Pros:
Very Nice Tee Signs
Three Tee Pads Per Hole
Nice Concrete Tees on Most Holes
Baskets are in Great Shape
Great Use of Elevation Changes
Has A Couple of Really Nice Signature Holes
Decent Mix Of Open and Wooded Holes
Begins and Ends at Parking Lot
Clean and Very Well-Maintained
Ample Parking (For Normal Play)
Pinic Pavilions, Pool, Walking Trails and Other Amnities in Park
Cons:
Could Use More Variety
Other Park Traffic Close to Fairways
Could Use A Few More Obstacles on Some Holes
No Benches (Pretty Big for a Course This Long)
Not for All Skill Levels
Poisen Ivy Still Prevelant Throughout the Course
Other Thoughts:
Deis Hill is an absolutely huge 18-hole course located in the small town of Dover, Ohio. The course is located in a beautiful city park and is one of the cleanest park courses that I have ever played. I don't know if it's all the parks department or the users of the park themselves, but whatever they are doing it's working and all parks should model themselves after this one.
Enter the park from Deis Hill Road. You will be driving along the wooded fairway of hole 17 and come up on the practice basket on the left side of the road. You have two choices for parking, one is on the left behind the practice basket, the second is along the right side of the park road near the picnic pavilions. Hole 1 is located on the left side of the park road directly across from the pavilions.
The one thing that really stands out about this course right from the beginning are the amazing tee signs. They not only show the tee pad, basket, and obstacles for each hole, they also show the alternate tee pads, roads, OB, and any other park features such as buildings, shelters, and parking lots. This makes navigating from hole to hole and tee to tee a breeze as long as you pay attention to the tee sign at each pad.
Right from the first hole you can also see that this course is for experienced players and big arms with the long tee pad measuring in at close to 1000 feet, with the short pad still reaching the 400 foot mark. While this may be great for many experience players and championship caliber tournaments, the novice or casual player might have a tough time or get frustrated with the sheer distance that this course demands even from the short tees.
As you make your way through the course you see some great amenites that I think really add to this courses overall score for many people. I mentioned the amazing tee signs, but there is also huge concrete tee pads, nice and easy to spot next tee signs, and great baskets. While all these are great they seemed to overlook a couple key elements, the first being benches. I wouldn't take off points as far as ratings go, but with a course of this size, hole length, and hiking wise, I would expect to see at least a couple of benches. Another great addition to this course would be some trash cans. While this was one of the cleanest parks I have ever seen, there were a couple of stray water and gatorade bottles throughout. Obviously this happens everywhere and isn't a con of the course but I do think that with a trash can or two this one may actually be as close to spotless as a course can get since many of the bottles I did see looked like they may have just fallen out of bags or were forgotten and left behind.
While the course and park have great amenities, the course could use a little more diversity to be the best of the best. There is a decent mix of open and wooded holes, but some of the holes are so wide open it kind of gives the course that "too open" feel. On top of the wide open feel the course has, it also lacks a lot of thought to play. Aside from one or two signature holes you are just out there throwing basic hyzer, anhyzer, and straight shots. I don't recall one hole that had me standing on the tee pad trying to decide on a route to take, or which shot to pull out of my bag.
Overall the course is really good. While there could be more, there is enough diversity on top of all of the great amenities to put this up there in the top. One thing I will advise is to go in with little to no expectations. Right now this is ranked as the top course in Ohio, and while it's definitely in the top few if you go in thinking number one, you might be disappointed. This course does deserve many of the high praises it gets, but ratings are opinoined based and in my opinion keeping that in mind will really help you to enjoy this course for what it is.