Looping around the campus of Big Walnut Intermediate School, this short 18-hole course is promoted as "beginner friendly". That may be true on paper, but actually playing the course is a different story.

+ Having 18 baskets on school property is great to see, especially in such a large district. Each hole does have a designated tee area, which occasionally doesn't exist at school courses.

+ The design is filled with ace runs, but there are a couple of holes over 300 feet mixed in.

- Many holes at this course play right up against some of the most brutal rough you'll come across. One slightly errant shot, and the disc could be a goner. High grass, cattails, and nettles are a few things you'll have to navigate to find your shot. This would likely be a less-than-enjoyable experience for the target audience.

- A few baskets are already being neglected, with high grass overrunning the cage and chains. One basket even had branches intertwined in the chains.

- Several holes play very close to the baseball fields. There were a couple of games going on at the time of this round, making these holes unsafe to play.

- While there are tee boxes, they are pretty low quality. The tees are wooded frames with turf. The
front end of a couple tees will lift up off the ground if you stand on the back side. They are also very short.

- There is no signage on the course. UDisc is a must while playing.

It's always great to see schools take initiative, but I feel like this course could thwart the spirits of young disc golfers. Hopefully any beginner playing for the first time keeps it out of the rough!

I always give credit to schools making an effort to grow the sport, and have seen a LOT of variety in school course design. In this case, I commend the designer on choosing hole distances appropriate for beginner youths. Once they get a modicum of coaching (from the PE teacher or others), kids will quickly find holes here are in their range for possible birdies. Also, the designer clearly had in mind utilizing a variety of hole distances, angles of attack, and obstacles, with the best use of the terrain coming on hole 7, where the basket is situated atop the only ridge/rise on the property, and creates a challenging green. Kids can learn ranging, and conditions under which you need to make risk/reward choices.

The downside of the design (as presently maintained) comes in the frequent use of "NON-greens" for holes 3,8,9,10,13&14. The (older DGA Mach ?) baskets are literally set a foot or two into the rough, with no clearing done around them. The pine branches on the otherwise aceable hole 9 nearly intertwine through the front side chains. And the rough (usually to the left on half the fairways) is simply disc eating punishment. Thorns, stinging nettles, and cat-tail swamp are actually not appropriate for the target audience.

Tee pads are small (4x8) and inconsistent, with boxed gravel, and turf laid over 15 of the boxes (interesting that the three in front of the building (1,17&18) have no turf). Finally, the lack of signage and totally flat terrain make this a bit of a disappointing track overall: the course probably has novice to recreational players as its target audience, but their innate inconsistency will likely have them disc searching, getting frustrated, and giving up the sport. As an intermediate adult with more than a decade worth of experience and hundreds of courses played, I found frustration likely on hole 3 (a left to right flex putter shot that risks tennis court fence right and tall weeds left), hole 4 (it turns out the basket is hidden on the left, just in front of the discus net), hole 8 (only 100 feet, but no reasonable beginner line to the basket tucked behind the massive and unforgiving pine), hole 9 (pine branches acting like Dikimbe Mutombo), hole 10 (I couldn't find a tee pad, and the basket is in weeds higher than the cage), hole 11 (cat tail swamp left if you wish to avoid the ball field fence), and 13,15,16&17 (which all throw over the driveway: a traditional design no-no). Finally, beginners WILL hit cars on 18…

Again, just because I listed a lot of negatives doesn't mean they shouldn't keep trying here. I suggest literally clearing the entire 'circle 1' of underbrush for all 'beginner' holes, and be sure the most likely landing spots along all fairways are kept clear and accessible. A lot of work the way the course is currently laid out…