Less than a year in the ground, located in a small foothills town and already this course has some of the most interesting history of any course in the sport. Most of it comes from the courses development which has been going on for quite some time. This is of course the infamous course from the ADA compliance ruling of the US Justice Department that almost ended the sport of disc golf in the United States. For those who don't know the parks and recs department of the city asked US Justice for simple clarification as to ADA compliance for a disc golf course. It is a big mistake of course asking the government for anything. Like the old Kennedy quote goes: "Ask not of your government, because they are all Chowdarheads" or something like that. Well Justice having never set guidelines for a disc golf course yet, came back toot sweet with the ruling that all courses had to be fully ADA compliant for wheelchair access, rendering almost all course installations illegal for not meeting code and in danger of being pulled if local governments across the country decided to act on the Depts requirements, can you imagine the expense of trying to make a typical DGC ADA compliant for a wheelchair, think cart paths, lifts, and ramps. Well after much ado and the PDGA's legal teams involvement and a couple of years of wrangling common sense finally managed to peak through and the Justice Department saw reason and removed their previous ruling and issued revised requirements that courses did not have to be fully compliant, thus clearing the way for installation and preserving already installed courses.
So finally, the course was back on schedule and the local club started installation for 2015 and promptly hit gold. A gold mine that is. While literally performing field work for the course the workers uncovered the entrance of a huge long forgotten gold mine from the California Gold Rush known as the Plug Ugly Mine that literally had tunnels and shafts that stretched beneath the entire city of San Andreas. I don't know about anyone else but when I've installed any courses I don't find mines, I find used condoms, cigarette butts, beer bottles and homeless trash, I'm doing something wrong. Now I'm not greedy I don't need to find a gold mine, I'll settle for a silver mine, or a pirate's buried treasure, heck a wadded up dollar bill would be a nice change of pace. But no these guys find a gold mine hence the new name of the course.
Flash forward to Labor Day Weekend 2016 and the long awaited course has finally been installed, and with its crazy installation history this course has a lot to live up to.
The Plug Ugly Mine DGC course is an 18 hole course set in Alex Quinones Community Park in the city of San Andreas, (Nothing Like the Video Game) a small gold rush town with a population just over 2000 and located just off Gold Country Highway State Route 49. The park has three baseball fields, horseshoe pits, restrooms, and picnic areas with tables. There is an onsite caretaker that lives and maintains the park. The course plays mostly in the heavily wooded and hilly front half of the park with four holes playing in the back half on the other side of the ball fields. The course is well marked with signage greeting you from the moment you turn on to the park road and enter the park.
The tee boxes are natural and the holes are 7.5 gallon propane tanks that have all been hand painted by local artists and installed on poles at various heights. The signs provide par, and hole distance, and there are navigational signs at numerous points through the course. The first eight holes are tight and technical with heavy trees and many elevation changes, while holes 9-12 are more open and flat but feature hills and valleys that make the fairways much more interesting. The final holes 13-18 venture back into the tight wooded and hilly front half of the park. While much of the course is on the shorter side of modern disc golf the holes are technical enough to provide a fun round. There is plenty of elevation changes on holes and many of the fairways are on slopes that can roll away if not careful. There are a lot of great ace run opportunities and some really fun holes located throughout the course.
With its crazy installation history the course has become a massive community project and it is designed almost as much as a work of art as it is a disc golf course. Professional artists have donated their time and craft for the tones as well as the welcome sign and bathroom murals. The historical society has posted a large sign board outlying the historical significance of the mines discovery.
The design and layout allow for a lot of options on how to play. There are numerous places that you can park and play from jumping in on many holes as the design keeps you on the outer edge of the park while going around the central parking lot. There are opportunities to skip holes on the course and play it like it's a shorter course for a quicker round of play.

For all of its very entertaining factors this course is not without flaws. To start
There Are No Baskets: Despite the beauty of the hand painted tone poles, modern disc golf really revolves around baskets and most are going to see this as a con.
Safety: There are a multitude of safety concerns. Several of the holes play blind, several are too close to roads, others are too close together, and still others are sloped so aggressively downhill that massive overthrows are possible. Hole 1 starts with all of the above, you throw right down the side of the park entrance road to a blind tone at the bottom of a fairly steep hill where you risk overthrowing into a parking lot while hole 6 is playing right back at the hole 1 fairway. Holes 14, 15, and 16 have the real possibility of overthrowing onto a road behind the tones. All of these holes are fun little ace runs to play but there is still a huge safety risk.
Short: With only two holes over 250 feet this course plays short for modern disc golf, although most of the holes are heavily wooded, and technical, with multitudes of elevation change.
Signs: There is no indication of where the tone is on the signage and where you are throwing to, but otherwise signage and navigation are good, with navigational signage throughout.
Hole 18: A minor quibble really, but hole 18 plays away from tee 1. Hole 17 brings you back roughly to where you started at the beginning of the course, but then hole 18 plays away with your back to hole 1. Its only a 216 foot hole, so a minor quibble and you can always change your parking to split the difference.
Scoring Separation: Every hole on the course is easily birdiable for almost all players with decent skill levels, providing little scoring separation in competition. Although with the tight wooded fairways and easy rollaways, there are plenty of opportunities for misfortune, making luck maybe the more prevalent factor over skill.
CA Summer: Like almost all of the foothills courses in CA this one dries out and gets brown and nasty in the summer with long thistle grass. Winter and Spring are ideal times to play.

This course is a little bit of a throwback in history to disc golf past. Had this course been built in the late eighties or early nineties it would have been a superstar. But it's not the 80's it is 2016 and this course feels a little on the short side for modern disc golf. God help me, I'm actually getting used to 800-1000 foot holes. With only two holes over 250 feet this course is feeling a little retro. This is not a bomber course at all, even the couple of holes that are open are still fairly short, although there is an alternate tee for 9 which allows for one 524 foot hole par 4, but there's some elevation at play sot it plays more like a 450 foot hole and it is eagle-able, I know I managed to hit the bottom of the tone my third time playing the course, more luck than skill I was trying to lay up for par, and had it been a basket I doubt it would have gone in, but still.
In the end, I really enjoyed this course, more than I have a lot of the newer courses going in today. I personally like the tight technical and heavily wooded courses of the past and personally prefer them to the open ball golf like links courses that are constantly popping up nowadays, but I know that a lot of other players are going to feel differently. I would have liked to see maybe a little more length on this course, but it still makes for a great round.