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Fairview Park DGC reviews
11
0
Fair pretty much sums it up. The views are Ok too.
Reviewed:
Played on:Feb 21, 2024
Played the course:2-4 times
Pros:
Wide variety of playing corridors, some are open fields, some are brutally narrow.
Compact layout with centralized parking means you're never that far from your car if there's an emergency.
Even though the holes are pretty close together, you aren't in any imminent danger
Some pretty holes in the wooded hillside
The very simple directional arrows on the ground are a big help
They made an effort to equalize forehand/backhand, uphill/downhill, wide/narrow. It's not tunnel shots all day favoring the right handed backhand player.
You almost certainly won't lose a disc, but there are places where you might not be allowed to go get it.....you'll see below.
Compact layout with centralized parking means you're never that far from your car if there's an emergency.
Even though the holes are pretty close together, you aren't in any imminent danger
Some pretty holes in the wooded hillside
The very simple directional arrows on the ground are a big help
They made an effort to equalize forehand/backhand, uphill/downhill, wide/narrow. It's not tunnel shots all day favoring the right handed backhand player.
You almost certainly won't lose a disc, but there are places where you might not be allowed to go get it.....you'll see below.
Cons:
One tee and basket per hole. They could maybe have another tee. The park is too small to have more baskets
the tees are turf and while some of them are level, others follow the lay of the land. Why not make them all level?
Parking is sure to be tight if there's a tournament.
There is a shooting range adjacent to the course that promises to prosecute you if you set foot onto their land. It probably was a bad idea to have two wooded holes run down a narrow strip of land right on the border. This is probably the only place you might lose a disc, if you bonk one into the range and don't dare go get it.
After playing a very fun #4 which requires a little turnover shot down a steep hill, the next hole goes straight back up that hill, is just as long, and borders a public street with a mando tree that forces you to play close to or out and over the street. The tee needs to moved to where the mando is as it is way too easy to end up in the street.
#6 goes back down the same hill parallel to #4 and you need pretty much the same shot.....but this time you're in the dense woods and it's the start of Plinko Land and threats of jail time
the tees are turf and while some of them are level, others follow the lay of the land. Why not make them all level?
Parking is sure to be tight if there's a tournament.
There is a shooting range adjacent to the course that promises to prosecute you if you set foot onto their land. It probably was a bad idea to have two wooded holes run down a narrow strip of land right on the border. This is probably the only place you might lose a disc, if you bonk one into the range and don't dare go get it.
After playing a very fun #4 which requires a little turnover shot down a steep hill, the next hole goes straight back up that hill, is just as long, and borders a public street with a mando tree that forces you to play close to or out and over the street. The tee needs to moved to where the mando is as it is way too easy to end up in the street.
#6 goes back down the same hill parallel to #4 and you need pretty much the same shot.....but this time you're in the dense woods and it's the start of Plinko Land and threats of jail time
Other Thoughts:
Udisc gives this course one black diamond with the warning Long-Technical. And so it is. It's a nice, small, pretty park and the course does it's best to stay in the woods as long as it can because it knows the open field holes are dull.
Holes 1-3 are in the open field next to the hockey rink with very little danger beyond their excessive length. Per the sign on #2 it appears maybe the intent was to have a couple of hazards surround the basket, but I've never seen those and per the other reviews on here, they've never been there. #3 adds some OB to define a fairway but it's miles wide and unless you are aimed totally in the wrong direction, you'll be fine.
The course perks up a bit with a very cool #4, a little downhill shot requiring a left to right shape to get close. And there's OB long. This is the first time your brain will activate, in a pleasurable way.
Unfortunately the course gives away all good will generated on #4 on the next hole which may be the worst in Lancaster County. A ridiculous, steeply uphill and excessively long par 3 that forces you to go around a pine tree by hyzering something out over a public street. Unsafe. Move the tee up to near the mando tree and make it 170 feet. It's still uphill from there and still challenging, but you aren't taking direct aim at cars coming around a blind curve.
#6-16 are entirely in the woods and are a succession of jagged dogleg par 3s through tiny gaps. Fun? At times, it's always satisfying to smash that gap, but on almost all of them, your best play is to simply get through the tiny gap with something that goes about 200 feet and then hope for a throw-in birdie. The doglegs are in both directions so neither hand is favored. #7 is straight and flush against the border of the shooting range....if that Road Runner doesn't turn over....
