Patriot's Park is a tricky 18-hole course just outside of Greenville, IL. This course is one that has a lot of potential, but not enough attention and maintenance to be worth a drive off the highway.

Location of Patriot's Park is off Rt. 140 outside of town and isn't too close to any other course other than Greenville College (which is not worth to commute from this course). There are gas and food options in Greenville proper as well as in Pocahontas of the highway, depending on which way your GPS takes you.

Park Amenities are kind of sparse but check all the boxes. There are shelters, bathrooms, and a field that it looks like they can use for sports like soccer. There's also in the back of the park that offers fishing.

Course Equipment that is in place is in good shape. The baskets are Gateway Titans that are all in good shape; Gateway Titan baskets will be the last thing to be destroyed the next time an Asteroid caused an extinction event. The signs that are present have most of the information you'd want: a hole layout, pars, distances, and what pin is in use.

Course Design at Patriot's Park is a mix of open holes around the open fields near the front of the park and shaped, tight wooded holes. This course requires you to be very intentional with your shots, otherwise you may be in thick rough or in for a long search for your disc if you have a bad throw on the wrong hole.

Shot Shaping is a must for this course, as you will find yourself needing to use a bit of everything to be successful here. There is a good mix of left and right turning holes, making for a variety of options regardless of if you are left or right-handed, and whether you are forehand or backhand dominant. Other holes like hole 1 allow for multiple options. Plenty of shots on this course are tunnels, requiring precise fades or careful slip ups. Even the more open par 5 of hole 9 is tricky, as ending up on the sides of the fairway can easily add throws to your score.

Elevation is present throughout this course as well. There are many pin placements that are on the edge of hills or at the bottom of drop offs, requiring you to be careful with your approaches to avoid having birdie opportunities become bogeys.

Course Equipment is not complete on this course, an gets worse the further into the course you go. Baskets are all accounted for, but signage and tee pads are inconsistent. Hole 1 has a turf tee pad that is worn but serviceable, after that, you either have pavers noting where the natural tee pad is, or nothing at all, leaving you to pick where you want to throw from. Once you get back to hole 13, signs start disappearing too, with some pavers that appear to have been removed and set aside, making me wonder if the last few holes of this course are intended to not be played anymore. There is also no directional signage around the course, which is a real problem because....

Navigation and Course Flow are a significant challenge on this course. Holes 1 and 2 are easy enough to find. From there, hole 3 requires you to walk around the fairway of hole 2 to access. After ole 4, things get dicey. Hole 5 was nearly impossible to find, as it's back in the woods and has a sign that faces away from the trail. I'm a firm believer that you shouldn't need UDisc to play a course; any schmuck with a new disc and an interest should be able to go to a course and navigate it for course flow to be considered good. That said, even with UDisc we almost skipped 5 because it was so hard to find. Holes 6 was also tricky to find, and hole 10 is not within sight of hole 9's pin. Transitions from holes 10 to 11, holes 11 to 12, and holes 12 to 13 are also rough and would be very hard to figure out without UDisc. And don't get me started on the last few holes of the course either. Overall, it's just a tough course to navigate.

Course Upkeep is probably the worst aspect of this course. It's clear that the disc golf course here does not get much attention, and it feels like a forgotten aspect of this park entirely when you play any of the wooded holes. Every wooded hole on this course has a very narrow fairway that can be discerned, but most if not all of them are too narrow to be reasonably make for a fun hole of sic golf given how unforgiving the rough is around this course. Hole 5 has what felt like four turns to it, and if you don't land in the five or six-foot-wide fairway, your disc is gone. I threw a zone what felt like 100 feet on hole six around a corner to what my friend and I agreed should have been in or near the fairway. That zone was never seen again. A lot of the pin placements are also not kept well at all. Hole 10's pin placement is in the woods after a tee shot in a field and requires you to throw over a little creek to the pin. This pin has no direct route to access it, and I could not tell you where such a trail or bridge was supposed to be. Most of the wooded holes are the same way; there are just enough clues to where to go next in the woods or where to throw to let you guess where the pin or next hole are, but you will need to walk just about every fairway to be sure if you want to leave with all of the discs you brought with you. Hole 18 is the perfect end to this course, being a shot over the pond to a thick green and a pin you can't see from the tee pad. Just what I want to throw over water to.

This was one of the last fun rounds I have had in recent memory, and I wouldn't have guessed that it would end up that way when play holes 1 and 2. This is a course that starts great and gives the impression of being a course I would comfortably rate as being middle of the road or maybe even a little higher, but the further you get into the round, the more the upkeep, lack of complete equipment, and unforgiving fairways add up to a disappointing experience. It felt like no one had played this course in weeks before we came along.

On a more personal gripe, the tight fairways and trails led to my friend and I needing to be careful of spiderwebs with literally every step we took, as they were everywhere. We know that we looked like fools pretending to be Anakin and Obi-Wan around the woods with sticks, but constant waving of sticks in front of us wasn't even enough to keep us from walking into some.

