Pros:
+ The whole course plays within an active community park with lots of healthy trees to dodge and a little river to one side.
+ All eighteen tee pads are solid blacktop with a three-sided outer frame which cleverly points towards that hole's fairway.
+ As this is a public community park, benches and trash cans abound. Please don't litter!
+ Plenty of stock paper scorecards for the taking as you enter the park next to the practice pin area.
+ All eighteen tee signs are prominent and well constructed. They're a little faded but have all the info and a good diagram.
Cons:
- Some parts of the course have areas of visible trash. Most notably, the hillside next to hole 2 has residential garbage everywhere.
- This course uses 'next tee tape' wrapped around one of the spokes at the top of each basket, but many of them have worn away or been scraped off. As a result, first time navigation was a bit uncertain.
- No lost disc box.
- Much of the course plays alongside, on top of or directly crosses the park's gravel walking paths.
- On the short side with not much to differentiate it from other courses.
Other Thoughts:
My favorite hole to look at at this course is hole 8 because of the active river flowing alongside it. I would say it is the most dynamic yet peaceful spot of the course.
My favorite hole to play was right after it. Hole 9 starts off flat with gentle tree dodging before a stark uphill shot. From where the player tees off, it doesn't look like much until you get closer. It's not terribly far but still a fun hole to play.
My least favorite hole is hard to pin down. I could say "the one that overlaps with a walking path," but that doesn't narrow it down much. So, I'll just say hole 4 because that one was the first serious offender.
And that brings me effortlessly to the one gigantic gripe that I have with this course. At least half of the course's holes cross or play right on top of established gravel walking paths. If you come here on a nice day, then your session will unavoidably be interrupted by a dog walker, a group of friends out for a stroll, a family on a bike ride or even other disc golfers just trying to play other parts of the course. It simply can't be helped, and you need to be aware of your surroundings at all times. Please use extreme caution when throwing, and be confident in your ability to yell, "Fore!" if you need it.
Those very gravel paths/fairways I mentioned have a distinct advantage over most other courses, though. As this review's title hints at, I suspect that rainfall will take longer to negatively impact the playability of this course. So, I think Yetter Park is the first-ever place I have encountered that is prepared to be played in the rain! That's a big deal. Most of the pedestrians would be gone, and the fairways would not be mucky and muddy because of this gravel. So, simply wear a poncho, and you just might have a better time!
It's a popular park. And the locals here are welcoming. Before starting, I chatted with a few golfers as they were warming up for a doubles match that was scheduled to happen later that afternoon. They invited me to join in! Seeing as how I didn't have a partner, I politely declined, but I detected a distinct tone of pride in their voices as they told me about their local course I was about to play. And it's not hard to see why.
That river is calming to look at and a thrill to throw beside. The partially open forest through which this course plays presents some nice tree dodging puzzles and more than a few tight tunnels. It isn't a terribly large park, however. That is reflected in the course's brevity. Brevity isn't necessarily a bad thing, mind you! For many players, this could be the perfect course to get some mid range tree practice. The absolute longest on offer is 403 feet with the course average coming in at 300 ft. There is only one tee per hole, but I'm happy to see them in the process of installing a second set of baskets for a shorter layout. Truth be told, I acknowledge that installing a course within an already-established park must have been exceedingly difficult. I would say that the space was used as efficiently as it could be while still completing a whole circuit. So, unfortunately, that means that some of the holes can feel samey. From start to finish, the player is surrounded by woods of varying density. There are no wide-open holes for long glides. Add to that a mostly flat texture, and you've got a course that plays well and plays tight but doesn't change enough between holes to be too striking or memorable.
Bottom lines: Despite the dislike I have for the fairways overlapping the walking paths, I have to imagine what this course would be like on a perfect day without pedestrians. When I do that, I see an efficient little course that presents players with lots of little challenges to overcome in the form of its varied forest and modest elevation features, and that's why we play: to be challenged. If you want a course with lots of little challenges that can be played in any type of weather, then Yetter Park is for your consideration.