Pros:
- Decent variety for a more open, parks style course, well manicured
- Good, if aging, baskets and great tee signs
- Part of a large, pay-to-play complex comprised of 4 courses and a clubhouse with pro-shop, concessions, and bathrooms
Cons:
- Features many long, open fairways that lead to "tweener" holes for players at some skill levels
- Tee pads can be a bit too short
- Occasionally confusing routing and layout without an up-to-date course map
Other Thoughts:
The Blue Course is Lemon Lake's most prototypical parks style course. It features many long, mostly open fairways with a decent smattering of large, mature trees to provide minimal shot shaping. There are a few fairways that play in the woods, and the tighter, tree-lined holes near the start of the Gold/Silver course are among the best the Blue Layout has to offer. However, most fairways allow for whatever shot you are most comfortable with. These kind of long, open fairways lead to a lot of "tweener" holes where, unless you have a big arm, you can't reach the basket for a birdie, but even a bad shot leaves you good chance for par. This results in less exciting rounds and limited score separation for a number of players on many of Blue's holes.
That being said, this is still a very pleasant part of the park to play through, and the equipment is of the same good quality as on the rest of the courses in the complex. I continue to wish the tee pads were a foot or two long, but it's not that big of a deal. The Blue layout has been in flux the last several times I've played, and without a map it is certainly possible to miss some holes or get turned around. Make sure to continue straight past 7's Basket and follow the road to the right to the new Holes 8-10, and not head back to the left to the old #8, which I believe is still labeled as #8 on the tee sign. On my last trip, Red Holes 1 and 18 were currently incorporated into the Blue layout as holes 16 and 17 with the temporary closing of the Red Course. Hopefully the Blue course gets a more concrete layout after the re-opening of Red and some additional routing information is provided to reduce confusion.
The Blue course vies with White for my least played course at Lemon Lake. The Red and Silver layouts are more to my liking, but Blue is still a really solid course with a number of great holes. If you love breaking out your high speed drivers and crushing big hyzer and anyhyzer lines around large trees, this is the course for you, and there is enough variety to not get dull. You really can't go wrong playing any combination of 2 or 3 courses out at Lemon Lake, they complement each other really well and make for a great day of disc golf. The clubhouse with discs and concessions adds great added value (when open), and helps make this a true disc golf destination. Do yourself a favor and take an entire day to play as much golf as you can at Lemon Lake, then drive over to Three Floyds brew pub for some great beer, and talk about all the awesome disc golf you just played with your buddies.
***2020 Update:
Upon my most recent trip to Lemon Lake I was slightly disappointed at the state of the complex. The tree loss around the complex has definitely been felt. The White Course was recently closed for re-design, and the Red Course has felt the loss strongly as well. In addition, the rough off the fairways was much thicker and thornier than I recall from previous visits and my group spent significant time looking for discs across the complex even when we had a really good idea of where they landed not far off the fairway. The temporary tee signs have also aged very poorly and are frequently completely illegible or displaying outdated information. The complex could definitely use a little more attention, though the grass fairways were all recently mowed and well maintained. The Blue course has not suffered as much as the Red and White courses, but navigation on the back end is still extremely problematic, and there are currently only 17 holes. Hole 18 on the course map from the Links/Files tab on this site no longer exists (Hole 15 is now 18). Playing new hole 18 as hole 1 and ending with holes 17 and 16 makes more sense from a navigation standpoint.