Pros:
- Some interesting new wooded holes and a decent mix of fairways types and distances
- Many fairways use limited elevation to great effect, several dangerous and interesting greens
- Part of a complex with 3 other good to great courses
Cons:
- Many of the holes on the front nine have ill-defined fairways or are too short to be interesting
- Terrible natural tee pads on most of the course
- Multiple areas of conflict with existing walking paths and roads
Other Thoughts:
The new Lemon Lake Blue layout is a course that lacks an identity within the complex. Prior to the many changes the property has undergone the last several years, Blue was the long, open, bomber course. I don't know the decision process behind the redesign of the Blue course, but I would speculate that it has something to do with the design changes on the White and Red course, and a desire to recapture some of the shorter, wooded holes lost on those layouts. Unfortunately, I think the new design fails to capture what was lost, and instead loses something else from the complex.
The new front nine is a series of short, wooded holes that range from potentially great to frustratingly odd. Holes 1 and 9 have the bones of great disc golf holes that need to be cleaned up and refined, but use the mild elevation change to great effect with interesting greens. Hole 6 is a dangerous downhill shot with a narrow fairway ending right before the lake. Most of the other holes are either too short to be interesting or have fairways that are not yet well defined. It is very much a birdie-or-die type layout where distances are achievable by players of most skill levels, but trouble is easily reached even with seemingly good drives. The tees for the front nine are sorely lacking at this time as well. They are uneven, stumpy, sandy things that will hopefully be replaced before too long.
The back nine has more of the original feel of the Blue Course, with more open and longer fairways (with the exception of the new 16, which also needs its fairway cleaned up). The south-east section of the course that used to be home to 5 longer, open fairways now houses only one ~650 foot hole. It seems to me like more could have been done with this space, and some of the shorter fairways on the front nine combined into longer, more interesting holes. My final feeling after playing the new layout was that not enough thought was put into the new design, and to what it was supposed to be. Is it a shorter, more technical course perhaps better suited to less experienced players? Should it still have long shots but add a technical element to it? As is, it doesn't seem aimed at any particular skill level, with just about anyone being frustrated with some part of it. Adding permanent tees will certainly help this course's rating, but it will always feel a little disjointed.
I didn't notice a lot of serious conflicts with walking paths, and I played on a fairly busy Sunday, but there are still too many for a new layout. It just solidifies the feeling of lack of care in design. The baskets are good and signs are adequate and as mentioned before, with the exception of 3 or 4 that use the old concrete pads, the tees are abysmal. The long walk from 9 to 10 is excessive.
Blue was always the weakest of the courses at Lemon Lake in my opinion, but it had an identity separate from the rest of the complex and I enjoyed playing it in conjunction with the others. The new layout loses that identity, and doesn't add enough new interesting elements to make up for it. There is room for improvement though, and hopefully the design of the front nine is refined and cleaned up in the future. As it stands, this is probably the course to skip if you don't have time to play everything on your visit to Lemon Lake.