost all of the par 3 holes were in view if you walked 30 feet from the tee.

- The honeysuckle is very punishing. Which, depending on the level of challenge you're looking for, can be good or bad. I was lucky enough to only have a couple of errant shots, and they were brutal to recover from - I was a few feet off the fairway. I think the open holes are fine, but clearing out the woods holes a bit more would be great. There are a number of downhill shots that border on a poke and hope. If you catch an unlucky break off the edge of a tree, it seems like you're doubly punished.

Update May 2021:
I have just played La Vista again for the first time since my review. I have updated my review. I will leave the initial review details as it shows the growth of the course.

This place is being well looked after. Great large pads, excellent upkeep, awesome signage. Yes there are a lot of blind shots...course par does reflect the difficulty of these shots and really you are expected to play positions golf. Real golf. Gripping and ripping will be punished and it was so rewarding threading the needle on some of these holes. Great fun.

May 2020 review
Some interesting design decisions made on this course.

Quick hitters for good points:
-Nice Gateway Titan baskets. these big buggers catch many a high hyzer putt.
-Nice holes carved out into the woods. all of them have elevation changes. Makes for some challenging shots. Good thing you can see the baskets for the wooded holes. Of course you can see the baskets you say but oh no no no, don't take this for granted.
Hole 4 - Awesome wooded hole unless you hit an early tree and kick left.
Hole 12 - Another great wooded hole across a little valley

Update May 2021.
Ok so the below sounds super critical and it is. Really this course just absolutely punishes wayward shots in a way no other course in the St Louis metro does. The dense honeysuckle just gobbles up discs that hyzer into the woods. It's only going to get more difficult as the invasive honeysuckle takes over. Without honeysuckle this is a 4.5 star course however there is just no way out if you hyzer into the woods. Not being able to see the basket for many holes makes this course that much more challenging. This is absolutely not a course for beginners and maybe even INT players.

I get the novelty of blind shots. Sometimes it's cool to throw around a corner or over a ridge. But the level of blind shots here is just absurd. There are 18 holes, here are the blind shots

Hole 2 - throw around a corner. throwing a FH means you'll be hyzering right around the corner to dense honeysuckle woods
Hole 3 - You need a good shot here because once again the baskets are not only blind but one is hidden deep in the woods. if you get to the opening you won't have seen your disc land so you won't know where to start looking.
Hole 8 - another around the corner shot, this time instead of throwing around the corner the line is to throw directly over the woods. hope you clear it otherwise that disc is gone.
Hole 9 - Could be blind, could not. Depends on basket location
Hole 10 - another blind shot over a ridge with one basket tucked down in the woods.
Hole 11 - another blind shot.
Hole 13 - you guessed it, and this time it's down a long tunnel where you likely won't see your disc land and if it was a rhbh hzyer it's probably in dense honeysuckle, good luck on your search.
Hole 14 - another one. It was getting really annoying at this point having to walk out and look around for the basket and get a sense of depth for where I though my disc would land so I would throw blindly into the woods.
Hole 15 - After hole 14 I was frustrated as I threw a smidge too far and had to search for my disc. Only to come to Hole 15 where you had yet another blind shot around a corner hyzering into dense woods. ergh. at this point I was done playing for a decent score and just laying up into the fairway and taking pars
Hole 17. Blind throw around a corner again. I'm officially renaming this course "Around the Corner" DGC

I've had to update this whole section. This course requires accuracy and power..yet also touch shots in the woods. This place has it all and now in May 2021 its getting serious love and attention from local Disc golfers. Bring your A game or a spotter if you lack control. This place has bite!