Pros:
Coker College has a solid 9-hole layout weaving through a small, back portion of the campus. The course offers a fun round despite its lack of variety and challenge.
- Your round starts off with the course's most creative hole. You throw over a retaining pond for a mid-range tee shot. The pond was dry when I played, so not sure if that's typical or not. It's about 150-feet to clear, and you've got plenty of room past it to land a disc. From there, prepare for 8 holes that seemingly all place the same.
- Next two holes are wide-open. Roads are your only obstacles. After that, there are some trees, occasional underbrush (#4 & 7) and an outfield wall (#9) that offer your most challenge. In short, if you throw a straight 250-foot shot on every tee, at worst, you're getting 9 straight pars. Even from the long tees, smart shot-making will lead to a ho-hum par round.
- Course allows one to be aggressive. Other than #7 where the basket is hidden by growth/small trees, you can be aggressive with your tee shots. Even then, if you don't go right too soon, you've got a look at the basket anywhere on the fairway.
- From the long tees, the course forces you to pull out driver a couple of times. From the longs, the average hole length is 290 feet, with nothing shorter than 216 feet.
- Course seems to be isolated from other campus activities. It's on the back edge of campus, playing behind baseball & softball fields. The parking lot may be fuller at times. I played on Easter Sunday and was the only car in the lot.
Cons:
There's not much to complain about with the course design. I think the course utilizes the land about as best as possible.
- Grass was tall and thick when I played. As soon as a disc hit the ground, there was no chance for additional distance.
- Course is flat and has minimal obstacles. Again, that's the plot of land and not a fault of the design.
- Biggest issue was the repetitiveness of the layout. Other than #9, every single hole is a straight shot. Going back to #7, even if you throw dead straight, hole high you're 25 feet from the basket. Maybe throw up a mando sign or some OB markers and try to create additional doglegs or obstacles.
- If the course were to be crowded, you would need to pay attention to discs from other holes. It would be easy for shots to sail from one fairway to another.
Other Thoughts:
Coker is a straight ahead, no-frills layout. There's nothing great nor bad about it. 9 straight decent holes.
- It felt like I played the same hole over and over. With holes #4 - 8 offering distances of 240, 306, 279, 231, and 288 feet, I did play the same hole 5 times in a row! I'd go crazy if I had to play an 18-hole version of this layout.
- The biggest negative comment about the course is that it's forgettable. Hole #1 offers an interesting tee shot; #9 offers a fun layout. The other 7.5 holes are interchangeable. If someone were to rearrange the hole order, I doubt I'd notice.
- To change things up, you could play a safari layout.
- This is a perfectly average 9-hole layout. It's a good course to introduce players to the game.
- Depending on which direction you come from, you'll either get a beautiful drive through campus, or an unfortunate drive by a giant confederate flag.
- Home of the Cobras. Wish this course had some more bite to it.