Pros:
Ample parking
Excellent signage
Very active Club maintenance
Multiple Pins
Bathrooms and drinking water (seasonal)
Elevation
Tight technical and open holes
Short and long holes including one par 4
Seasonal water hazard
Cons:
Rubber tee-pads can be slippery in wet weather
Other Thoughts:
Adair is in my opinion the best all around course from Eugene to Salem, and one of the top five in the State of Oregon. Adair is the home course of the Corvallis based Willamette Disc Golf Club and they take excellent care of the course and its natural features, and they host several excellent tournaments every year. Benton County Parks have proven to be a great land owner to work with and seem to really understand and appreciate disc golf and how to work with a disc golf club that wants to take responsibility and pride in a course.
Adair has the some of the best tee signs around, mounted onto sturdy wooden posts set in the ground with great graphics and protection. They are very informative and maintain the natural aesthetic of the park. The rubber tee-pads are one knock on the course as they do get wet and sometimes slippery in the rainy season, but these were the best option allowed by the Parks department. Ironically, it is the Parks mowing staff that have repeatedly damaged some of the pads. The pads themselves are very well constructed, flat, and no question of being sturdy but the rubber material is what it is. 90% of the time, they are not a problem. Rumor has it that the Parks department may have agreed to the concept of concrete tees so perhaps Adair will have them in the future.
The course is an excellent design that takes advantage of everything available - elevation, wide open grass with scattered trees, thick forest, oak savanna, a long berm, and even some seasonal water on one hole. There are only two holes where lost discs are a semi-regular occurrence: Hole 8 with the seasonal ditch full of water, and Hole 14 which is called "Cambodia" for a reason, and that reason is a strip of long uncut grass and thick willows backed up by more thick woods which will swallow an errant shot, but the shot will be either very poorly thrown or very very aggressive, so it's not an unreasonable rough - the fairway is wide open.
The course starts with a fairly short slight uphill shot, but one with road and tennis court OB on either side. It then plays back and forth up and down the same small slope through hole 4. Hole 5 is either perched on a long berm or tucked between the berm and the road - both positions require length and proper placement and have tripped up many players. Holes 6 - 10 utilize a fairly dense wooded portion of the park. This section of the course requires technical skill and can yield all birdies or plenty of extra strokes.
Hole 11 brings you back to the open section of the park and plays with OB road all the way down the left side. Holes 12-13 play up a long gradual slope of mowed park grass with scattered trees. 14 brings you to the top of the slope throwing down the other side into a beautiful oak grove that contains 14-17. Holes 15 and 16 are fairly short and you really want these birdies. To protect some of the oak trees on these holes the WDGC installed tree protectors made of 2x4's painted dark brown and loosely strapped to the trees in danger of hits from near the tee-pad. They work very well and you probably won't even notice them unless you hit one. This is my favorite section of the course, both because I usually need some birdies at this point and because of the oak trees and the resident Acorn woodpeckers that are often heard clowning on your bad shots.
Hole 18 is a long bomb down a gradual slope with some small trees scattered at about 350 feet of the 7-800 foot hole depending on pin position. It is a par 4 in either position which I think is the correct par, but because there is only one par 4 on the course this makes for some awkward scoring mistakes by people who forget and refuse to use simple math when adding their scorecards, but rely on the one up/one down method instead of the good ol' 3rd grade math of 2+3+3, etc.
All of the holes at Adair have 2 or 3 alternate pin positions which add a lot of variety in lines and difficulty. It is hard to overstate how much having several quality pin locations adds to the overall excellence of a course, and Adair is a good example of alternate pins done right.
In addition to the tree protection, the WDGC has built steps, stairs, trails, turnpikes, footbridges, and vegetation barriers on the course which keep the wear and tear to a minimum, promote safety, and protect the natural features of the course. The involvement of the club at Adair, along with the support of Benton County parks makes a huge difference in keeping this disc golf course looking and playing so great year round. This is what puts this course at the top of my list for the Mid-Valley, and earns it a 4 rating. The design, terrain, playability, fun and challenge of Adair are comparable to other area courses that I rate at 3.5, but having strong stewardship by disc golfers and a land owner that understands and supports disc golf gives it the edge.