+ VERY peaceful venue with breezey fields and a nice forest. It's so quiet and desolate here that you can almost literally hear your own thoughts.
+ All baskets have 'next' arrows attached.
+ Tee signs are colorful, well-constructed and literally point the player which way to throw.
+ Concrete tees on a majority of the holes, but...

- ...A noticeable few of them are simple dirt (holes3, 6 and 13) or cracking wooden platforms (holes12 and 14).
- Some of those tee signs are damaged or outright missing.
- The course frequently fluctuates wildly between wide open and narrow tunnel fairways...
- ...and at all other times, the fairways feel repetitive.

To my mind, the star of the show is hole13. Even though it is the briefest of the course, that tiny fairway packs so much into a small area. The basket rests at the bottom of a steep multi-tiered downhill featuring a generous sprinkling of trees, which serve to both increase the difficulty and lend some shadowy beauty to the hole. About the short distance, it is clearly an ace-run, but the hill and trees make it such a daring throw that I couldn't help but love it. What a shame that it's over so quickly.

Hole18 is my least favorite because of how straight, flat, long and wide-open it is... That sentence sounds like the beginning of an off-color joke.

As for the course as a whole, Panther Creek doesn't really do it for me. For one thing, the front nine crosses the same path six times while the player goes back and forth between starting in the open to end in the woods and starting in the woods to end in the open. That gets dull pretty quickly. I understand that there was only so much the designers could do with this piece of land, but why do the same thing for half the course like that? The actual Panther Creek is visible from many spot on the course. Could it really not be somehow incorporated within the layout?

The way I see it, holes3, 6, 12 and 13 are the strongest holes. I am biased in favor of wooded courses, and those four are the only examples of true wooded disc golf. Everything else can be resonably considered open. Those holes that dive into and out of the woods for either the beginning or the end, while trying to add diversity to the circuit, seem more like gimmicks than anything else. And the wide-open field holes don't pique my interest.

But! The course is at least playable and not a miserable experience. Navigation here was pretty easy. The fairways were easy to decode, for better or worse. Disc golfing is better than not disc golfing, and I was glad to be playing it. Then again, I am the kind of player who always tries to play every course to the end, no matter its quality, for the sake of course bagging and giving each place a fair shot, even in that day's 94-degree heat. So maybe I was just sweaty, dehydrated and in the beginning stages of heat exhaustion.

In closing, Panther Creek Park may not be the hippest place to play. Hole13, great as it is, does not compensate for the ho-hum nature of the majority of the rest of the course, but at least this place doesn't commit any disc golfing sins. It's not awful, and it's not awesome. If you play here, you won't be dazzled or dismayed. Keep that in mind, and you should find this place to be just fine.

It had baskets and it had tees

There is no way this is a 2 star course. 1 maybe but not 2. The tees are small. The baskets are mis-numbered and the design is UNINSPIRED. The 1st basket has #2 on it and it continues from there. What should be #4's basket has the number 5 on it but that has been crossed out and the number 3 added in red ink! Essentially the design is to tee off from the open field to a basket 20-40 feet in the woods. Then throw from a tee in the woods to a basket out in the field. This repeated far down the field. When I got to the tee for #8 (but it said 9!) I just turned around and left. This hole was the longest yet at over 300' (shortest one was 162'!) but the tee was barely 4' long and elevated. Guaranteed for a player to fall off and get hurt!!! Unless you are collecting courses like me don't go there.......or unless you like tee and putt courses.......

Don't go into the main entrance but enter at the south entrance.
I'm sure the designer(s) did the best they could but I suspect the Parks Department said: "Here's this hunk of land - can you put a course there?"

18 hole course with open fields and some wooded holes. Easily navigable and beginner friendly. Besides the cross-country course, this section of park is dedicated to disc golf. Lots of nature and some great signage for tree species and wildlife if you're a nerd like me. A couple of serious butthole puckering short wooded holes with that ditch and steep hill to the right. Hole 11? is a tree protected ace run with a hill for a backstop behind the basket. Just rip it as hard as you can. If you don't hit an ace, it'll smack the hill and be laying there for a drop in deuce!

