- Winstrom Preserve is an older course that I had hit sometime back in 2012-ish. The old design was a mess, with pin-ball short holes, bad signage and navigation, and hordes of restless chuckers ready to launch respective projectiles into each others' ranks at a moment's notice. The "new" design successfully updates Winstrom to a decent, respectable course with a reasonable design.
- Gone are the pinball tight holes of yore. Here are broad, well-defined fairways ready to be hit.
- Gone are the wonky navigation and missing/defaced tee signs. Here is a straight-forward flow and signage.
- Wooded holes provide fair punishment for wayward shots.
- Reasonable mix of elevation makes this course more than just two dimensional.

- It all sort of starts to blur together after a while. At one point I literally thought I was on a fairway at Oshtemo. Another time I thought I was at Fallasburg. These fairways seem to be on the "derivative" side of things, but with what they had to work with, I'd say they got the most out of the land.
- Busy multi-use park spoils a bit of the "nature-y vibe," if that's, like, yer thang, mang.

-On one hand, Winstrom is much improved. On the other hand, it's still Winstrom and not going to magically transform into something it's not. Definitely not bad enough to skip out-of-hand if in the area or course bagging, but definitely nothing to go out of your way to hit.
- I came down with *the* worst case of the yips while playing this course. It. Was. Horrid.
-"It seems like only yesterday I was strafing so many of your baskets. Here I am today, begging you not to make such good disc golf courses."

Winstrom Preserve DGC sits on a heavily wooded parcel of land just outside of Holland, MI, near Lake Michigan and just up the road from Holland State Park. It's close enough to the lake that the usual grass/dirt gives way to sand in some areas, giving the course a little bit of a different feel.

This course offers two tee pads per basket. The 18 baskets are Chainstars. They are in fine condition but can be hard to see in the woods - I would rather see yellow banded DISCatchers or something. The tee pads are all cement (both sets) and large enough. The blue tee layout offers a moderately challenging round of disc golf, with hole lengths ranging from 198' up to 452' but the majority of holes in the 200'-300' range. The red tees are clearly intended to offer a short pitch-and-putt style layout appropriate for beginners and families. Each red layout hole is shorter, and usually also offers a clearer line to the basket...in particular for a novice RHBH thrower.

Each blue tee has a high quality tee sign showing a map of the hole including both tee pads and distance from each to the basket. One detail I missed my first time here is that these tee signs also show the general elevation contour of the hole. This is nice as there are several baskets that are up/over/down a hill and not visible from the tee. One thing that the tee signs are missing is the par. You could safely assume it's a par 3 course from the red tees. There are a couple of holes that could reasonably be par 4 from the blue tees (the 452' #9 comes to mind). I would also like to see the same tee signs posted somewhere out of the way near the red pads, but not a major complaint.

The most memorable hole here is definitely #5. From the blue tee it's a gentle dogleg right that plays 242' to a basket that is probably 10' in front of a rushing creek. The area from maybe 10' to 30' in front of the basket is also low-lying, making the green a narrow island depending on the time of year. Very pretty hole and great risk/reward with the water behind. The creek is probably small enough that you won't lose your disc though.

The front of the course has a practice basket and a nice kiosk with a map of the course. Take a picture of the map or download it from here...you will need it (see Cons).

Restroom on site though it is in kind of a weird spot for disc golfers (near hole 2 and 3).

The routing and navigation here is...really strange. There are no "Next Tee" signs and there are several places where they are desperately needed - you will not be able to navigate this course your first time without a map. Some of the weirder hiccups are:
- After hole 14, you have to walk right past hole 16's tee to play hole 15 which goes 350' in one direction. Then you walk all of that back along a path to play hole 16 which goes 240' the other direction.
- After hole 4, you have to walk most of the way back on a path parallel to the fairway to reach #5. Then after #5 you walk back past both #4 and #5 tees (and #17) to reach #6.
- Holes 1-7 loop back to the parking lot, which is nice I guess. But then hole 18 doesn't finish at the parking lot - it's probably a 300'-400' walk back.

There are zero holes here where you can really air it out. I tend to prefer short holes that require accuracy vs long open bombers, but even so some of the fairways here are a little too tight for my liking. Many holes only offer one narrow line to the basket, and while that line does vary from hole to hole (i.e. left turn, right turn, or straight) if you can't hit that line precisely the rough will punish you. You could either look at this as a fairway driver accuracy challenge, or quickly get frustrated.

There is a little bit of elevation here and what is here is used well on a couple holes, but most of the course is pretty much flat.

Cement paths wind through the park and they are popular with non-DGers. Two of the holes cross these paths but the crossing is right off the blue tees. The paths could come into play on errant throws for a few other holes. Overall the paths aren't a huge safety concern - just something to be aware of. More concerning to me is that some of the tee pads can be sandy, and there are no brooms to clean them off. I almost slipped on one or two of them.

It really seems like the course could flow a lot better with minimal redesign...like move a couple holes and just flip the basket and tee location on a couple others. Even the addition of solid signage to the existing layout would still be a huge improvement. If I was playing here with a family or group of beginners, I wouldn't want to spend time wandering around looking for the next tee all the time. Again, download/bring/take a picture of the map.

Still, the aesthetic playing through a nice park with woods and some sand make for a pleasant round. I wouldn't say this course is worth a long drive to play, but it's a solid option for those in the area looking for a tight woods course. Definitely worth a play if you are staying at the state park.

