Pros:
-Hammon Grove Park truly offers you an unique experience of 9 holes of disc golf that weave back and forth through the back section of the park. Amenities are pretty decent here, as there are bathrooms and garbage cans near the bottom parking lot, which has more than enough space for cars. There is none, however, throughout the course. This 9-holer loops pretty close back to the bottom parking area.
-The tees are concrete, decent size, and in good shape. They could be slightly longer for my comfort level, but they are very wide at the throwing end and are built nicely into the ground.
-Baskets are Mach 2 and are in good condition, display the hole numbers on them, and were generally easy to spot from the tee (minus 7's blind shot)
-The holes were very fun to play and had a great variance of styles and lines: uphill, downhill, anhyzer, hyzer, open, some with tight lines, over a ravine, etc. Therefore, the course designers put a good effort into giving this course a great variety and used the park to it's maximum potential. The use of elevation deserves special mention, very well utilized within the park's setting.
-Navigation is good and the course flows pretty well. For the not-so-obvious spots, the next tees were never far off so you at least will not be wandering around too much. The course is condensed in one area of the park.
-This course is very raw, but the designers did a good job of making trails throughout the very rugged terrain to make it easier to venture through the park. This was greatly appreciated. There were even some creatively manicured greens on 1 or 2 holes.
-Practice basket on right as you enter the park
Cons:
-Somewhat hard to find as it's address is 5560 state highway 20 and the road is not marked too well. If heading east about 10-15 minutes passed Marysville, look for an RV park on the left and the park road is shortly after on the right. There is a metal gate with the park sign on it.
-Tee signs are hardly helpful at all, except that they include the hole number and the par (which are all threes anyways). There are no distances and only for a few signs do they have the pin placement and maybe a tree marked. This is strange because it doesn't appear that the signs have faded, just as if they were never completed. No hole lengths on the website makes me assume that they were never determined after 5 years.
-Holes are pretty short for the most part, especially the first five. They do not seem to vary much in distance.
-Multiple rattlesnake-warning signs make it seem like there is a good possibility of seeing one, though we saw no signs of them
-Poison oak in abundance, be cautious before you throw and before you reach for you disc. The amount of poison oak present definitely hurt my enjoyment level.
Other Thoughts:
-The aspect that probably caused me to enjoy this course the most was the truly uniqueness of the holes and the course setting. I struggled with how I felt about this course as I enjoyed the holes in and of themselves - as well as the unique park setting - but there were many grand detractors about the course overall that I noted above.
Holes 1 and 2 are nothing special, and I even would say that I disliked 1. There were many fun holes here though:
5- Plays over a deep and fairly wide ravine. It's a fun placement as it is risky to go for the basket off the tee with the ravine close to it. Plus, it's easy to retrieve your disc from the ravine.
6- Plays through tight lines of trees and shrubs; slighty downhill and then uphill as pin is on a steep slope
7- Slightly downhill launch over short but very thick brush. Pin is through 2 patches of trees
8- Uphill anhyzer that winds through trees