It feels like a lot of the wooded holes, especially 13 through 18, play along what the park intends to be trails for hikers. It's obvious that park upkeep is not maintaining the wooded holes at all, and perhaps never got this course to its intended level of upkeep judging by past reviews. The note in the course description noting "This course isn't officially open yet; the park district is still clearing holes" has just been accurate consistently since 2015. This course would honestly be better if it was just a recreational 9 in the more open areas of the park. Holes, 1, 2, 4, 8, and 9 are actually fun to play, and I would rate those holes higher by themselves than the course as a whole. The attempt at 18 holes here just leads to bad transitions, ridiculously tough wooded shots and hole transitions, and a frustrating round of golf.

If you're driving along I-70 and want to bag some courses but have limited time, Silver Lake in Highland just down the highway should be prioritized above this course. Unless you're a dedicated course bagger, I would recommend skipping this course. Patriot's Park has the potential to be either a great intermediate-advanced course or even an exceptional novice level 9-hole. Given the history and current state of the course, it is a disappointing round that leaves you to wonder what could have been.

Basket in good shape. Signage okay (no directional signs from pin to tee).

Multiple tees overgrown. Fairways overgrown as well, as are some baskets.

To maintain this course would not be easy. Maybe that's why it's not maintained all that well. The day I played for this review course was VERY wet and swampy, which is no one's fault. (It HAS been a very wet spring.) That said, to maintain fairways, pin areas, and some tees, would require a weed whacker, as a tractor would find it difficult (if not impossible) to handle those areas. It really needs some work.

18 holes. A good mixture of open holes and holes throughout the woods. Good location.

Not well kept. Holes in the woods were not kept up with. Could not find the tee pad for hole #12. Hole 11's path was not trimmed and we could not find the basket. I believe it was hole 5 or 6, but there were big piles of landscaping bark dumped in front of the basket.

It's a great course, just needs to be taken care of. I would love to have a course so close to home like this one, but will not be back to play due to the lack of care for it which made many holes unplayable.

1. Nice Deep Baskets with large visible numbers on a lot of them

2. Great signs showing the pin positions with distances and par info.

3. Plenty of space, good parking, and bathrooms, near a nice playground.

4. Each hole is unique and has its own set of fun challenges especially the back nine.

5. Includes a Signature hole on 18 where you throw over a pond. Gotta throw your disc a solid 250 ft or more to not lose it.

6. Very scenic.

1. The back nine is so densely wooded and the fairways are so narrow that you can rack up strokes in a real hurry.

2. The Tee Markers are just buried cinder blocks or something, so if there are leaves on the ground they can be hard to locate. But the Great signs make up for that. But still not nearly as nice as having regular sized concrete tee boxes.

3. The tee box for hole one is the worst of all, its some sort of shag carpeting that feels like standing on a lumpy pillow.

4. Hole 18 should probably include a tee box at a safer location for beginner players who don't wanna lose there disc. There's a drop zone but you still gotta throw it over the pond with some confidence.

The front nine is nice and open but with plenty of obstacles and rolling hills. Including some longer shots including a par 5 that can be a real Eagle opportunity if you got a big arm.

The back nine is so dense it was near impossible to pitch out of the rough if you veered off the very narrow fairways. But that's what the woods in this part of the country look like and I think having lots of trees on the course is partially what makes disc golf so much more fun than ball golf. I was +1 after the first ten holes the first and only time I've played this course and by the time I was done I was +13. I've never thrown so many pitch out tomahawks in my life. Often having to pitch out twice or more because there was no escaping it. Even threw one Tomahawk off the tee box because the entire hole felt like a pitch out, it was that overgrown and I can't even really throw a tomahawk.

I would recommend: if your not super confident in being able to throw 250+ feet over water with wind that whips around the hills on the shore, bring a cheap replaceable disc along. Or bring several and throw more than one off the tee box for hole 18.

It was absolutely worth the hour long drive if you can round up a couple buddies. Really an enjoyable course takes more than 2 hours to play a reasonable pace.

1. Good variety of open/wooded holes

2. Good variety of long and short holes

1. Long walks between tee pads on certain holes

2. It's brand new so there is still a lot of clearing that needs to be done.

3. Dangerous in a couple of spots. Especially on Hole 17 which is poorly designed along a walking path. There is no way of seeing whether not someone is walking up the hill in the direct line of the fairway.

4. No "True" short tee pads.It has two sets of tee Markers but on most holes one is barely farther than the other.True rec tee pads should be on every course to help bring out new players but are rarely seen from my experience.

5. The Flow wasn't terrible but I don't know It just felt a little off to me.

The front 9 wasn't terrible as far as walking distance between holes but on the back 9 it get's pretty drawn out. The walk from 18 after you tee off to the basket is very long and the walk back to the car is long as well. There is another point where there is a long walk to get to the next hole as well.

Good variety of open and wooded holes. With a great last hole over the water. Course is in it's beginning so many improvements sure to come.

Swampy on hole 5 but it has been raining hard. Course looses it's flow from 2 to 3holes. finding hole 11 was a jog. I missed 14 some how. but it's all new so hopefully a few arrows pointing where to go and we'll be all good!!!