1 tee and 18 basket are right next to each other, so no long walks to start or finish.

Lots of fun, wide open bombs

Lots of fun, narrow tunnels

Fair mix of left and right curving holes

Course gets progressively harder as you go along.

The middle part of the course is really good.

For a really tough course, there are a lot of holes you can still birdie. It's not an endless bogey factory.

Pretty dull start and finish

Last hole might give you heat stroke

The next tee on several holes can be tough to find on your first visit. Lots of 250-foot walks between holes.

Tees are asphalt, which are nice when it's dry and cool, but asphalt is made out of oil and it's going to be brutally hot and dirty in the dead of summer.

There is 1 tee and 1 basket per hole, and it's a really long course. Beginners might get annoyed.

Udisc has a layout that lets you start on hole 7. Please don't do that. Just go to hole 1. There is lots of parking there. The last thing people want is to start on 1, play 6 uninterrupted holes, then hit a wall of people starting on 7.

This is a new course, less than 3 years old and there are a lot of fun, unusual holes here. It's worth a visit. However, the layout is sort of disjointed as the park does find places to put cool holes, but the next cool hole often isn't anywhere near the cool hole you just played.

The course doesn't get off to a great start. Both 1 and 2 are in an empty field with an arbitrary fairway mowed. I imagine the grass can get kind of high in the summer, if they are only mowing the fairways. They are both long par 3s, 350+. So the average player isn't going to reach them.

It takes a while to locate the tee to 3 and while that is another hole in a field, at least the second shot does have a few trees to contend with. It looks like the basket to 3 may originally have been farther back, and you were expected to hit your gap off the tee, not on the second shot, but due to safety reasons the entire hole was moved backwards about 200 feet.

Hole 4 is an interesting Frankenstein's monster of a par 4. Originally, this was an uphill par 3 through a tree-lined corridor. But where they have the original tee is way too close to #17 so I imagine there was a few close calls. Now the hole is a V-shaped par 4 where you throw a shot down a hill around a tree to about where the original tee was, and then back uphill through the woods. The basket is probably only 150 feet from the new tee, but you have to take the scenic route to get there.

After that there are a succession of really fun and interesting holes that are kind of scattered around the edges of the woods. Hole 5 forces you through a triple mando into a downhill field, and then your second shot is uphill and sort of blind and around a corner. Nice effort.

6 starts a trend of tunnel-shot left-to-right curving par 3s. 7 is another long downhill par 3 but it's bombs away into grove of pine trees near the basket. Maybe you're parked, maybe you're blocked. 8 is a cool par 4 that dares you to hyzer one from a big field into into a little gap in the woods, but soon you learn to just lay one out to the right in the open field. Then fire one up the gap. 9 is nowhere to be found but once you do eventually locate it, you have another left to right shot into the trees. It's your third one in four holes.

The trend continues on 10, which is a classic switchback par 4 that curves one way off the tee, then the other way to the green. It gives you a very fun tunnel shot along a creek, then a shot to the right up a hill around the corner of a tree line. Easy par, very tough birdie. Might be the best hole on the course, along with #5. By this point you've played 6 consecutive really fun and interesting holes after a slow start.

The course starts to coast for a while, 11-14 are all decent enough par 3s through the woods. They are all pretty much the same length and three of the four require a solid turnover shot to get close. The only problem is finding the next tee, because after you putt out it's not obvious where to go and your map says the next tee is 200 feet away.

When you get to 15 you're hoping for a birdie. Scorecard says it's a short par 4, and it is, but the gap 30 feet in front of you is uphill and about 5 feet wide. If you hit it, your reward is a 150-foot upshot in an empty field. If you miss it, the punishment is pretty severe. It's hard to even play safe, just go for it.

After this though, the course staggers to a finish in the empty fields where you started, except with hazards. 16 is a 390-foot uphill par 3, the fairway is reasonable but you might as well just play it as 2 shots to get there so you avoid the penalty high grass. 17 is a fun little downhill shot, to an artificial island green It's tilted left and away from you so yet another advantage to the lefty.

18 though.....this has to the the most hated hole in the area. 1077 feet, uphill the entire way, and in an empty field except for one row of trees 450 feet off the tee where you have to negotiate a shot through the row. If you do, your reward is a 600-foot march up hill, with no shade at all. It's a par 5 and I suppose it is if you have 400-foot power, but the average golfer is going to take at 5 to get anywhere near the basket. 5 good 200-foot pulls up the hill and a 70-footer for bogey.

Overall, it's a good effort with a lot of enjoyable shots but they need a second tee or basket or both on a lot of the holes to make it more beginner friendly. Still, an average golfer who can only get it out there 250 feet can have fun here. There are a lot of downhill shots, shortish par 4s, reasonable par 3s. Half the holes are birdie possibilities. The other 9 though are very long and par is a good score.

Plus 4 was rated 191 on Udisc so it's a tough place to shoot par. The last few holes can really shred a good start.

The two other reviews on here are from when this was a 9-hole course. Based on the photos and descriptions, here's how it has changed:

#1 is a new hole
#2 was previously #1
#3 was previously #2
#4 is a combination of the previous #3 and #4.
#5 is the same
#6 is a new hole
#7 is the original #6
#8 is a new hole
#9 is old #7
#10 is old #8
#11 is old #9

After that...it's all new!

~ This is obviously a new installation and really not done yet. Nine nice Dynamic baskets, asphalt tees with the hole number spray painted on them, along with an arrow showing the general direction of the basket.


