Buck Hill is a Cale Leiviska designed 18 hole course on the south side of the twin cities. The course features a good amount of elevation being on a ski hill. There's strips of trees going up and down the hill that are incorporated in spots to make it not just an up and down ordeal. A few pin placements tucked into the wooded sections add some challenge as well.

The baskets are yellow Prodigy T2's. These are nice baskets. Highly visible and they catch pretty well. One basket and placement per hole. No complaints with these.

the tee pads are listed as turf but they're actually some kind of plastic grating type of thing. Nicely sized and a bold blue color. Highly visible from a distance. One tee pad per hole.

The flow of the course is pretty straightforward. I'd still recommend having a map available but it's plenty doable without one. The design does a good job of mixing up the up and downhill holes. Some ski hill designs have you playing multiple holes in a row up the hill before quickly descending before repeating the process. The design here plays pretty evenly throughout. There's plenty of cross hill holes that break up the slog. Always appreciated on ski hill courses. The course starts and ends near the restaurant/parking lot too.

The tee signs are solid. Large metal signs attached to a metal post with the hole #, par, distance and a basic overhead hole map. I liked the fact that they included any ski lifts on the map to serve as landmarks. This really helped with deciphering the pin location in a number of spots.

There's some nice looking views in a few spots from the top of the hill. There's a lake off in the distance from hole 14's tee. Pretty cool looking.

First off is the tees. They're not turf. They're a weird plastic surface that's not really very grippy. I'm assuming these are some kind of thing they put down on the hill to stunt bushes and things from sprouting up in the summer. There's large sections of the course were the fairway is covered in this stuff. Either way these are pretty awful for tees. Was not a fan of these at all.

There's a couple longer walks between holes. Nothing to crazy and they were marked pretty well with next tee signs when we played. If one of these signs were to go missing it could lead to some extra wandering without a map. Extra wandering on ski hill courses is no good. The walk from 17 to 18 is probably the worst one.

Pretty repetitive feeling after the first half of the course. Again, there's only so much you can do on a property like this. That doesn't change the fact that it's all pretty open and similar feeling.

Seasonal course that's pay to play. Understandable of course but limited in availability. Be sure to check the website or call ahead before just showing up. The QR code payment method felt like you're getting audited or something though. An absurd amount of info required. This took way longer than I was expecting. Probably easier if the restaurant is open to pay that way.

There's a decent chance to lose a disc out here, even with the minimal trees. The rough in these strips of trees is pretty gnarly in spots. Also depending on the time of year the fairways can be pretty thick. They were in late October so I can't imagine what they can look like in the summer.

The course plays next to busy highway. The sound of traffic is ever present throughout. It kind of kills the vibe a bit.

This was a pretty middle of the pack Ski Hill course. I've played quite a few of these types of courses now. Many worse than this, but about an equal number of better ones. Not a destination course whatsoever. But it is a different style of course compared to most of the others in this area. I'm going with a 2.5 rating. As far as ski hill courses this one is the definition of decent/typical.