Pros:
- free course, plenty of parking
- located within a well maintained community park
- brand new blue Mach 5 baskets, highly visible
- combines two types of course play: short and technical with more open, longer fairways
- cart friendly for the first half of the course
- well rounded introduction course for beginners
- plenty of park amenities: bathrooms, water, shaded rest areas, a playground if you come with the fam
Cons:
- brand new course, a little rough around the edges in general
- hole overlap between a few early holes
- no directional signs between holes
- natural tees
- no tee signs
- no numbers on baskets
- 8 through 10 are in multi use areas where pedestrians could potentially be in the way
- 10 has a parking lot running parallel to the fairway
- woods holes need more clearing, especially around baskets
- woodsy holes felt repetitive, fairly short
- flat course
Other Thoughts:
A course was born today! I've been keeping close tabs on the course developments in DeFuniak Springs and decided join a fairway clearing party this morning. The baskets had been planted already, all they needed were some volunteers to help clear the second half of the course. I figured I could volunteer, play the course, and hurriedly write the first review in one fell swoop. What could go wrong? What went wrong is that WellsBranch, another TR course bagger, and his team of lab coat wearing course calculating scientist cronies had beat me there! Before I even stepped out of my car, he'd probably already figured out the enjoyability level of the course on random Tuesday evenings of a leap year with that fabulous reviewer rating formula of his. After a few hours of clearing we hung up our gardening gloves and threw the course together.
DeFunk is located within a large multi use park. It features two distinct styles of play on the front and back 9. The front 9 was wide open with a mix of distances, mostly 300ft+. The second half was sorter and much more technical. Wells and I navigated the course using the map provided on the Dyfuniak DeFunk Disc facebook page. I added the course map that we used to DGCR. The front 9 tees were marked with white PVC, not numbered. On the back 9 we guesstimated were to throw from. As we left, the real volunteers were installing what looked to be chunks of wood attached to rebar. My guess is that they're to mark the natural tees in the woods.
The front 9 started to the right of a baseball field. This area was flat and well landscaped. The layout worked its way clockwise around an open field. The holes were long and open, but used the available trees to shape the fairways. Most of them had both hyzer and anhyzer lines available. As these holes transitioned to the back 9 they also started to conflict with more pedestrian activities, unfortunately. Once in the woods pedestrians ceased to be a problem.
The back 9 were much shorter than the front 9. The technical nature of these holes will probably result in more scoring separation than the beginning. These holes were mostly straight with tight low ceilinged fairways. If I had to guess, I'd say they averaged under 200ft. More clearing will be needed for this section of the course, which will likely come as the course continues to take shape. Hopefully, they'll give these holes a little more length in the future. As is, they all felt a little short and repetitive. 18 was my favorite of the back 9 and ultimately the most fun of the woodsy holes.
In closing, I'd like to point out that my personal rating is much less about giving a number than simply providing information. Seldom do course start off being awesome from the get go. I fully understand that the course will continue to develop. DeFuniak Springs is only an hour drive away, I'll likely be back multiple times this year to revisit and adjustment of my review/rating. Hell, I'll probably be back to do some of the maintenance if they'll have me again. I enjoyed the contrasts between the front and back 9. This will be a perfect introduction course for the locals.
Update: The course has come a long way since first opening. The back 9 has received a lot of attention and most of the brush has been dealt with. In addition to more clearly defined fairways, concrete tees and quality tee signs have now been installed. There's even a few alternate holes throughout the course.
As for cons, it's impossible to overlook the tee pad situation. They're too short to comfortably x- step on. One could argue that the holes with small tees are short enough to stand and deliver from, but I still think they got it wrong. A few low power players I know felt especially handcuffed by the inability to generate the extra power (x-step) needed to reach these pins. A few dedicated locals have alleviated much of this issue by leveling the ground with the concrete tees by adding gravel. This makes the transition from ground to tee much smoother.
Also, there's still a few bush stumps throughout the back 9. It would improve the consistency of fairway skips and bounces if they were eventually removed. +.5 rating bump. Keep up the good work, Disco dancers.
Update 4-23-2019
The back 9 looks to have thinned out more and the tee signs and layout has been slightly revamped. I still believe there is a noticable LHBH bias on the course and there are some tee orientation and size issues. The course still has a few issues with overlapping with the other park activities, as well. Nonetheless, there's a more polished feeling to course and this deserves an additional bump in my rating (+.5)