Update 6/7/21: Played the shorter red layout for practice...updated some of the verbiage above to reflect that.

Aesthetic-- plays through areas shared with walking paths. Did not see walkers but I'm sure that this could be a concern at some point.

Teepads-- Nice new, HUGE pads. You really don't need the length of these teepads, the holes are not that long but it's no worries.

Teesigns-- Nice, very descriptive. Long and short distances on long teepads. No signage on shorts.

Baskets-- New and somewhat visible. Need a little more brightness on some of these tee placements.

Map-- You will need this, whether you know it or not.

Routing and nav-- Still an issue. Snap a quick pic of the map near hole 1. You will thank me.

Sprinklers-- as we were finishing hole 7, the sprinklers near hole 1 were on full blast. hole 8's teepads were soaked and it was diffcult to avoid them! This was on a Sunday morning when there were quite a few people in the park.

Rough-- the rough here is THICC.. seriously, stay on the fairways. Tree kicks are still a serious risk here but do what you can to avoid the rough.

Bugs-- with the creek running through the course, the bugs are horrendous; even with spray they are brutal.

Improved, yes, for sure.

but there is still room here. This could be a great course, it's just not polished yet.

Technical throws, opportunity for multiple skill throws, new concrete tees for holes 1-18, dual tees for all 18 holes, part of a group can play long tees, the other part can play short tees and still feel like you are playing together, clean, foresty, signs at each long tee, the narrow fairways make up for the lack of distance, this is a tight course, recent work has cleared out much of the dead trees etc. that I read about. Free to play, warm up basket, some breeze off the lake but sheltered by the forest. Porta potty by the sport field. Abundant shade to hid in for a hot day, it was 92 when we played. Warm up basket. Online course map. Bridges over creek.

No water fountain. Small stream could flood the course, narrow fairways with somewhat punishing rough, although there has been some trampling of it, I presume there is poison ivy but we did not get any. The risk of the landing in rough is not worth the reward for most holes. Navigation gets a little tough in the middle.

Played shorts with wife while our kid played longs, worked out for all of us. Thanks to locals who built the concrete tees and signs. Certainly a playable option if in the area. Not sure if or how swampy it still gets. The creek was running when we were there and it was ok. I think the rats nest factor described in earlier reviews has been thinned out and I did not see many stumps either.

- Beautifully constructed concrete tee pads. Nice size and finish. These ought to last a long time and were clearly installed by professionals. Glad to see the extra effort was made to put in a set of short pads.
- Brand new Discraft Chainstars. Great baskets that catch normal putts. Of course, they may spit out 90 mph fastball putts now and then and that really isn't the baskets fault...I'm looking at you Ricky Wysoki.
- With a few exceptions most of the "bones" of old trees have been removed. So the old nickname for Winstrom as the "Boneyard" can now die a quick and violent death.
- While the course has been lengthened quite a bit from the old layout there are still ace runs available. #3, #12, #16 just to name a few are quite ace-able even from the longs.
- Looks like someone has been hard at work installing some terracing to prevent erosion. Glad to see some proactive steps being taken.
- Love #15 which is very similar to one of the holes on the old layout. The basket with the nasty little water hazard behind it is brilliant pin placement.
- This is a very straight course in comparison to a lot of courses I've played. Notice how this is not in the list of cons. Playing this course and dealing with some of the straight fairways will make you a better disc golfer.
- While a large portion of this course is pretty straight there are some doglegs and its a rather nice mix. Both lefties and righties will be challenged equally.
- The soil here is very sandy. Not sure if this is a pro or con. Sometimes it's helpful in catching the discs and preventing it from skipping out of control but then...sometimes you want that skip so it's just an FYI I guess.

- Navigation is an issue at the moment and thus affects my score negatively. There are no signs up at the moment and they really are desperately needed. It just isn't obvious where to go in several spots. Going from 4 to 5, 5 to 6, and so on are not really obvious. You'll need a map off this site or get a guide.
- Speaking of navigation...15 and 16 seem really odd to me. While I understand putting those two holes in that area it seems to be flipping the tee and basket locations on 15 would make things flow a little better. And yes, this is me being picky and no, it really doesn't affect my score.
- And another nit picky navigation issue is the walk from 5 to 6. Like the old course, you have to walk up the fairway to get to the next hole. I was kind of hoping for a better solution and leave #5 where it is.
- Stumps. Holy crap there are stumps EVERYWHERE. I really hope someone has the budget for a stump grinder to come in there and grind away for several days. There are so many stumps I don't like bringing my cart in there.
- And speaking of some course maintenance #9 has some rather large piles of mulch in the fairway...not a big deal I just hope someone is planning on removing those because I feel it detracts from the hole itself.
- There are some spots where I think the holes play a little close to the walking paths throughout. Caution needs to be exercised on these holes. #4 is a good example - maybe it won't be so bad when things grow thicker in this summer. And I am not sure why #9 had to be placed so you tee off over the path. Seems like you could avoid that by putting the tee on the other side. Not a huge deal - just be careful.

Wow. What an improvement from what was here before. I've always thought the land here really lends itself to a good discgolf course and I have been proven right with this great layout. This is no longer the hucker paradise it once was. It is now a legitimately challenging course. Certainly nowhere near championship caliber but definitely a ton of fun to play. If I were to compare this to a nearby course I think you could call this a shorter and slightly more open version of Oshtemo. Just another example of a course that can be fun for any skill level to play. If you're anywhere near here stop on by and play a round. It'll be worth your while.