Pros:
- practice basket
- concrete tees (decent except for hole 9)
- relatively basic baskets but all in good repair
- decent full color tee signs
- excellent elevation change on most holes, especially 1,2, 6, 7, 8, 9
- course map and scorecards are a nice touch, although the scorecards show the basket locations and not the fairways, making them less useful than they could be
- some good technical challenge on fairly wooded holes
- wooded holes still generally have good lines
- could be viewed as a pro or con, but a good place to get in a quick round
- virtually no rough and well maintained course
Cons:
- hole 2 permanent tee sign missing
- multi use park with track, playground, horseshoes, etc. in the vicinity, though generally not major safety issues
- hole 9 doesn't end very close to hole 1
- hole 9 tee pad is very tiny
- really long walk around track from hole 2 to hole 3, and navigation is not made clear at all
- hole 9 is very steep to hike down, could benefit from stairs
- remarkably short with only one hole over 300'
- no benches or garbage cans on course
Other Thoughts:
I will start out by saying I did enjoy this course. Mills Park is a fun, albeit very short course. Ultimately, I feel like it's currently a bit overrated. The best thing I can say about it is the elevation change is very indicative of being in the mountains. However, with the incredible mountain terrain and views of the Gatlinburg area, I have to feel like there could be a much better course in this area. Unfortunately, I have a feeling Gatlinburg's main focus is not disc golf - probably focused on the tourism!
I think this course was pretty well designed for the space available in the park, and despite being multi-use avoids major safety issues. With that said, the navigation and flow could be a lot better. I recommend parking by the track and starting with hole 3, then playing holes 1 and 2 at the end. This kind of splits the really long walk between 2 and 3, which wasn't well designed. At a minimum, some navigation aids should be put in place.
Most of the course tees, signs, and baskets are in good repair, but there's no wow factor here like I get from most of the Gatlinburg area scenery. The elevation change definitely adds some intrigue, and being from the Chicago area I did enjoy that.
Hole 9 really has a very small tee, but as the hole is about 170' downhill, it doesn't exactly need a run up either. While this course was fun, I feel like it was too short for anything but a fun, really casual round, with 3 holes under 200' and only 1 over 300'.
Previous reviews mentioned gnats, which I saw no sign of. Perhaps since it was early April they weren't an issue yet. Several reviewers also mentioned hole 2 having absolutely no line, which I didn't find to be the case. I'm an intermediate player and in 2 rounds I easily cut through to near the basket. It's possible the trees have been thinned out in the last few years making this one a bit more realistic.
There aren't a ton of courses in this area, and it's worth playing if you're there, but I definitely wouldn't go out of my way for it. The good news is since it's away from the parkway, you can avoid most of the Gatlinburg traffic by using the bypass. If you can drive a bit, courses out towards Knoxville will be a better use of your time.