** I will be reviewing this course in both English and Dutch. Aan mijn Nederlandse vrienden: Ik weet dat die een beetje primitief zal klinken. Sorry!" **

—Sloterpark is worth an afternoon stroll even if you left the discs at home. In spring I found it well populated with Gray Herons, Crested Grebes and several other bird species that I did not recognize.
—Easily accessible by public transportation
—The bespoke Sloter Park baskets are works of art. Alas…not all holes have them. The rest are resemble yellow Disc Catchers, although one actually said Discmania on it.
—Free
—Not a lot of other options around Amsterdam.
—Good use of elevation in a country that is basically flat as a pannenkoek.



—Prachtige park! Ik heb vooral al de grote vogels boven de 10te hole genoten, en ook de sculpture op 7 tot en met 9.
—Jullie openbare vervoer is het beste. Ik heb geen probleem om naar het park to aankomen.
—Ik houd van de "Sloter Park" poleholes.
—Gratis
—Jullie hadden geen heuvels, dus jullie een heuvel opgebouwd hebben. Dat is zo Nederlandse.

—It's below sea level. It's flat. It gets wet. Don't wear your wingtips.
—Course design is bizarre bordering on dangerous (see below)
—Doesn't call for much versatility


—Het ontwerp is gek, bijna gevaarlijk.
—Het was nat toen ik het gespeeld heeft. Ik denk dat het bijna altijd is. Er is geen fout hier. Het is gewoon het beschikbare landschap, toch?

In addition to this being my first bilingual review, Sloter Park was my first international play. I chose it because when we travel to the Netherlands, we use public transportation almost exclusively, and this was going to be the easiest target from our rental.

On that topic, I would suggest getting yourself to Amsterdam Sloterdijk station by train—one of the easiest destinations on the map. From there, you have several options. First and easiest is the 369 bus, which stops either just before or after the park, leaving about 10 minutes on foot to the 1st hole, which you will NEVER find without UDisc and the knowledge that the course is located on the SE side of the road/park. The app directions did not load for me. I tried to get there with my phone turned off and had to concede defeat after eventually stumbling onto the 10th hole with no other real way to make my way to #1. Second, there is a small parking lot available. You could try to drive here and hope for a spot. Best of luck to you—this is not the high percentage throw. You could combine the 369 bus with the #7 tram, which shortens your walk. Finally, you can walk from the train station, but it's going to be about a half hour. You will pass by some fine smelling Middle East and African themed restaurants on the way, but you can also avail yourself of these options by bus and/or tram.

For the sake of argument, let's suppose you made it even easier than I did. What will you find?

First of all, Sloter Park is rather large, and split by a busy road. There are a seemingly endless number of things to do there, but the SE section is mainly occupied by walkers, joggers and a few bikes. Time for a HUGE caveat. I played the course on April 27, which is King Day, a national holiday during which people get together with family, friends, neighbors, or just pour into the nearest large city to party. I'm certain that I found the course with 10% or less of its normal traffic, which leads me to my most serious quibble with the course:

Under normal expected conditions, Sloter Park is difficult, even unsafe (although not necessarily for you) to play. This is clear from the very first tee, which is not apparent to the people walking on the path a couple dozen meters ahead of you, cutting directly across your line of flight at a 90 degree angle. Given the relative lack of traffic on Koningsdag, I was able to time this, but just barely. Consider this a spotter-required hole on almost any other day. By hole 2, even this tactic won't help, as the narrow fairways is now sandwiched between two paved pathways, that even on a holiday were fairly populated. Yeah, they are OB, but that's not really going to help the person you just brained with a frisbee. If you play Sloter Park, you will need to play those shots least likely to harm other people enjoying the park, leaving almost nowhere to throw on the hypothetical warm/sunny day which might find Nederlanders sprawled all over the grassy center of the course, catching some usually elusive rays, having a picnic etc. I can go on, but you get the point. Onto memorable holes:

I liked 3, the first of two water clearances, and one of the only holes where you won't necessarily have to watch out for other park goers. Unfortunately I stumbled onto the tee, following my phone only to find it occupied by a young couple getting busy, not knowing what disc golf was. They were actually really nice and watched me play before moving on. When I again encountered them later on the 9th tee, it made me feel like a bit of a stalker, and I ended up teeing off in the wrong direction from the wrong spot to avoid them. Anyway, #3 is very reachable, but vegetation is growing from the left side over the edge of the pond (The Netherlands is basically a cold rain forest—overgrowth abounds) forcing a more pronounced RHBH hyzer approach. I landed it but couldn't take birdie. #7 is a U-shaped par three, presumably on the basis that you could try to get across the intervening vegetation. Perhaps this was the case when the course was laid out, but in 2024, this would be a very risky if not impossible approach. It does, however, give you your first real glimpse of the man-made hill and giant sculpture that stands in the middle of the course. On #8, you skirt the right side of this mound uneventfully, most likely, but #9, arguably the signature hole, sends you up to the top to attempt a 700 foot par 4. 10 is a bit of an outlier on this mostly open course. It's a short par three with a difficult gap which makes sticking the tiny green unlikely. Choose your best miss. The trees overhead were nearly bent over with very large, brooding gray herons. Love. 17 gives you one more try at a short water clearance, but overgrowth has made it impossible to see the basket from the tee.

I've said before that I'm not sure a perfect 5 exists, but given my love for The Netherlands, I was prepared to give one out if Sloter Park stuck all the landings. They did not. Nevertheless, I had a good time, and would happily play a re-designed course on this beautiful property.

