Pros:
Brevard College is a small college in the foothills of the western North Carolina mountains about an hour's drive from Asheville. It is a beautiful campus with a remarkable sports complex for a college its size boasting a football/soccer field, large track, and many tennis courts, ball fields, and basketball courts. Adding a disc golf course feels like a natural fit.
The disc golf course itself has a mix of short, medium, and long holes, mostly par 3's, and provides open field style holes, park-style holes intermixed with large trees, and a few woods holes to boot. The first hole begins near the track and then the next four holes play around the outskirts of the track next to a creek that winds its way along the right side of the course. The water never comes into play, but it provides a nice aesthetic. Hole 5 is the longest on the course providing a big bomber opportunity that finishes towards the creek along the tree line.
After hole five, make your way over the field toward the little church and you will find a number of holes in a park style, with large trees that you must maneuver around to get close. Most of the holes here are in the mid to upper 300's, so rec players (like me) will need to keep their drivers out. The golf here is fairly straightforward and makes for some easy pars.
Holes 12 and 13 move around a large hill back toward the parking lot, but then hole 14 plays back up the hill (this appears to have been a previous hole, hole 16). This is a beautiful hole and makes for a challenging shot. Holes 15 and 16 are two wooded holes along the side of the hill, fairly short and birdie-able as long as you miss the trees (I did not). Then, Hole 17 plays along the top of the hill and hole 18 travels back heading down the hill for a technical 207' ace run.
Some perks: The signs are small, but easy to see and the tee areas are clearly marked. The baskets are high quality, with numbers of the holes on the pole inside the chains so you don't get confused. There are navigation signs near the baskets directing to the next tee. I liked the variety of holes on the course, some hyzer, some anhyzer or forehand (I'm RH), and the mix of styles means this course doesn't get redundant.
Cons:
There are many improvements that could be made to the course.
First, the natural tee areas are not in great shape. I played in the winter, so the tees tended to be muddy and slippery. Even right next to the tees was not always conducive to good footing. Holes 7 and 10 play from similar areas and I had to work hard not to pull a groin. The college needs to put in some concrete or turf tees.
The signs were not very descriptive. They provide the hole number, distance, and par. Some of the markers had old, faded maps attached, but they were not very descriptive, meaning I had to refer to the course map a lot just to find the right basket for each hole. Larger signs with hole maps would be a big improvement.
Though the baskets are of high quality (decent Mach New 2 baskets) they are painted a dark blue and often difficult to see. They sometimes had flags on them, but the flags were quite small and not always the brightest color. I like to be able to see where I am throwing, so something brighter would be quite helpful.
The thorns are pretty bad, my friends. If you get off the fairway at all, you are met with a thicket of thorns the concentration of which I have rarely seen. It's my fault for making the poor throw, of course, but I'd rather not have my blood drawn while trying to get back to the fairway. Cleaning that up would be beneficial for the overall experience.
The design does not make much sense. The first five holes play along an area that is open with finishes into the tree line. These holes are actually the best of the course, in my opinion. But then to get to hole 6, you have to walk a quarter of a mile across a field. Plus, holes 7-10 are all played in a park-style area and feel a bit shoe-horned in. Holes 12 and 13 appear to exist just to get you back to the highlight of the course, which is the hill you finish on. Those holes are a bit contrived and unappealing.
Other Thoughts:
The overall experience of playing this course was below average. I have played some terrible courses and some fantastic courses. This is somewhere in the middle, but leaning more toward bad than good. The overall experience was not a lot of fun (which is an important factor for me).
I am aware that this course has gone through at least one redesign, so the lack of intention about its design is explainable. But that is probably the thing that was most frustrating about the course (except for those tees!). It didn't flow naturally from one hole to the next. It didn't provide interesting holes that I was excited to play.
That said, with some improvements, this course could be a solid 3.0 course. It certainly has some potential. But for now, I will have to rate it below average. Until those improvements happen, I doubt I will make the trip again.