Pros:
WHAT TO EXPECT:
Rather large piece of open property surrounded by woods on three sides, a couple creeks and a small pond behind the Abundant Life Community Church. Mostly open shots to start eventually finding your way into the woods for the middle holes and back out into the open for the final stretch of 9 holes. Pretty flat property but what little ripples in elevation exist are put to use.
TEES/SIGNAGE/BASKETS:
Tees when they exist are 3 foot by 5 foot rubber mats (more in the cons section). The only signage I was able to locate on the entire course was a U-Disc QR code sign in the parking lot and a homemade tee sign at the edge of the parking lot that said Hole #1 but saw nothing to indicate a tee pad and it pointed directly into the side of a building... Baskets were very nice new Lat 64 in yellow.
DESIGN:
Course flow seemed to be counterclockwise using the edges of the available space with some decent length for the open holes and shorter for the wooded holes. I would speak to the wooded holes but they were unplayable, more on that later. Also more on the "course flow" later as well.
EXTRAS:
There were 9 yellow Prodigy cross chain portable baskets sitting behind the building near Hole #1's fairway. Not sure if these were the original baskets and they were replaced by the Lat 64 ones or if they purchased them and plan to try and make 18 holes out of this 9'er. Property was well maintained and you can see signs of work going on to improve.
Cons:
- No Tee Signs or navigational help. I had to use U-Disc and that was even more of a headache as there were 7 different Safari layouts. I tried using "Main" layout and couldn't even find #1 tee pad for it. (It was actually buried under multiple side by side piles of Mulch). I felt like a 17th century explorer trying to use the sun and a compass to navigate this place. Baskets also were not numbered so even when you saw a basket, you had no idea if that was the correct one or not.
- Tee Pads. I don't hate on rubber mat tees but they are usually slick and pretty dangerous in wet or cold conditions. And these were that. It did not help at all that they were turned in directions pointing at baskets that was not the "main" layout and I'm guessing locals turn them to their favorite safari layout and leave them that way?
- There is no bridge over the fairly narrow but deep creek that leads you into the wooded holes on the course. This makes 2 of the holes completely unplayable unless you want to wade chest deep through the water to the other side. I assume a bridge is coming, maybe, Beuhler?
Other Thoughts:
I am holding out reservation for this course as I have to believe it is under construction and probably being done by one person who can only devote so much time to the effort and probably isn't working on it in sub freezing temps in January. I will gladly update my review if I play the course again and see marked improvements. As for now, unless there are portions of the property that I don't know about that aren't currently in use, I'm not sure this course will improve drastically. It would be a full point higher if a regular person could just navigate it and cross the creek to play the wooded holes I believe. For now, maybe this would pass as a practice area with room to bomb some discs or as evidenced by U-Disc, a create your own safari layout if you live close by. I recommend hitting up the much better and more established Mesker Park complex if you are in the area and leave this one be for now. Maybe check back in a few years.