Pros:
Goyne exceeded my expectations and was played during a daylong tour of all the Richmond courses. The course has decent shot variety, makes good use of the available land, and from what I've heard from locals, is slowly and steadily improving -- which is great. If it makes full use of it's potential, I think it could eventually be a 3.0-rated course. But for now, the problems outweigh the benefits of playing here.
Cons:
The biggest cons are the signage and markings for the tees. Even with the map, my brother and I failed to find all of the tees. Some of them don't have any markings at all (at least, as of this review), and some of the ones that have flags in the ground don't have any other information.
Quick advice related to the map: print the map in color -- if you print it in black and white, you can't read or see anything on it -- not even the hole numbers -- so it becomes virtually useless. If we'd had a color map, it would have helped, but a course should be navigable without a color map.
Some of the tees are boxed in and were just uneven, rutted dirt. If these boxes become concrete, it will be better, but not great, since they will be elevated -- boxes should ideally be level with the ground. Simply placing flags is preferable to boxing in a small square of ground and creating trip hazards for a teepad.
Most holes are fairly open, with a lack of variety in teeshots. Some of the long tees are much harder, but do so at the expense of a line. I'm a pro-level player, and have been playing for 11 years and have most shots in my bag, but there were blue teepads out there where I saw no reasonable way to reach the basket. The blues just make some holes a huck and pray and take the three... which is silly. Skill should always up your chances, and there are places here where the blues add difficulty and mitigate skill, which is just frustrating and poor course design.
The course wasn't horribly overgrown, but it could definitely use some work. Tall weeds throughout the course fairways made it uncomfortable and slowed down walking. This also made roller shots and skips pretty much impossible, which is a shame because the ground otherwise was relatively free of debris and would make a great place for roller shots across many of the open fairways.
Overall, the place had a desolate, deserted feel to it. We saw one other car with a pair of disc golfers wrapping up as we were starting our round midday on Saturday. After that, we saw no other people. Any growing course should have at least a few players on a beautiful Saturday. The lack of player interest suggests to me that this is definitely a B-list course by local standards. Lots of people at some of the other parks, but virtually no one at this one.
I guess the upside to the emptiness is that there are no collisions that way. There were several places on the course where you would be teeing off into a fairway you'd just walked up, or where baskets were too close to tees or multiple holes shared fairways... this would be a danger if the course were ever busy.
Other Thoughts:
My rating of 2.0 may seem overly harsh, but I don't think so. This course is "2.0 - Reasonable" and that defines it perfectly. It is a reasonable place to play if you are nearby, but on one will go out of their way to play here until some of the issues are addressed. Good signage and tees, and frequent mowing would make this course a 3.0. And I think that's where it would peak. There are too many problems with this many holes on this little land for it to achieve much more than that. I'm not knocking the course designeres -- they're doing a great job of building a fun practice course out of what they have, but it's not there yet.
The course has a couple of cool holes -- #14, as mentioned by another reviewer, is a great shot -- fantastic tight hyzer alley blind up a hill to a fast green. Definitely one of the coolest shots on the course. Hole #2 across the water has some potential as well, but the long tee isn't marked, so it's hard to know what the actual shot over the pond is supposed to be.
This is worth checking out if you are in the area -- it's fun. But print a color map, bring plenty of bug spray (they are out in force), and don't come in with high expectations. Bring your teebird and you're putter and you'll be prepared for every hole this course has to offer.