Brand new course in a Kentucky state park utilizing land left vacant by a defunct golf course. Situated directly across from the park's lodge, it would make a nice overnight stop if you're trekking through the area bagging courses. Located just about halfway between Louisville, KY and Cincinnati, OH just minutes off Interstate 71. Doing its part to fill in an area that was previously void of disc golf. (The next closest courses are Hidden Ridge to the north at about a 35-minute drive, or Wendell Moore to the south with about the same drive time.

The course sits at pretty much the high point of the park so there's some lovely views to be had, especially up around the tee pad of hole 12 where you can literally see for miles in most directions.

If you're looking for a course where you can air it out with full power drives on pretty much every single hole, this is your course. The rough can certainly be punitive, but the fairways are predominantly wide open (former) golf fairways so unless you're way off target, they'll rarely come into play. Where the wooded areas do come into play, it's usually just the last 50-100' of approach into the basket or a pocket of trees around a tee and/or baskets, but it is used well.

Elevation for DAYS. This region of Kentucky is exceptionally hilly, and this place even takes that up a notch. Those of us of a certain age remember when another section of this state park included some ski slopes. That feature of the park was removed sometime in the mid to late 1990's and the equipment was sold off to Perfect North Slopes in Lawrenceburg, IN. (Give County Farm Park or Cedar Grove a spin if you're up in that neighborhood.) Needless to say, there's no lack of elevation.

The targets are very nice, brand new, blue, Discmania baskets which look to be almost a 1 to 1 clone of an Innova DisCatcher. Every hole has 2 sleeves. (According to the course organizer, more are in the works. More on that in the cons.)
If you enjoy a strenuous walk with your rounds, you're in luck. I think my fitness watch put me at 10k steps somewhere around hole 11 or 12.

There's some well-located pin and tee positions here, but a lot of the alt. pin positions don't really add a ton of variety. Example: On a wide open 400' hole like #14, the pins were about 60' apart in a wide-open area. There's not much difference in playing to either one so it doesn't present a very different hole. Hole 1 on the other hand did a good job with a short pin set at just below the top of the hill and the alt. long pin all the way on top of the hill plus tucked behind a small jetty in the tree line at least 50-60' further than the short pin. I feel like there's more instances of situations like hole 14 here than there is of hole 1. For a course bagger playing here once and moving on it's not too big of a deal. For locals, a bit more variety in shots would add to the replayability.

Tee pads. They're all pretty level with good turf, but really could use an extra foot or two in length considering almost every tee shot is a full power rip with a driver.

For those of you out there with poor base level fitness and/or bad knees who don't enjoy a strenuous walk....beware.

Considering the length and elevation present, some strategically placed benches every 3rd hole or so would be a welcomed addition.

Super LONG. If you can't throw an accurate 400+ foot drive you'll be hard pressed to shoot below par. With almost a full third of the course clocking in at 700' or longer, all of which are par 4's, big arms will have a HUGE advantage over the 300' max drive folks. 400' is right around my absolute max distance and on account of all the elevation I was very rarely looking at any semblance of a birdie putt.

The course organizer mentioned that he'd like to put some additional pins and baskets in place, especially on the 700' plus holes, that are set up more around the 550-700' range to give more options when playing. Having a short and long pin on some of these holes would open this course up to a much wider range of players and would be a fantastic addition.

The course is a bit shaggy currently, nothing brutal, but it's going to take a fair amount of mowing time to keep things playable here. All that wide open ball golf fairway space comes at a cost. I don't hold this against the course for my rating but based on my experience with other KY state park courses, it could become an issue in the future. (Looking at you Rough River Dam State Park!)

Disclaimer: This type of course isn't exactly my cup of tea when it comes to course design. I prefer highly technical, densely wooded golf with lots of line shaping required.

Now, having said that, I love that there's these types of courses out there on the other end of the spectrum of design and I'm even more excited to have this type of course fairly near me. It's a great compliment to the mostly wooded courses in Greater Cincy/N. Ky. These "bomber" type courses seem to be a bit more prevalent down in this neck of the woods with Wendell Moore just a bit further south, and Graviss McDonald a bit east closer to Frankfort, both of which I would consider "bomber" courses where a big arm has a distinct advantage. Further north at courses like Idlewild or Hidden Ridge, I might reach for a distance driver off the tee just 2 or 3 times during the round, carefully trying to hit the landing zones and playing the control game, methodically working my way through the woods. Here at Three Rivers DGP, I'm pretty sure I was throwing distance drivers off the tee on every hole BUT 2 or 3 of them.

Here's some of the standouts in my mind:
-Hole 3 is a really nice downhill shot that I'm itching to get another chance at, especially if it's in the long pin nestled up on the left side slope. Like throwing straight down the chute of a valley running away downhill.
-Hole 6 is a very challenging down then up type of hole with a well-guarded green. The uphill approach to the basket adds a lot of effective length.
-Hole 9 to me is the signature hole. Wide open for the first 600-ish feet, then into a beautiful "mini valley crossing" corridor of large sycamore trees.
-Hole 12 has the best views, and a bit of a top of the world type tee shot. I'd love for there to be a true long pin that's further up the hill in the open to separate the two current pin locations a bit more. Maybe push it out to around 1000' and call it a par 5.
-Hole 16 is very well laid out with a green almost completely surrounded by huge eastern red cedars. One of the few holes where a RHBH player may prefer to throw forehand off the tee to avoid possibly fading out early and going WAY down hill.

I struggled to rate this course a bit. It's got some potential and it's honestly more like a 3.75 in my eyes vs. where I've rated it at 3.5. I'm only 35 minutes away and will update this review as the course progresses. I feel with a bit more maintenance, slightly longer tee pads, a good mowing schedule, along with some benches, would very easily push this course up to a 4 or 4.25. Highly recommended as a course to provide some variety for those of you venturing into or out of the wooded courses of Greater Cincinnati/N. KY.