Pros:
Do you remember the bad late-'90s movies where the shy high school girl stops wearing baggy sweaters and giant glasses? **SPOILER ALERT** Suddenly everyone notices she was actually hot all along. Turns out Cornelius Park was that girl.
- Technically, Cornelius Road Park needed to go one step further and disassociate itself from the old layout by retiring the Bridges course name. It also realized less is more, utilizing the space in a fun, mid-range course that offers plenty of fun and challenge.
- To be fair, the old layout did have untapped potential. To be even more fair, the work needed to make that layout a reality wasn't there, or perhaps more likely, not realistic due to time requirements.
- The first four holes give you a false sense of this course's appeal. These are your four open layouts, the only holes where you're throwing in grass and out in the sun. If you're having an accuracy issues, get them fixed by hole 4.
- Standing on #5's tee, I realized immediately this was a whole new layout. A tight-ish, uphill layout that starts in the open and ends in the woods. Your risk here is smacking any of the trees, especially if you end up in the creek/ravine. At 255 feet (or 275, depending on if you trust the tee sign or online info), a mid-range disc should help you avoid danger.
- The beauty of this course is the risk/reward factor throughout. More so than most courses, especially shorter courses (sub 5,000 foot layouts), there could be some huge scoring discrepancies from hole-to-hole, round-to-round. I had 4 birdies and 3 missed due to mediocre putting where at least several of them barely missed smacking a tree. On one hole, I missed my line (going left of a certain tree instead of right) and still had a 15 foot putt. That easily could have hit a tree, kicked 50 feet into the woods and I would have been scrambling for a 4 or 5 instead of getting a 2.
- Excellent use of terrain, creating some true uphill or downhill layouts. Heck, there are even some switchbacks transiting up or down between holes. Here's the unknown secret for out-of-towners. As excellent as the Charlotte DG scene is, Charlotte courses are relatively flat. If you want elevation, you only have to travel slightly west (RL Smith, Torma Town, or Rankin Lake in Gastonia) or north of Lake Norman (Stumpy Creek and, now to a degree, Cornelius Road Park).
- My favorite elevation-related holes are #11 & 14. #11 is a tight, not-quite-gauntlet 215-foot layout. You're throwing over a slight valley back up to the basket that's protected by trees. From the short tee, you're teeing from the edge of the mini-valley. Even though it's only 35 feet variance from the long and short tees, the short tee takes all the challenge out of the layout.
- As for #14, it's a dogleg left, high sweeping hyzer tee shot - only 230 feet. The elevation factor is the drop off long and right of the basket. Anything long or right, or rolling, could end up 50 - 100 feet past the basket. An aggressive tee/approach/birdie putt could lead to you scrambling to get up and down. A player putting for birdie from 30 feet short of the basket could easily end up with bogey or double bogey if they're too aggressive.
- #18 is this course's tribute to the closing hole at Glenn Hilton in Hickory. It's a dogleg left layout with the middle 1/2 of the hole playing over a drop-off. The course offers two main lines - a narrower, straighter line and a more open line that starts out much further to the right. I took the far right, sweeping line.....AND I STILL HIT A BRANCH. That led to a 10 minute way of trying to navigate down the drop-off all the way to water with walls taller than me. I fully expected to come across a snake in the water with nowhere for me to turn. I'm glad I had waterproof shoes on. So.....the point being, this should be a fun closing hole. Just don't end up in the bottom.
Cons:
Some very in-progress problems. The most pressing are the lack of tees. For the most part, it's a none issue due to short hole lengths. There are several holes however where it was a challenge trying to complete a full (or even 3/4) run-up due to uneven ground, roots, or stumps.
- Signage needs to be better in several spots. The biggest culprit was the transition between 14 and 15. After #14's basket, there are several paths that immediately branch off from the hole. Even when you pick the correct path, it branches two more times before you get to the tee. Even using UDisc's app, I wandered down the wrong path for a bit due to the delay in satellite data. More arrows are a must as the course does cross over trails & paths throughout the round.
- Several tee signs aren't very accurate. #10's was one of the offenders. The tee sign shows a straight ahead basket with two routes to the basket. The hole is actually a decently sharp dogleg right. I had to walk two other fairways to find the baskets as the signs didn't fully convey where they truly were.
- There's a discrepancy between the hole lengths posted on the tee signs and the apps/scorecards. For the most part they're within 20 feet. But at least once I landed 40 feet shorter than expected.
- More maintenance related work - piles dragged further away, a little more cutting, stumps cut down or marked. The simple ongoing issue kind of things.
- The panic stricken feeling when coming across old fairways and/or tee pads from the old layout. Walking down the fairway on #5, as I'm about to cross the bridge, I look to the right and I have flashbacks to the horror of the old hole #7. A long par 5 (600-foot range) that was tree-lined on the right and deep ravine creek-lined the entire left side of the hole. Keep your shot dead-straight or make a long walk back to a bridge to cross the other side of the ravine to retrieve your disc. Sadly, you were often better off having to make that walk than trying to scale down and back up the creek walls if your disc ended up down there.
Other Thoughts:
Cornelius Road Park is the hot chick after her makeover. As is the case with certain actresses from the '90s (cough, cough, Rachel Leigh Cook), she wasn't hot, she just looked different because of a wardrobe makeover.
- This is a fun course. Six years and nine days after my only round at the old layout, I gave the redesign a whirl. Looking for a course comp, I think the course most closely resembles Fort Hamby in North Wilkesboro with lots of similarities to Glenn Hilton. This definitely doesn't have a Charlotte-course vibe despite only being 35 minutes from downtown.
- The first four holes remained from the old course, surviving the annihilation of that layout. I had forgotten how simply perfect of an opening hole #1 is. It seems an opening hole should never be too tough. It should be a relatively easy par 3 in case your arm isn't completely loosened up while requiring a quality shot to get that birdie. Here, you start out under a tree, throwing slightly downhill, weaving around several more trees, back to an uphill basket. It's only 273 feet, and it was the only time during the first seven holes I didn't have any look at birdie. Still, an easy 3 so I could start my round on a solid note.
- #4 is the only hole where you can really air one out. It's 425 feet, and it's slightly downhill. Your last chance at a simple layout for awhile.
- There are multiple holes where you'll want to throw multiple discs off the tee. I really think #8 is the best for this layout. At 330 feet, it is the course's second longest hole. It's one of the few blind tee shots as it's a slight uphill flow for the first ¼ before dropping down to a dogleg left layout. It's going to be easy to be in the vicinity of the green with your tee shots. It's going to take extra work to get your disc all the way to the hole due to the tree coverage.
- This is a fantastic compliment to Stumpy Creek. That's the longer, advanced layout. This is the shorter, have fun layout. It's only 10 minutes to Stumpy, so if you're up from Charlotte or down from the Triad, you are playing both courses or you're wasting your time.
- One of the best shorter courses (sub-5,000 feet) that I've played. My first thought when finished was that I really enjoyed the course. My second was of frustration that the course is just a little too far to be regularly played. It's just out of reach and that's not good. Still, I'm giving this course a 3.5 rating. It needs to be played by all Charlotte-area locals.