Pros:
• Great multi-use park situated in beautiful rolling foothills of northeast Georgia
• Concrete tee pads on all holes
• Multiple pro/am tee pads on most holes with adjusted pro/am scoring
• Great variation of up/down and open/wooded holes
• Lots of elevation changes; you'll get a good workout walking this course
• Good signage on all holes (signs & posts at every tee pad, not just every hole)
• Easy to follow course flow
• Lots of benches throughout the course
• Bathroom facilities at the baseball complex near first tee
• Little to no interference with other park activities
• No crowds (only one other group was sighted during our 2 1/2 hour round on a beautiful sunny weekend afternoon)
Cons:
• The course in particular (and the park in general) is somewhat run down and really needs some TLC
• Tee pads are way too short and many are not level
• Really long walk from the end of the course back to your car (1/2 mile or so)
Other Thoughts:
This is a very nice course that is to be enjoyed by both seasoned and recreational players. As a new player, I appreciated the shorter amateur (yellow) tee pads and favorable pars that let me be challenged without getting frustrated. Scoring opportunities are there for beginners if you have you're A-game going, but you won't post an astronomical score if you don't. I have played decent variety of courses over the last several months, and my legs have never had such a good workout as they did at this park. There are plenty of long uphill holes, which makes you really appreciate the balance of the downhills! I really appreciated the way they integrated the drop-offs behind the outfields of the baseball fields, much more so than what I have seen attempted at other parks. While the front nine is mostly open, the back nine is mostly wooded. Again, great use of elevation as well as basket placement causing you to plan and execute a variety of hyzer/anhyzer shots.
Needs some TLC: I easily would have rated this course a full disc higher had the course not been in such a rundown condition. A review of recent photos shows the course to be well maintained, so perhaps the economic downturn has taken a toll on the park budget. For example, there was tall grass and weeds covering the basket on the first hole to the extent that you could only see the chains and the top of the basket. Many long open fairways were overgrown with tall grass and weeds so much that I really had to hunt for several drives that normally would be in plain sight. Despite all of this overgrowth, the entire park was very clean with not a piece of trash to be found.
Awkward Tee Pads: The tee pads are way too short, something I did not notice until I fouled up my first several tee shots (I should have read the other reviews). I solved this by starting behind the tee pad, or doing a runup adjacent to the tee pad if there was a sharp drop off behind the pad. There were also several tee pads that were very unlevel side-to-side; one of them almost made me do a cartoon-like fall before I held up and settled for a runup next to the pad.
The tall grass and awkward tee pads detract somewhat from the course, but it is still a great place to throw a round and will be a regular on my playlist when I am in the area.