There's 2 tees that are natural tee pads. A couple of crazy lines in the woods on the ridge. Definitely not as bad as previous reviews state.

I've been avoiding this course for years due to the bad reviews. Almost skipped it on my trip home for Christmas. Glad I finally played it. There was no chance of getting lost from hole to hole. Very easy to navigate. Not much of a chance to lose a disc either. Fun course and there was also a married couple playing the course. So, maybe this course will not be so hidden anymore!

Panther Creek has a good variety of holes from long and open, to short and technical. There's a good enough variety to play well for all players. This makes it a great equalizer. I have witnessed from first-hand experience in my disc golf group that scores are much closer to par here than they are at nearby Yellow Creek. Players who can shoot -10 on average there, shoot around -4 or so at Panther. It is not a simple course.

A lot of holes at first glance may seem very easy, for example hole 1. It is not very long and wide open. What makes it a tough hole that I struggle to get par on is the OB. Panther Creek has a good amount of OB that makes even the wide open holes very technical.

There is lot of wind at Panther as well. A round there with average winds of 15 mph is a lucky break for you. Most of the times I have played at this course, there are sustained winds of 20-30 mph. This makes these open holes even more challenging. This really comes into play on a lot of the front 9 holes and hole 18.

Hole 13 is an incredibly short hole that you can dare to ace run, but can punish you if you go long as there is a steep drop past the basket. When the creek is up, your disc could easily fall into it. The same comes into play on your up-shot/putt on hole 15. This makes things a bit more fun.

I also love some of the little hikes in between holes.

There are a few holes that you must throw down the trail of the walking path. You should be able to see somebody walking, but I worry about a runner or little kid showing up out of nowhere and getting hit.

There are some holes without a tee pad, but there is a consensus in the local group where the pads are. For out-of-towners, though, there could be some confusion.

Some signs pointing to where to go next on some holes might be needed in the future. You're not as required now to follow someone who plays the course often to know where you are supposed to go, but there could be some confusion there as well.

I have not played the course in the fall yet, but apparently the field next to park grows tall. I can imagine that's frustrating to lose a disc in.

Panther Creek really is a hidden gem. It's in the middle of nowhere pretty much, and you have to go into the 2nd, lesser-known, entrance of the park to find the course!

There is usually not many, if any, players at the park. So if you show up to play, you pretty much have the course to yourself.

When I started out playing was the tail-end of the crappy Panther Creek. Over the past year or two, the Daviess County guys have really worked hard to get tee pads, new baskets, paint the baskets, trim up some, and really just make it a legit disc golf course. Most recently they've made an improvement to draining the water so the course doesn't get as wet after a big rain.

If you are in the area for whatever reason, it is worth the drive out to Panther Creek. And give a good review if you enjoyed it because the current rating deserves to be a lot higher after all the improvements.

Panther Creek has come a long way in just the past year. I'm a local so when I started playing I always went to Yellow Creek. (Excellent local course) and began to wonder what else was out there locally for a change in scenery. I was informed of Panther Creek, but warned of its rough condition. it was truely rough! Recently however many improvements have been made. Tee pads were added to 12 and 14. Signs for all holes have been added or improved. Also baskets have been painted and numbered. The course design offfers many oppertunities to get birdies along with a lot of variation in distance with OB always lurking nearby. After many hours and rounds played I can honestly say I prefer what this course offers over Yellow creek.

Wooded areas could use some clean up. Saplings and fallen branches are an unneeded annoyance. Trash cans are few and far between. Navigation can be confusing the first time around but after you play once its fairly simple.

Still needs a lot of work but a great course in the making.

-Pretty decent for beginners
-Good variety
-Some really fun holes.

-Even with better signage I still couldn't find 3, 13 or 14's tee pads.
-Tee pads are very inconsistent. Dirt, long and short concrete, some are way too narrow (4) and raised lumber platforms that are also really short.
-County parks could do a little maintenance to make it easier to navigate.
-Stairs would be a very welcome addition on the holes that play along the spoil.
-Some holes play literally on top of a walking path. Could be really dangerous on busy days.

