Pros:
Concrete pads, quite hilly, tight, challenging, lots of shade, double 9 loop style, only light brush off the fairways.
Cons:
Only one set of tees. Pretty far from a decent-size city, about 45 minutes from Monroe or 30 minutes from Ruston. Hole 1 is poorly designed but the rest are great. Hole 18 has a bottleneck in the fairway that makes it more luck than skill.
Kinda challenging to navigate if you don't have a map, ask for one when you enter.
Other Thoughts:
If Disc Golf Course Review allowed us to rate with quarter points, I'd give this 4.25, but since we can only rate 4.0 or 4.5 I'm giving this one 4.5 because Lake D'Arbonne is much closer to 4.5 than 4.0.
Starting on Hole 1, which is a 90 degree turn about halfway down the fairway, you might be worried that you drove a long way to play a really dumb course, but fortunately Hole 1 is the only dumb hole on this course.
Hole 2 is a nice anhyzer that descends as you turn towards the hole.
Hole 3 and 5, while almost the same, made me feel like I was playing on a ball golf course, where you have to control your shot to stay in the fairway or pay the price for trying to get greedy and throwing it as hard as you can. At about 600 feet each with a 40-foot wide fairway, threes are achievable on these two holes but fours are a good score. I really enjoyed these two holes because I like par 4 and par 5 holes.
Hole 4 is a birdie-able shot up a hill and to the right.
Holes 6-9 are a good stretch of birdie holes, but they will make you pay if you stray from the fairway. One of the best features of Lake D'Arbonne is that if you miss the fairway, you'll have a tough time making par because of all the small pine trees, but there isn't a lot of "scratchy" thorn-like rough that can really make you mad.
After Hole 9 there is a one or two minute hike up a hill back to the parking lot. I always enjoy being able to stop at my car after 9 holes to re-load the adult beverages or grab an extra disc.
Hole 10 is a nice downhill birdie run but it's a tight fairway. Hole 11 plays back up the same hillside about the same length as 10, but it's a lot harder going up.
Hole 12 is a cool downhill tight tight anhyzer, Hole 13 is a short uphill birdie run, and 14-16 are all tight but birdieable as well with elevation change.
After 16 it was kinda tough to find 17 even with the map, but once you do, it's a real tough 420 foot uphill battle. The rough is really rough on this hole, unlike the rest of the course if you get off the fairway here you might have to pitch back into the fairway it is so rough.
Hole 18 is a long hyzer shot to finish, that doesn't have the best fairway. It's a luck hole since you have to hit one of two gaps about 6-9 feet wide about 250-275 feet down the fairway.
After 18 it's another two-three minute hike back to the parking lot, but it's all worth it. I really enjoyed this course and wish there were tournaments played here.