Easy parking with a large field that you can use to warm up. Practice basket in front. Pretty well marked between holes. Very challenging blue tees, all have pavers and are sturdy. Several holes offer birdie shots.

Heavily wooded, so be careful with errant shots in October-November in leaves. Use a spotter on hole 16. Anything that misses the short fairway ends up in some think greenery.

Pitman is a great little town with nearby breweries and shopping.

- Location - only course in the Rowan/Glassboro area.
- Shade - tons of trees, no need for sunscreen.
- Topography - not a lot since it is South Jersey after all, but effective use of hills on some holes really makes it different than other courses nearby like New Brooklyn Park.
- Tee signs - cartoony diagrams aren't very accurate, but nice design with par and distance listed for every hole.
- Tees - nice pavers that are long enough.
- Practice hole by #1.
- Parking along the street and in adjacent park is sufficient.
- There's a billboard setup near the practice tee by hole #1, which now has a course map.
- It's a full 18 holes.

- TREES - There's still a ton of thin 'straggler' trees both in the fairways and rough that are common in New Jersey woods but usually removed at 'settled in' courses. I get the idea of setting a course into a natural setting, and to force a lot of control on your throws, but these narrow trees make the throwing alleys VERY narrow and almost nonexistent on many holes, especially from the long tees. In my opinion, you could lose 10 trees from by the baskets or fairway margins on every hole and it would still be plenty narrow and challenging. It's still a very new course, so I hope with time some trees will be selected for removal to make the course a bit more open. That would really help make it less frustrating and friendly to beginners. As is, it's catering mostly to advanced players with really good flight path control. If that's not you, play the short tees and still expect a few bogies.

- Leaf litter/undergrowth - thick and deep pretty much throughout. I made the mistake of mostly using a white disk rather than a bright colored one, and spent as much time hunting for my disk in the leaves as I did actually playing. Highly recommended to use bright colored disks here year round.

- A lot of glass and other old garbage in most fairways and walkways between holes.

- No open 'bomb' opportunities on any hole due to the thick woods.

- #17 is simply frustrating - a very long, very narrow, multi-curving hole that if you have any arm pretty much forces you to ricochet out of the fairways into thick woods, undergrowth, and leaf piles born to eat discs.

- I'm a ~920 rating player with pretty good control, so think my opinion on too many undergrowth trees reflects that the course is still so young.

- Glad to finally have a course in the Glassboro area, but it needs further 'setup' in the form of clearing undergrowth and removing glass and old trash from most fairways.

- Almost every hole is a dogleg (about even R and L) from the long tees, only a couple straight holes. Many more straight holes when played from the short tees.

- Favorite hole would be #13 with the more open flight path and downhill left turn. Throw a controlled tee shot and it's your best chance for birdie on the entire course (and one of your only realistic chances for birdie from the long tees [#9 is another opportunity]).

*Update* - the last of the short tees has now been installed. Thumbs up for that!

+ The course plays almost exclusively in a quiet woodsy forest. Accuracy is the name of the game here.
+ The fairways are very clean, well-defined and presented clearly.
+ Some gentle approachable hills form the overall texture of this course.
+ Except for holes11 and 13, there are two long and wide paver tees per hole. Each one has its own clear & colorful tee sign.
+ All holes have prominent 'next hole' signs.
+ There is a course sign with map right next to a practice basket. Players pass by a lost disc box as they are exiting the course.

- The course plays almost exclusively in the forest. It starts feeling samey quite fast here.
- Much of the front 9 plays within earshot of a busy intersection. A player rarely feels as though they are cut off from the rest of the world here when they can hear car horns and motorcycles behind them.
- Very few benches and no trash cans.
- There is broken glass on every fairway. Leave the flip flops in the car.
- Some fairways play pretty close to each other.

My favorite hole to play was hole8 because of its deceptively simple uphill tunnel and slight turns along the way. Hole16 was nice to look at because of the bright grassy area in between the tee and the basket after 15 holes of trees, dirt and dead leaves. My least favorite hole was probably the first one. It played pretty plainly.

As for the course as a whole, I've heard my friends and other local disc golfers refer to it as 'Stafford Wood's little brother,' and I think I agree with that. Alcyon [AL-see-yon] Woods is a short drive south of that course, so it has the same kinds of trees and topography in a similar rural setting. They both have some tight tunnels to deal with, and they both enjoy some sharp turns that allow both lefties and righties to have their moments. Most holes test a player's directional control. Straight-ahead shots are in the minority here.

What Alcyon lacks is the character of its big brother. There are no water features. There are no wide open holes to let loose and fly. There is no OB that I could recall. And there are no really meaty hills to get excited about. From start to finish, it is woods on lumpy terrain. Sometimes that can be a great thing if the course as a whole contains unique obstacles or land features, but I'm afraid that this course has very few special characteristics that distinguish it.