I'll probably only play this one again if I'm in a tournament unless some improvements are made. It certainly has a ton of potential and if the local DG club continues to work on it it'll be a fun course.

The folks in Owensboro are doing a good job getting this course in shape! Keep up the good work! The new signs help tremendously and the addition of the concrete tee pads is a big plus. Way better than it was when I played over a year ago!

The wooded holes and the holes that play into the woods could use some trimmimg.

As soon as this course has 18 full-sized tee pads, it will be great for players of all levels. Regardless of the complaints that people have about this course, it is still pretty fun to play!

-parking
-beautiful area
-seclusion, dedicated to disc golf
-great fishing nearby

-no signage
-impossible to navigate without being shown
-no numbers on baskets
-teepads, or lack thereof

it's just so much wasted potential. at the very least, someone could number the baskets. It's part of a fantastic county park, but seems to have been left out of the maintenance schedule.

Panther Creek would be a very scenic place to play if given just a little TLC.

Some fun throws here and there.
Great open bombs with some cool tree navigation.

Terrible pads if there is one. Weird tee locations. Flat areas hold water.

Fun when its dry but I'd never play it if left to my own decisions.

-A fair balance of open and wooded holes.
-OB comes into play adding challenge.
-Several basket positions offer risk/reward, including a couple ace runs that could drop you into the drink.
-Apart form cross country, this part of the park is dedicated to disc golf.
-Plenty of room for parking.
-There is a port-a-john.

-Limited signage, and the signs in place are mostly wrong. Navigation is next to impossible without a local.
-There are not tee pads on every hole.
-While there is a balance of shots, a few of them will start to feel repetitive. It seemed as if the wooded holes all followed this formula: 200' RHBH hyzer tunnel with the basket below the ridge. This hole would be followed by a throw from in the woods out into an open field. The next hole would then take you from the field back into the woods.
-The course is rough around the edges. It really needs to be cleaned up. I have no problems with rough roughs, but these border on dangerous. Lots of downed branches and logs that can cause footing issues, tripping hazards, etc. While walking up a hill to the next tee pad, I was warned not to grab the post at the top because there is an exposed screw sticking out of the top.

Here's the thing with Panther Creek. It has plenty of potential to be a good course. Based on the current design, it's not a great course. When signs are mounted and pads put in place, I cannot imagine giving it more than 3 stars.

It's a fun course that will allow you to bomb some shots while working your control in the woods, but it isn't near top notch.

On a side note, the Daviess County Disc Golf Club is working very hard to bring this course together.

There are baskets. There are some defined holes. There are SOME markers as to where holes begin. There is a nature trail on one side, a corn field on the other.

I could write a Dark Towers type epic about the cons of this course, but I will stick to a simple defamation. This is NOT a course, at least not one by my standards. Baskets were not numbered right, and most were just spray painted over. The gravel pads were no bigger than a couple tiles on a kitchen floor, and most had weeds and crap growing through them. We safaried hole one, then continued on to hole 2, but by the pictures on this course, it appears hole 2, even with the basket saying 2 on it was 1?! It zig-zagged in and out of woods and open fields, never really staying put with either shot and using both as defined holes. The place is garbage, thank goodness we played Yellow Creek too or the 45 minute drive would've been completely wasted. Stay away from this "course."

The highlight of the course was AFTER we left, we stopped at a local pizza joint called 54 Pizza Express in Owensboro. One of the best strombolis I've ever ate in my life. Check it out, fantastic. Play Yellow Creek, Hawesville or Hartford in this area, don't even bother with this haphazard of a course.

There is nothing positive to say about this course except I was the only person there. Now I know why.

This was the most frustrating, poorly marked course I have ever played. It was not even possible to back-track from the second basket to find the beginning of the course. Don't waste your time going there

This is a challenging course that will make you earn your par instead of giving up birdies like Yellow Creek. The course weaves in and out of the woods and runs along the woods to make a varied course with changing hole lengths. A great compliment to Yellow Creek if you are going to play in Owensboro. The course is not really crowded, as it is next to Panther Creek Park, but you will sometimes get joggers running along some of the fairways that share the running paths.