~ Of the nine, there are three really nice holes (#6 - #8). Hole #6 is a downhill dogleg into an alley lined by pine trees - a fun gliding shot to the left., Hole #7 is a flat left-to-right into a protected green. Hole #8 is a narrow alley between water and woods, with a hard uphill right dogleg in the second half (a tough hole, because you need a couple hundred dead straight feet to avoid water left and woods right, then enough height to make the climb up the right dogleg to the basket)


Despite it being new, there are some problems worth citing, in hopes they'll be corrected before the course is finalized:


- The teepad on Hole #4 aims straight at a wall of tall woods 60 feet in front of you. It takes a minute to realize you're supposed to throw toward a walking trail off to the left, which leads uphill along a narrow alley to the basket. The only play is to dink it up to the path, and then up the remaining 200' for an up and down par. They would need to clear out a ton of woods to make this a legitimate par 3 dogleg hole - it's probably worth rethinking the design entirely (or getting out the chainsaws!)


- Hole #9 is so thickly wooded that the basket felt buried in the woods with no throwing line from the tee. It's a right dogleg that's going to require a lot of cutting to make accessible


- Hole #3 is a pretty downhill dogleg left that's marked as a par 3 at 453'. It's a bit of a "tweener" and even though it's downhill, I think it would be fairer as a short par 4


- The first two teepads don't line up with the direction of the baskets, which is a problem since the baskets aren't visible from the tees. The arrow painted onto the second tee curves to the left, but the basket is actually to the right, hidden behind a treeline. These problems will be fixed once signs with maps are installed. But for now, they're pretty annoying on the first play through



As a work in progress in the Fall of 2022, Brubaker Park is a reasonable 9, with a few design issues that hurt the playing experience. But there's more good than bad here, and with time it might get a lot better

Brubaker is a spacious park at first glance and its 90 acres promise a much better course than the average community park. It's clearly building up to 18 but at the moment is a excellent 9er featuring a fair mix of open, semi-open, and a bit of forest, as well as having elevation in spades. The terrain and elevation in parts is such that it's like playing a better forested course but without all the trees -- if that makes sense -- without feeling overwhelming for a quick round. It's also the best 9er right now in the immediate area and only Mt. Bradford Preserve 9er bests it in SE PA. It will also be a good companion course for nearby Roland Park's back 18. Distances average 395 feet. Water is only in play on one hole. Fairways turn staight, left or right rather evenly.

This 9er has an overall downhill bias and I'm told the (as of yet unbuilt) back 9 will be have more uphills in turn. While #2 is 600 feet long and slightly downhill, #5 is a much steeper 530'er downhill where you get to tee off in between the legs of a tall electrical tower. From there, the hill down to the baseball field could and does easily double for fast tobaggan runs in the winter. #6 is the last downhill, a hyzer this time to a basket tucked into trees.

#4 is the only time I've seen an overhead shot almost required off the tee to make a birdie (but I'm not widely traveled). The tee is facing a sheer wall of forest and bushy growth, to the point I looked backwards, figuring someone was having me one with the spraypainted arrow and to see if there's a basket out in the fields somewhere. 45 ft left of the tee is a trail cut into this forest island, leading straight to the basket out in the open on the otherside. But getting to it requires a layup for a par at best, or a blind throw and pray if you want to land further up on this narrow trail with the risk of land in the middle of brush, brush, and more brush. An overhand shot, like a tomahawk of decent distance, seems the only way to birdie this one. On top of that, the drop-off starts almost immediately after the basket and aggressive throws can find themselves easily rolling far and deep down towards the baseball diamond. Never seen this before, cool.

#8 first comes as a 225' alley shot with 25 ft wide fairway, neighbored by another tight alley to the right, seperated by a column of trees, and a formidable creek left for easy disc loss. Afterwards, it opens up to the basket uphill and to the right, another 200 feet back.

#9 is a short but deceptive strong right turn in the forest.

Tees were asphalt of good size, about 6x10', and level with the ground.

Bathrooms in the first pavillion and also the building by #6's tee were pleasantly open. Rare in SE PA and rarer still this half of the year.

Brubaker has no major downsides but it's still a open front one-third where the challenge is more distance than any lines or placement.

For first-timers, the course is a work in progress and thus has no signs, tee signs or navigation yet.

The hops from parking lot to #1 is a bit, from #1 to #2 is big, essentially backtracking #2's entire 600 foot length before throwing it. The jump from #5 to #6 is also about 500 feet. Nothing major but still noticeable and without a map, confusing. Course doesn't loop and it'll be a 5 minute walk uphill back to the car.

#9 is in forest and one big leaf pile. Right now, easily a disc loss trap.

Out of OOOOO discs:

Terrain: OOOo - Very good terrain in a large, large park. Nothing overly outrageous but a few features not commonly seen and the space to breathe.
Execution: OOOO - Excellent. I feel they transcended the already good terrain in care and passion to make a somewhat atypical course.
Upkeep: N/A. Brand new but should be high if rest of park is any indication.
Difficulty: OOOo - Distance, yes, but shots like #4 and 8 are firmly in intermediate imo.
Fun Factor: OOOO - Excellent. It's really neat to see something new like #4 and not play just another community course.
Crowded: N/A. I suspect it's a bit empty now (saw 1 group in two visits) but won't be for long.
Overall: OOOO - Would grade 3.75 but always round new courses up out of courtesy and in anticipation of 18 holes with less openess on the back half.