Pros:
- Another course in New Bern. Glenburnie DGC sets the bar high, but being from Wilmington with Castle Hayne basically in my back yard I understand how one might want a break even from a top-shelf course. Creekside provides that change.
- "Interesting" layout. Creekside gives you holes where you can launch it as well as holes that you have to "thread the needle." Wide open holes coupled with extremely wooded holes provides a little something for everybody.
Cons:
- Bi-polar layout. I said the layout was "interesting" and that that was a plus, but it's also a detractor because of the lack of variation between the extremes and the lack of flow on a few holes. Allow me digress and get specific:
* As someone else noted, the first five holes are basically the same wide-open shot across the same wide-open field. Okay, but really repetitive.
* After 5 you're presented with brushy and wooded holes with fairways as wide as 12 and as narrow as four feet wide with the same par. Yes, they're a skosh shorter, but it seems (for lack of a better word) schizophrenic. There's no transition. You don't have an open shot that LEADS into the woods (providing an idea of what's to come), you just jump right from the World Cup into the Walking Dead.
* After you play #6, you have to FIND #7 based on a lonesome singular sign next to the pin. Once you maneuver your way down the path, across the road, through the parking lot and past the playground, you get to play #7.
* When you hole out on 7 you see #8's pin. You have to walk down 8's fairway to FIND the teepad - which, incidentally, is down a hill in a gaggle of trees next to the water - and there are no signs indicating this is where you're supposed to go.
* #9 is a dog-leg right that aims right towards a playground. Now, this doesn't look like a playground that garners heavy traffic, but disc golfers need to be vigilant to make sure they're not endangering any kiddos playing. Just seems like this hole (with all the other land available) could have been placed in a less precarious locale.
* #10 is one of the few alternate tees I noticed. The long is par four; the short a par three. However, the long layout (for its added length) offers ZERO risk/reward so far as I can tell. There's no line that offers a legit look at birdie for big arms that doesn't offer a par to the mortal chuckers playing from the shorts. It's just long for the sake of being long it seems.
* #16 is RIDICULOUS wooded. I'm all for making it tough by having tight lines to practice your accuracy, but 16 is borderline retarded. Seriously. There is quite literally no fairway. It's like throwing a Frisbee through a briar patch. I only par'd it because I threw two tomahawks and am deeply religious.
- CRAZY foliage. It's disc golf: throwing Frisbees in the woods. I get it...there's bugs and pointy plants and lions and tigers and bears (oh my!). I'm not saying this is anything out of the ordinary, but since this is a new course that hasn't been worn down yet, I implore you - if you're one of those who likes to wear flip-flops or some other manner of open-toe foot appendage - wear shoes if you're going to play this course. Between mad briars, wicked thorn bushes, and crazy thorny weeds blooming out of the ground like the devil's botanical Bellagio, you WILL be sorry if you don't wrap your piggies in some Kevlar.
- No topless Hooter's girls frolicking along the #8 fairway.
Other Thoughts:
Creekside is new, just coming on to the scene in 2014. Like your favorite Valkyrie, Firebird, or DX Roc, it has a lot of seasoning and beating in ahead of it to make it good. With a design overhaul to give it more balance and a lot of TLC to make the "fairways" (such as they are) more believable, Creekside could eventually be a course that could/might/maybe/sort-of give Glenburnie a run for its money. MAYBE. However, as it stands it's not worth driving out of your way to play. It's great for New Bern/Jacksonville locals who have 18 more holes to play, but out-of-towners would be better off skipping it and playing Glenburnie twice for now.