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Sloter Park was de eerste discgolfbaan dat ik buiten de VS gespeld heb. Wat een prachtige park!! Ik heb er op Koningsdag gespeeld, dus het park was bijna leeg. Dat is niet normaal, denk ik.

Ik hield niet van het ontwerp. Het is geen goed idee over voetgangers heen te gooien. Ja, de voetpaden OB zijn, maar hoe helpt dat diegene die je net met een frisbee geslagen heb?

Mijn favorieten holes waren de twee over het water en nummer 10. Op tien heb ik veel grote vogels in de bomen gezien en gehoord. Heel leuk! De grote sculpture op 7 TEM 9 was een goed verrassing. De Sloter Park poleholes waren zoals kunst. Het leek om ze ouder dan de anderen poleholes waren, maar ik hield er heel beter van.

Als iemand van jullie komen ooit naar Minnesota aan, ik zal blij om je de lokale discgolfbanen te tonen. Totdat dan, Fijne Bevrijdingsdag!

Creative layout (e.g.#2 is like an island with paths OB)
Variety of shots given terrain
Water holes (3, 17)
Nice park aesthetics (not just because there's a DG course therefor signage
Intuitive layout
Nice custom baskets
People in park very friendly when they figured out what we were doing with the discs.
A hill in Holland #9!!
Cute bunnies on several holes
Clearly thought out design

It's a multi-use park so many fairways and throwing lanes overlap with pedestrian and bike paths as well as grassy areas here people are lying around. One basket had a bike leaning against it.

Two of the baskets had single trash items in them. It was clear people didn't know what these things were. While we saw three other folders there during our round, I imagine it does not have a lot of DG traffic.

Construction during waterlogged areas on 11, 13.

Maybe there are some efforts already, but I would recommend some public clinics or demonstrations to invite park goers to learn about the sport.

Probably not, but here goes...This is a beautiful park. Concrete tee pads except for #4,#6 & #14, which use the asphalt bike/walking path. #9's tee now plays from the top of the hill next to the sign for a nice elevated tee. For a flat place like Amsterdam, this is a nice touch.

Good mix of wooded and open holes with a variety of distance. I would call #4 and #9 par 4's.

#3 and #17 force you to throw over water. Further, water also comes into play on #11 and #14.

There were good signs on most holes, although some had been vandalized.

Course flow allows you to see most of the park while 18 finishes close to #1 and the park entrance. Course map/sign provided at the park entrance.

On #5, #10, & #12, watch out for the birds. These tee pads were covered in bird droppings.

Be careful with the stinging nettles on #11, #13, and #17. My legs were still stinging 2 days later.

Chains were missing from #14's basket. While there, we met a local disc golfer who said that the neighborhood residents are not fans of the sport.

This was evident by the vandalized tee signs and missing chains along with several portable BBQ grills and picnics that were set up too close to some baskets.

The Amsterdam tram system makes this an easy course to visit if you are staying in the downtown area, as tram #7's last stop is in the park.

With sunlight till 9:00-9:30 pm in the spring and summer months, this park and course provide an excellent disc golf experience.

Concrete tee pads, good tee signs, excellent virtual map on the internet. Good variety of shot types, although there are really only 2 holes which it is possible to 2 if you can't throw ~350 feet (hard to do the exact conversion, all of the distances are in meters, but even the shorter holes are usually over 100 meters, which is almost 330 ft. The course has a bunch of water in play and a bunch of OB, which is a pro for me since I am more of a placement player than a bomber. This course sort of reminds me of Winthrop in its difficulty and use of OB to make the course much harder. If you happen to see any locals while playing they tend to be pretty friendly. Drinking and smoking on the course are okay, and there are plenty of trash cans, although the Dutch don't seem to use them. Nice scenery with the course situated next to a lake.

*UPDATE* Lots of stinging nettles in the summer months. Almost half of the course is unplayable on a nice summer day because of picnicers. Chains missing on #13 and #14, and half gone on #11. Some fairways are overgrown, and #16 is now a big dirt/mud field because of a recent concert.* Almost no elevation change, just one hole you throw from the top of a hill with some pretty phallic sculptures on it. Very muddy, and standing water in some places depending on how much rain and how little sun there has been. The park is pretty crowded and the course plays right through walking paths, so you have to be careful. Most of the pedestrians are friendly though and tend to be interested in the sport. Some people have no idea what it is so sometimes they get in the way, for example a fisherman had parked his scooter on one of the teepads and didn't seem inclined to move it. If you can't throw 350+ there are very few birdie chances, but the ubiquitous OB keeps the middle distance holes from being "tweeners."

*UPDATE* I had to lower my score to a 3.5, mostly due to lack of maintenance (see cons). Despite what another reviewer said, I find most of the park-goers are cool and even sometimes interested about DG, but if you throw near someone's children or something silly like that you could see why some might get mad (I have seen it happen). Still a good course, but could use some love from the parks department and local DGers (shame on us).* This course is very fun to play, and as the first course in Amsterdam it does a good job of getting the public curious about the sport, I even had a couple of old ladies ask me about DG when I was playing once. The duck flies at midnight, obviously. It is pretty easy to get to the course by tram but a little difficult to find the first hole once you get there, so if you plan on playing send me a message and I can meet you there or at least give you some pointers. All in all, I am happy to call this my new home course.