I would say that the most memorable moment for me was hole 9 where the player (from the long tee) has to thread the tiniest of needles right in front of the tee pad. The gap between them is nearly impossible. It is all but the most unfair of throws, but I absolutely loved the thrill of attempting that narrow double mando. That definitely stood out in my mind, but I'm sorry to say that everything else felt a little repetitive. On more than one occasion I caught myself thinking, "Didn't I just play this one?"

Still, having said all of that, I feel that it earns an above-average rating and a firm recommendation because it hits all the right notes and doesn't commit any disc golf sins, to my mind. The golfing itself is solid with fair reliance on the player planning their lines and testing their angle control, even if the terrain leaves the player longing for something more varied or adventurous.

One last thing. Way back in 2019, this was the first course where I noticed those little orange plastic markers poking out of the ground in a circle around every basket. I call them "circle plugs." I still think it's a brilliant idea, and I'm starting to see other courses implement the same feature. Whether or not Alcyon did it first, I can't possibly know, but it's details like that which make a good course.

Bottom line: Alcyon is definitely for your woodsy disc golfers. It lacks the pizzazz and impact of its older brother, but you should still have a pleasant time here.

-For a full 18 holes in the woods the fairways are very fair and open, especially considering how new it is. I can imagine that will only improve as the rough gets tamped down a bit with regular play, so you still can save par or even birdie with an errant tee shot.

-Suprising amount of elevation and the course design used it effectively.

-Teepads, signage, steps and bridges are all top notch

-Nice balance of holes where I thinks lefty or a forehand dominate righty isn't going to complain too much.

-All the holes are solid but it doesn't have those couple of WOW/signature holes that really make a course stand out.

-Doesn't quite hit the level of "throw every disc in your bag", as far as shot variety goes. Plenty of hyzers and anhyzers, but not a lot of those flex shots that require you to beat that one tree but come in ahead of the next one that make woods gold so much fun.

-Couple of areas that still have some dense rough with prickers but actually impressed how few there are considering how new the course is.

-Especially for the next few months while the leaves are down, the new course factor creates some small trip hazards with stumps being obscured by the leaf litter.

Disc golf in NJ keeps getting better! This is a great addition to the scene and provides a very enjoyable round of woods golf with a nice pace of play with a nice mix of par 4s and an efficient design. It's also a great example for county and state parks folks out there about how disc golf turn an undesirable and neglected wooded corner of a park into a top notch attraction. While Alycon is lacking those signature holes that would let it get into the conversation with a Stafford or a Greystone, it's a great design that makes for a fun round of golf. Definitely worth the trip!

And what's even more impressive is how "finished" the course is for being so new. All those nice touches like steps, next tee signs are all present. I gave it a 3.5 now but I fully expect to revisit this in a year or two and up it to a 4.

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**REVISED AND UPDATED IN LATE 2023**

The course has been in the ground for 4+ years and shows signs of care and upkeep. It's largely the same course it was at the beginning - which is both good and bad…

First, some changes noticed: A mando off the left side of #5 so you can't cut the deeply wooded and uphill corner. New timbers framing the short tee on #2. A heavy-duty lost disc box. And unfortunately, the white sand on the "sandtrap hole" (#16) has gradually discolored and been absorbed by the ground around it.



+ Paver teepads and good signage at every tee


+ The lines are clear and fair. The fairways are adequately wide, although the few straighter holes (like 8 and 17) have really tight landing areas


+ Heavily-wooded and moderately hilly, being off the fairway generally spells trouble (as in B-O-G-E-Y). If you venture more than 10' off the fairway, it's unlikely to be able to find a direct route to the basket.


+ Doglegs to the right, doglegs to the left. Almost every hole turns in one direction or the other - and they're pretty evenly-balanced, so righties and lefties alike will need to execute FH or turnovers


+ The holes at Alcyon challenge you to end your shot with the right landing angle. It's easy to skip or slide off fairways, or roll away from baskets

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- One aspect of being a newly-reclaimed course in the woods is the amount of rubble underfoot. There's lots of broken glass, chopped up concrete and other refuse that was dumped long ago and is now being unearthed with foot traffic.



- Being a relatively small piece of property for a full-size 18, there are a few areas where holes get pretty close together (errant teeshots on #13 can put you in the way of play on #14, etc).


- Because this is entirely woods, I don't have any memories of visually striking holes. In this way, Alcyon is like Allaire - only with eight par 4's, it's more like Allaire's bigger and meaner brother


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~ Playing from the forward tees removes 1600' including a few of the doglegs and more difficult gaps. Although the Shorts tame the course somewhat and play to the same par as the Longs, it's not an "easy" layout. You face the same basket placements, have to make similar elevation adjustments, and face the same punishment for being off the fairways. Intermediate players will find plenty of challenge from the Shorts, making Alcyon a great course for multiple plays.

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