Pat Lunsford Blackwater DGC is a new in 2021 course in a city park in the town of Milton. Other activities in the park include a skate park, BMX track, ballfields and a large building of unknown to me purpose although the course is in a DG specific space. The course still has that new feeling with pristine huge concrete teepads and beautiful blue Prodigy baskets. Tee signs were great and could be found at both teepads (which most holes had). Navigation was straightforward as the hole routing was obvious for this first timer. Majority of the holes were in the woods and were a fun mix of straight and left and right finishing holes.

The dual tees I found to be well executed. In the open holes you could see the short pad from the long, but in the woods the short tee was almost always around a bend and thus out of the line of fire. I played mostly from the short pads but scoped out all the long ones (since I was hiking by anyways) and could see the difference in lines which I prefer when having multiple pads.

Four holes were straight up field holes, 1, 2, 16 and 18 with the only challenge being if you RHBH hyzer out early you could enter the woodline. Well distance I guess is the other challenge to these holes.

Hole 12 green was a backhand Firebird for me to a blind basket and was surprised to find the basket about 8' from a fence on the leftside with a road about 15' beyond that. I hit a high limb and dropped down on my drive but can imagine some ace runs getting to the road (caveat: didn't see any traffic on said road, and at least the fence ends so you could retrieve your errant drive). (And note: I sometimes just poke and hope after consulting the tee sign and viewing the fairway from the teepad. Most times I will walk ahead to get a better idea of the shot shape but not this day).

Artificial OB lines on 2 other holes, I think 14 was along the property line. I am not a fan of OB lines and stakes...

Impressive work done to create the woods holes. I could see the evidence of all the mulch lining pretty much every foot of the fairways. Also by scoping out the dense rough around me. Fairways I found to be generously wide, however the couple times I found myself in the rough it was a challenge to advance much.

Speaking of all the mulch: watch your footing when hiking them fairways. I had a few ankle twisting missteps out there.

Looking at the map I think the course designer did an excellent job for what they had to work with. Seems to me they used all of the property available (although I would have routed the boring field holes differently).

- clean course
- dual concrete tees per hole, (one circular!)
- new pro grade baskets, brightly colored
- wood chip lined fairways
- benches
- trash cans
- easy to follow layout
- elevation variations
- fun layout with some ace runs sprinkled in.

- single pin locations
- all course signage is temporary, no distances or fairway orientations displayed yet
- overly used blind pin placements
- unimaginative long filler holes at the start and end
- vanilla fairway layouts, bare, repetitive
- not a lot of risk vs reward

Blackwater features a mostly wooded layout with a few open bomber holes at the beginning and end of the course. Each hole has a pair of freshly poured concrete tee pads, benches, trash cans, single pin locations, and open freshly mulched fairways. The baskets are brand-new baby blue Prodigy T-3s. The rough is punitive, but not overly so. Players may not be able to scramble as well as they'd like, but they probably won't lose more than a stroke getting back into good fairway position.

I enjoyed the subtle variations of inclining and declining fairways throughout the course, especially hole 3 from the long tees. As a whole, Blackwater still lacks some amenities like permanent tee signs with distances and numbered baskets, which is to be expected as it's brand new. I fully expect these will come with time. The parking lot is large enough to accommodate a tournament crowd, no bathrooms. The nearest bathrooms are probably a 1/4 mile away at the community skate park.

I walked away from this course conflicted. Blackwater was mostly fun to throw, but there are some glaring design flaws that made the holes feel repetitive and bland. The beginning and end of the course were quite literally long identical filler holes, which really bogs down the overall course experience. Another theme overly used was blind pin placements, even from the short tees. It's a course aspect that I dislike from a safety standpoint, but I also believe it short changes players if overly used. Lastly, a majority of the layout was too RHBH favorable. Don't get me wrong, I love a course tailored to my strengths, but Blackwater went a little overboard.

Believe it or not, I actually enjoyed parts of the course. I think it's a course that a lot of local players will enjoy, though it's repetitive at times and not overly challenging. Disc golf is really taking hold in our area and this course is proof that the demand is there.