The course is messy and some of the tee pads are either crap, in the wrong place, or both. The course is really difficult to navigate without a local as your guide. There are no benches or trash cans on any of the holes, so please carry your trash. (I believe it is) Hole 5 has a missing basket because some jerk came in and stole it. There is an alternate hole in place though, it just deserves a mention.

From what I hear, the Daviess County Disc Golf Club has been trying to fix the course up, so maybe the ease of navigation will come with time. I can give some advice on where the course starts, as we locals use a few different pads than the layout.
Hole 1 starts near the parking lot next to the small tree.
UPDATE: the local club is just about to start renovating the course from what I hear. Can't wait until they are done, I'll keep this posted
Hole 2 starts on the path and the tee pad ends at the birdhouse along the fence. You are throwing at the basket in the woods.
Hole 5 is missing, instead we have an alternate hole next to 18 that starts on an old tee and runs and the basket closest to it.
Hope this helps, I'll try to update as changes are made

The course is in a small area of a park that seems pretty much entirely devoted to disc golf. The front 9 plays around a flat grassy area with some holes playing into and out of the thick woods surrounding the field. The back 9 plays more in the woods with some elevation and some possible water hazards. There are a few really nice holes in the woods that offer some good challenges and some fun shots. The discatchers are in pretty good shape and catch well.

The course is impossible to navigate. I think I found most of the holes, and I think I played most of them from the intended tees, but it's really difficult to tell. I found three different map/course descriptions at the course or online, all three were different and none actually corresponded to what we found. The front nine has a lot of holes that are just plain open field shots, and there are a couple more later in the course, and those are just a little boring. The tees are inconsistent materials and sizes, and many are rutted or incomplete leaving poor footing.

This is a course that just doesn't feel complete. The land is there to make a pretty good course, but there's not enough done to justify a high rating so far. There are some nice holes and some good terrain, but the navigation issues are frustrating. Beginners will find (or not find...) the course tough and punishing at times, and more experienced players will be challenged to hit some lines in the woods. If you can find a local guide, this one could be fun, otherwise steer clear.

Okay, I want to preface my review with this: My review is written based off of my experience playing the course for the first time. I am not from this area, and do not know the history of the course, so it may be a work in progress. If you are a local, and know the layout, it may be a different situation, but if you have never played here before, here are some things to be aware of.

Panther Creek has potential to be a nice course. Given the size of the area, and the limited amount of wooded areas, I think the overall idea of the course layout is pretty good. A lot of holes played from open areas to baskets tucked into the wood line surrounding the park, or vice versa. I like this feature of the course, it makes for a good mix of open and wooded holes, and different types of challenges. As far as foliage, everything seemed to be in decent shape, nothing real extreme. It may be a different story in the summer-time though?! The course used DISCatcher baskets and all baskets were in good shape. There are minimal elevations on the course, but a couple of areas require you to walk up/down a semi-steep bank. There are no long holes here, definitely a par54 course. There were some open holes, and some that were moderately wooded, but no real tight technical holes.

There are multiple tee pads types, defined gravel pads, defined natural pads, undefined natural pads, and concrete pads. The gravel pads were narrow, I'm guessing 2ft wide, and sunk in from wear. It was evident that most players throw from beside the gravel boxes. The defined natural pads were ok, but a little unlevel. The concrete pads had plenty of length, and were in good shape, but they were narrow as well. There were tee signs on some holes that were accurate, tee signs on some holes that were not even close to accurate, and no tee signs at all on other holes.

The course was very confusing and difficult to navigate. I was not able to find pads and baskets for all the holes. I think I ended playing 14 holes, but I'm not even sure if I played some of them correctly. Some examples, there is a large gravel parking area when you pull up to the course with a basket label Hole1, but the tee pad for Hole 1 is probably 100ft in front of this basket facing 90deg away. The tee sign for Hole1 states it is 275ft straight ahead, I knew just from looking at the hole that it was more than 275ft, probably closer to 340ft. As I approached the basket, I saw that it actually said Hole2. I never found a tee pad for Hole2. Hole3 had an accurate tee sign, but all the photos I've seen of the course are calling this Hole4, even the Davies County DGC web site. That is why I wonder if the course layout may have been changed around without the electronic information being updated?!

