Pros:
- 9 well mounted Mach III's with hole number plates on top. They're all in good shape.
- 9 good-sized and appropriately textured concrete tee pad.
- Course plays around a well maintained park in a nicer area of Aurora. Fairways are mostly through the natural grass but a couple play across the good green stuff.
- Mostly appropriate hole lengths for what appears to be Rec/Intermediate audience. They range from around 150'-350'.
- Good use of the available elevation. Bit of up and a bit of down. Nothing too substantial but certainly enough to entertain most golfers who'd be playing here, me included. A nice aspect for this level of course.
- Two holes play over a cattail swamp adding some risk reward element.
- The small trees that are out there are brought into play a little. Pretty soft from this standpoint but better than no trees?
- Free to play.
Cons:
- Complete lack of navigational infrastructure. No course map/kiosk, no tees signs, no directional aids. This feels like a common theme for my reviews lately but "entry level" courses should make this part of the game easy.
- All sorts of user conflict and safety concerns. Walking paths riddle the park and course. Many of these are blind from the tee and many targets are far too close to them. Hole 4 has a row of backyards running the whole length on the left side. Hole 5 has a basketball court about circle's edge deep. Hole 6's target is right near the sidewalk and neighborhood street. I played at 1pm on a random Friday and had to wait a couple-three times. I had my wife walking along so fortunately she could do some safety spotting. Disaster from this standpoint.
- As the trees in the park aren't substantial there really isn't much required for getting off the tees or shot shaping. Rather bland from this perspective. Pretty much just ranging hyzers/insert preferred throwing style here.
- Those cattail swamps look like serious disc eaters. Not great for a lower skill level track. Hole 7(the second of the swamp carries) has a second swamp behind the pin which is blind from the tee.
- While the tees are well built, they are often merged in with the nearby paths and, without any signage, can be a little tough to spot. A few don't point you at the target.
- Hole 4 is substantially longer than the rest of the track, blind from the tee, and blind most of the way down as a goodly number of small pines have been planted in what was likely once the fairway. There's also a walking path that winds the length of the hole, mostly blind within those trees. Guessing these were planted when the housing development that runs the length of that hole was built up. It's just not a good or safe hole and doesn't fit with the rest of the track.
Other Thoughts:
This is a strange one. Some solid work went into the install but it seems the course was never finished or whoever did the install doesn't believe in signage. The user conflict/safety issues are terrible. That said, I sure enjoyed my round as there are fun throws and mostly ace runs for me. I hit it when the park was relatively quiet and, as my wife noted, "You keep saying how some things about this course are terrible but you have such a big smile on your face". Silly course baggers...
If you can play here off hours and stay aware of other park users, it's a fine and quick spin. For the intended level of golfers, it's got some good aspects but overall not ideal. Struggled a bit with numerical rating on this, let's call it a weak 1.5 because of the lack of infrastructure and safety concerns. My wife says it's a 2/5 because of the Play it Again Sports that's 5 minutes away and Taqueria Jalisco's margaritas(same shopping center as PIAS). If they served those margs at the park...maybe I'd bump it. Baggers should bag it, locals should find better options if they can.