Update on Rating in "Other Thoughts"
Mt. Airy Forest is an expansive, 1,459 acre-park located less than 15 minutes from downtown Cincinnati. This park was the first municipal reforestation in country, and has plenty of picturesque trails and locations for park goers to enjoy. Among the many amenities in this park is the 18-hole disc golf course, which in my opinion provides a fine example of what makes a disc golf course a top tier experience.
Mt. Airy's location is hard to miss if you are looking at Cincinnati on Google Maps. The disc golf course is located in the northern half of the park, and can be located using the signage found all around the park. Interstate 74 bisects the forest, so your route to the disc golf course will depend on what direction you are coming from. Outside of the park, you will be able to find restaurant and gas station options for whatever drink, snack, or gas needs you may have before or after your time at the course. Being so centralized, this course is close to a lot of the other courses in the Cincinnati region; if you are hitting the big 3 in Cincinnati, it's not hard to get to Mt. Airy, Idlewild, and Lincoln Ridge all in one day if you start early enough. Mt. Airy is also close to plenty of other attractions and hotels in Cincinnati, which is convenient if you are making a disc golf only trip to the area, or if you are in town with family or business and want to get a round in.
Park amenities are plentiful in Mt. Airy. There are miles upon miles of hiking trails for folks to enjoy, as well as trails for mountain biking and horseback riding. These different trails are mapped out and are accessible on the park website. This park is also home to Everybody's Treehouse, a whimsical, fully wheelchair accessible treehouse that is free to the public. The park has 3 reservable shelters, along with almost two dozen picnic areas. There are also 3 different reservable wedding venues to choose from for your special day. Just north of the disc golf course is the Mt. Airy Arboretum, which houses specialty gardens, gazebos, and picturesque lakeside views. To the south of the interstate, you will also find a dog park that has separate zones for large or small furry friends. Then you add in the restroom facilities and playground areas, calling Mt. Airy's amenities plentiful may sell the park short. You could easily spend a full day at Mt. Airy, whether or not that day includes to disc golf course.
Speaking of the disc golf course, let's talk about course amenities. Coming down Lodge Road past the playground area, you will come across a small parking lot and building. This building houses The Nati, a disc golf pro shop located on property. Its not every day the closest pro shop to a given course is on-site. With the selection of discs and unique setting in the older building, The Nati is a great place to check out before or after your round. Next to the parking lot, you'll also find a fun directional sign that shows distances to many notable courses around the country and globe, including Flip City, DeLaveaga, Winthrop, and even Pomiena Reserve in Tasmania. Beyond the parking lot, you will find what is the best warm up area I have seen on any disc golf course thus far. There's a long patio area with a large net at the end that will allow you to warm up with some power throws that won't require you to walk hundreds of feet to get your disc. There are also two DISCatcher practice baskets located in a large open area behind the pro shop. These baskets provide not only large spaces to practice putts, but approaches as well. At Mt. Airy, you have plenty of options with your warm up routine to make sure you're set for your round.
The course equipment at Mt. Airy also includes some great features. The tee pads are long concrete pads that felt nice and grippy on my round. The tee signs provide a graphic of each hole, pin locations and distances, the direction to the next tee, and which pin is in use. The baskets on course are DGA Mach 3s that are in great shape. The baskets at red, and stand out very well among the woods and greenery, making them easy to spot from a distance. Each hole also has a bucket for trash, so don't be a litter bug.
Mt. Airy's course design has a largely park-style vibe to it, which may be surprising considering it's in a forest. The course makes its way around tree lines of a more open area of the park, with only a few holes truly traversing the wooded environment that surrounds the course. While there is a playground area that the park goes near and other roads that the course runs along, the disc golf course largely uses land not shared by other amenities given the dead-end road that the course start and end resides at.
Variety is plentiful at Mt. Airy when considering multiple factors. While this is not the longest course you will find by any means, the pin distances throughout the course can range from 200 to 700 feet. There's a nice mix of longer and shorter holes on site, with different distances peppered throughout your round. The course also has some good elevation changes throughout. While there are a good number of largely flat holes, there are other holes that will require shots uphill, downhill, over small valleys, and over hills. In terms of shot shaping, there's a mix of fairways that go straight, left, and right, making for a course that both fit and challenge disc golfers dominant in either hand and favoring either forehand or backhand throws. While some holes on site are pretty straight, others offer either multiple shot options or force you to throw a particular shape. This course may slightly favor players whose go-to drive fades right, but as an almost solely RHBH player, I didn't have any issues on this course.
Course difficulty at Mt. Airy is very accessible to a variety of players. As other folks have said, this course feels like a nice balance between Lincoln Ridge and Idlewild in Kentucky. Lincoln Ridge is seen as providing a fun, relatively easier round of golf, while Idlewild is one of the harder courses you will find and is full of challenging risk/reward situations. I agree with the sentiment that Mt. Airy is a nice balance of the two. Newer players will be challenged by Mt. Airy, but will be able to bite off as much as they are comfortable with without punishment here. The park style holes mean that it's pretty easy to see where your disc lands on most holes, which is a nice plus for those who are looking for a most stress-free round. Intermediate players will find this course to have a good level of challenge, with longer pin placements providing challenging situations that will test both distance and accuracy for your birdie or par. While many of the shorter pin placements will likely be very easy for upper-tier players, the longer placements on this course are nothing to scoff at. The C placements on site provide plenty of distance and more extreme angles, which will challenge the vast majority of players. It looks like pin placements are changed often on this course, and you will find a mix of long and short placements on any given non-tournament round, making the replay factor at Mt. Airy high for all skill levels.
Course highlights, for me, would be holes 1, 5, and 15. Hole 1 is a beautiful opening drive over a hill to pin placements guarded within a wooded area - an exciting start to the round. Hole 5 is a long and tight hole that wraps to the right for a difficult par. On my round, there were two baskets to choose from on this hole, so if you want to harder pin placement, keep going along the street to the right to find the far placement. Hole 15 is probably the prettiest hole on site, with a long downhill drive to a B placement that is in an open spot of land surrounded by downhill slopes from the basket, making for risk-reward situations on every throw you make on this hole.