Once I finally got through hole nine (roughly 300yds from the parking area, there was a smaller parking area with a big wooden sign that said "Disc Golf Course" with a map of holes 1-9. This map was showing holes 1-9 being in the woods behind the smaller parking area, which was very confusing since I just attempted to play 1-9 in a completely different area of the park. The tee pad for 15 said that the hole was 200ft with a big left to right shot from the open into the woods. I couldn't see the basket, but I threw based off of the sign. I soon realized that the basket for 15 was straight off of the box probably 350ft away. These are just a few examples of the navigational issues I had during my round.

The signage and navigation was the worst I have seen yet. You can get a more detailed description of the layout on the Davies County DGC website, but from what I saw though, not all of the pictures and direction align with the tee pads and basket numbers that I saw when I played the course. There should definitely be some navigational tools in place, and maybe a detailed and accurate course map located at the park.

Panther Creek really isn't a bad course, but current conditions make it next to impossible to navigate especially for someone new to the course. I eventually had to give up trying to follow hole to hole, and just played the holes that I could find that made sense.

I hope that some of these issues get cleared up, I would like to play the course again and be better able to enjoy it. Panther Creek really is a decent par54 course with potential to be a lot of fun, pending the resolution of the layout issues. If you are coming to this area to play, and only have time to play one course, I would definitely play Yellow Creek. Some of the other reviews mention that the local club is still working on the final layout, so I will keep a check on the DCDGC website for updates and DGCR as well for newer reviews. I will be glad to play the course again and update this review as applicable.

Some very unique holes that demand precision and creativity. Picturesque area that is heavily wooded on three sides of main clearing. Ridges and bluffs provide an earthy "Back to nature" feel to it all.

As mentioned by all of the previous posters, this course is very rough and vaguely defined. Sometimes you feel like you are just firing away at randomly placed baskets. Finding Tees can be like looking for lost pirate treasure, "follow the trail that leads to the lightning struck maple, a lone northbound root points to the rock that looks like Homer Simpson eating a donut--the tee begins where the donut ends..." It can be an excercise in frustration. Some of the holes have a fairway that is merely a winding hiking trail on top of a ridge--miss right and you might need to bring repelling gear to retreive your disc! Also, the gravel tee boxes are a detractor. Everyone in my group used the well worn areas outside of the boxes when driving.

This course has potential but will need a lot of work to get there. While several of the holes are both challenging and fun, the layout itself does not flow very well. In my opinion, the bulk of the course would benefit by a total redesign to better utilize the availble flora and fauna. Could be really fun if done right.

This is a course I have played many times. It has some very intresting but not out of this world shots. Hole 1 is in the front of the park, best to park in the middle gravel lot. the signage is in the back. The front holes lead you in and out of light woods with some open holes in between not real long distances, some easy two's. The first few in the back are in thicker woods but not to bad, Some nice shot choices it ends back out in the open with 17 being my Favorite hole a longer Annie from open into a tucked back pin in some light woods.

The course is in a transition I understand from the Local club. They are working on the final lay out. Right now it is a hard course to navigate. best thing to do is visit their site, they have a great course walk through.

I am looking forward to seeing this course grow and get better.

If it ever get completed there is alot of woods playing it might be fun but first it has to be completed.

not finished

when will it be done?

with a little work this course will be excellent, I still like to go play it at times, can't wait to see the finished product. the course is set on a nice piece of land and has wide open spaces as well as woods to contend with.

Tee pads vary different throughout the course, sometimes there isnt a tee pad and the next time there is. No signage on most holes so you have no clue what or which basket to throw too.

Not completed yet, but hey, Rome wasn't built in a day afterall. I remember some locals telling me they were working on updating the course, I am not sure if this has happened yet or not. Yellow Creek is definitely Owensboro's premier course, so if you want to play some great DG, go there.

Several tight shots that require some accuracy and luck. Will soon be redesigned by the DCDGA.

Tee signs wrong, can get lost if not playing with someone who has played it.