The woods holes are definitely pleasant, but the problem is where are the birdies? The doglegs turn the holes into some unnatural pretzels. Your day becomes about avoiding bogeys, not making birdies. If you like that mental challenge, and I sometimes do, here's your place. It's not impossible to get to C2 on a few of the woods holes, but there has to be a lot of luck to miss everything.
#17 emerges from the woods to a nice downhill shot in the open field.....then you realize it's a 400-foot par 3, the last 150 of which is a dogleg right back into the woods. I don't have that shot. It'd be a fun par 4 though.
#18 seems like a good idea, a Maple Hill type par-4 hole where you fire away down a wooded corridor hoping to emerge into the glorious open field beyond so you have a clear second shot. However, that tunnel mouth is much farther than it looks, and the gap is effectively much smaller than it looks because it's not quite a straight line. Yet another hole where pitching something forward 150-200 feet just to stay in the fairway and then playing for par is a pretty good idea.
The course is very new, but in good shape, and there's been one tournament there, the 2023 Red Rose Roundup. A review of the scoreboard confirmed what I thought, it's a bogey factory. The best pro score for two rounds was -6. Only one other person finished under par, in any division. +3 won MA1. +7 was the MA2 winner. +14 won MA3. +18 won MA50. An even par round was rated 960. On Udisc, +4 is a 200 rated round. That was 922 PDGA rated.
The course probably would be more fun if you jacked up the pars a bit. Right now it's a par 56 with maybe 2 realistic chances at birdie for the average amateur. The course is too tough for what it is, a nice little public park course. Most of the play here is going to be by casual locals, and if they are immediately overwhelmed by grueling length and poke and pray frustration every hole, they won't be enticed to keep going. Truly great municipal park courses aimed at getting people to start disc golf and keep playing it, are an equal mix holes you might birdie and holes you might bogey. That's why South Hills in Lebanon or Buchmiller and Ship Rock in Lancaster are so popular. Both give you stretches where you can make some birdies, then there are holes that yank those birdies right back. For example if you play South Hills yellow, 1, 3, 5, and 7 are definite bogey opportunities, but 2, 4, 6, 8 and 9 are relatively friendly. There's a constant shift between whoa this is tough and hey I might birdie this. Some people don't like Lakeside in Myerstown, but this too gives you a lot of places to make birdie, and a lot of places to crash and burn.
Fairview is very similar in appearance to Lenni Lenape in Lebanon but Lenni is a much better course because even though there are a lot of trees and weird lines in the woods, and brutal length on the open holes, Lenni still has that constant roller coaster give and take. Making 6 birdies, 4 bogeys, and a triple in one round at Lenni is not unheard of. Fairview just relentlessly puts bogeys on your card and never takes them off. Whoever can avoid the punishment the longest is who wins.
Based on the scores in the 2023 tournament, there needs to be more holes it's possible to birdie. Eagle McMahon is never coming here, so make it realistic for the average local player.
I would make both of the par 4s on this course into a par 5. #18 clearly plays like one already, and hardly anyone birdied #3 and there were a lot of bogeys. Make the OB narrower on #3 and it would be a legit par 5 for all but the pros. I'd also convert 10 and 17 into a par 4. 10 already plays like a par 4, it's 330 feet with no natural path to the hole. You could try to play a backhand flex but getting within 75 feet of the basket takes real doing. Nobody birdied it in the 2023 tournament. Sure, it'd be kind of a soft par 4, but clearly it's near impossible to get a 2. There were also no birdies at all on #17, so this is another candidate to turn a less than stellar par 3 into a fun short par 4. There's room to move the basket back 50 feet.
Now you would have a par-60 course with at least 5 holes the average person would at least have hope of making birdie. If you birdie 4 of those, and hold on the rest of the time. Even par! This isn't a course trying to land an A-tier, it's your typical public park course and it doesn't need to be a bogey barrage for 18 straight holes.
Holes 1-3 are in the open field next to the hockey rink with very little danger beyond their excessive length. Per the sign on #2 it appears maybe the intent was to have a couple of hazards surround the basket, but I've never seen those and per the other reviews on here, they've never been there. #3 adds some OB to define a fairway but it's miles wide and unless you are aimed totally in the wrong direction, you'll be fine.
The course perks up a bit with a very cool #4, a little downhill shot requiring a left to right shape to get close. And there's OB long. This is the first time your brain will activate, in a pleasurable way.
Unfortunately the course gives away all good will generated on #4 on the next hole which may be the worst in Lancaster County. A ridiculous, steeply uphill and excessively long par 3 that forces you to go around a pine tree by hyzering something out over a public street. Unsafe. Move the tee up to near the mando tree and make it 170 feet. It's still uphill from there and still challenging, but you aren't taking direct aim at cars coming around a blind curve.
