Pros:
Many nips, tucks, tweaks, and enlargements later, Red Rocks Community College DGC has become a beautiful new creature entirely. The old 9-hole layout did the job well enough but will quickly be forgotten in the wake of its elegant new 12-pin successor. With distances ranging from an easy ace to an arm-busting mammoth of a drive, your score will have its ups and downs. Elevation changes will have you throwing downhill from a handful of tees and uphill twice (holes #4 and #6), unless of course an overshot or a nasty roll puts you on one of the steep hillsides, down in a dry ravine, or in the dense, prickly creek bed. If your throws stay on the mark, fresh amenities like a sturdy wooden footbridge, well-defined paths and scholarly signage will treat you right. Bright orange flags atop each and every basket help you spot your targets and indicate wind direction, which can be a potentially valuable tidbit in the wide open areas.
The first two holes are tactfully simple and do their job of creating interest in beginners and novices admirably, without sacrificing any fun factor. As you step up to the tee box at #3, you see what a treat you're in for - paths that lead across open swatches of high desert terrain, strategically interrupted by glades of trees along sloping mounds that bear the very essence of Front Range foothills. On holes #4 and #7, you're offered the choice of playing from amateur tees that reasonably shorten the tee-to-pin distance. Baskets are rotated into their alternate A, B and C positions often enough to make a revisit worth your while. The spacious views and orderly groundskeeping offer a warm welcome that is hard to forget, as well.
Cons:
After plucking your disc from the basket on hole 12, you're left with an unquenched thirst. Where are the next 6 holes? It's like being poured 12 ounces of beer into a large frosty mug easily capable of holding 6 more delicious ounces. But the tap has run dry and you're right back where you started. Aside from this truncated feeling, some additional signage would benefit first-timers in two notable places: during the rather long journey between pin #8 and tee box #9 and the jaunt through the hedge of trees from pin #9 to tee box #10. The course sees heavy use during afternoons, especially when the weather is accommodating.
Other Thoughts:
This course is excellent, and is just waiting to become phenomenal with the addition of more holes. There's plenty of room out there for a full 18 - let's hope enrollment is up enough in the coming semesters to justify finishing it off before the tease goes on much longer!