#6-16 are entirely in the woods and are a succession of jagged dogleg par 3s through tiny gaps. Fun? At times, it's always satisfying to smash that gap, but on almost all of them, your best play is to simply get through the tiny gap with something that goes about 200 feet and then hope for a throw-in birdie. The doglegs are in both directions so neither hand is favored. #7 is straight and flush against the border of the shooting range....if that Road Runner doesn't turn over....
The woods holes are definitely pleasant, but the problem is where are the birdies? The doglegs turn the holes into some unnatural pretzels. Your day becomes about avoiding bogeys, not making birdies. If you like that mental challenge, and I sometimes do, here's your place. It's not impossible to get to C2 on a few of the woods holes, but there has to be a lot of luck to miss everything.
#17 emerges from the woods to a nice downhill shot in the open field.....then you realize it's a 400-foot par 3, the last 150 of which is a dogleg right back into the woods. I don't have that shot. It'd be a fun par 4 though.
#18 seems like a good idea, a Maple Hill type par-4 hole where you fire away down a wooded corridor hoping to emerge into the glorious open field beyond so you have a clear second shot. However, that tunnel mouth is much farther than it looks, and the gap is effectively much smaller than it looks because it's not quite a straight line. Yet another hole where pitching something forward 150-200 feet just to stay in the fairway and then playing for par is a pretty good idea.
The course is very new, but in good shape, and there's been one tournament there, the 2023 Red Rose Roundup. A review of the scoreboard confirmed what I thought, it's a bogey factory. The best pro score for two rounds was -6. Only one other person finished under par, in any division. +3 won MA1. +7 was the MA2 winner. +14 won MA3. +18 won MA50. An even par round was rated 960. On Udisc, +4 is a 200 rated round. That was 922 PDGA rated.
The course probably would be more fun if you jacked up the pars a bit. Right now it's a par 56 with maybe 2 realistic chances at birdie for the average amateur. The course is too tough for what it is, a nice little public park course. Most of the play here is going to be by casual locals, and if they are immediately overwhelmed by grueling length and poke and pray frustration every hole, they won't be enticed to keep going. Truly great municipal park courses aimed at getting people to start disc golf and keep playing it, are an equal mix holes you might birdie and holes you might bogey. That's why South Hills in Lebanon or Buchmiller and Ship Rock in Lancaster are so popular. Both give you stretches where you can make some birdies, then there are holes that yank those birdies right back. For example if you play South Hills yellow, 1, 3, 5, and 7 are definite bogey opportunities, but 2, 4, 6, 8 and 9 are relatively friendly. There's a constant shift between whoa this is tough and hey I might birdie this. Some people don't like Lakeside in Myerstown, but this too gives you a lot of places to make birdie, and a lot of places to crash and burn.
Fairview is very similar in appearance to Lenni Lenape in Lebanon but Lenni is a much better course because even though there are a lot of trees and weird lines in the woods, and brutal length on the open holes, Lenni still has that constant roller coaster give and take. Making 6 birdies, 4 bogeys, and a triple in one round at Lenni is not unheard of. Fairview just relentlessly puts bogeys on your card and never takes them off. Whoever can avoid the punishment the longest is who wins.
Based on the scores in the 2023 tournament, there needs to be more holes it's possible to birdie. Eagle McMahon is never coming here, so make it realistic for the average local player.
I would make both of the par 4s on this course into a par 5. #18 clearly plays like one already, and hardly anyone birdied #3 and there were a lot of bogeys. Make the OB narrower on #3 and it would be a legit par 5 for all but the pros. I'd also convert 10 and 17 into a par 4. 10 already plays like a par 4, it's 330 feet with no natural path to the hole. You could try to play a backhand flex but getting within 75 feet of the basket takes real doing. Nobody birdied it in the 2023 tournament. Sure, it'd be kind of a soft par 4, but clearly it's near impossible to get a 2. There were also no birdies at all on #17, so this is another candidate to turn a less than stellar par 3 into a fun short par 4. There's room to move the basket back 50 feet.
Now you would have a par-60 course with at least 5 holes the average person would at least have hope of making birdie. If you birdie 4 of those, and hold on the rest of the time. Even par! This isn't a course trying to land an A-tier, it's your typical public park course and it doesn't need to be a bogey barrage for 18 straight holes.
