Not sure where to begin! Great parking with bathroom at the start. Giant kiosk board with the layout/pars and total distance. Multiple pads for each skill level red/white/blues. We played from the blues and this course is epic. Great John Houck design with hole 1 being an epic par 5 through the woods along side a creek. Then sitting on top of little ravine. There's so many Good holes and shots on this course with great range of distance and elevation. Baskets are pristine disc catchers, and the layout flows nicely. Good mix of par 3/4/5 and lefty righty holes. Some fun iconic elevation change shots and cool holes. 13 over the river is one of my favorites. This course will make you better and bring your best game. Great use of woods and open play. Great navigation signs for next hole

You can tell flooding is a major problem here. It was July and a lot of ground was still mushy and muddy on the back 9. The long course combined with humidity and heat can beat you up. Couple holes like hole 2 you need to walk up to see the pin same with hole 6 and one other make sure you're playing right basket as you can see a couple on some holes.

This is truly a destination course. Falls just flat of a 5 star to me more like 4.75 but would be epic tourney course. Prolly wouldn't throw from the blues again but great time and a must play for any avid disc golfer

Where to begin. Harmony Bends is located in a beautiful park with a couple creeks meandering through the hills. This is definitely a Championship caliber course but it offers good challenge from the short tees for recreational players like myself. Fantastic design, which has been stated numerous times already, but it really is top notch. Challenging but fair.

The baskets here are your standard DISCatchers. Bright yellow bands on the top make for easy spotting in the shadowy woods. These are all numbered and catch great. One basket per hole. I liked the fact that baskets were positioned as close to any drop off or rollaway potential. This makes you decide if you want to run it for the birdie or risk blowing past and taking bogey. I paid the price a couple times.

The tee pads here are phenomenal. HUGE brushed concrete pads. All are level and have fantastic grip. The majority of holes have 3 tees per hole. A few share a pad, Blue and White usually if not always. That was only the case on a handful of holes though. These things are some of the best I've seen anywhere.

The tee signs are great too. Very much like the other signs of courses in this region. They include the hole #, par, distances from each tee, any applicable OB, next hole arrow and a nice and descriptive hole overview. The map shows the multiple routes to the pin from each basket, and even suggested landing zones. Top notch once again. They even show the Gold pin placements. None were in play when I was here, but it's nice that they show them.

Every type of shot in your arsenal will be tested here. The design dictates that you be accurate to succeed. Ending up off the fairways will cost you strokes. But if you execute you'll be OK. There's a great mix of distances here as well. Four true par 5's I believe it was, a lot of 4's and some 3's to let you catch your breath. Very well balanced.

The upkeep of the park and the care given to the course is amazing. Stairs up and down the steeper sections, mulched walkways between holes, gravel paths. The rocks in the creek are even strategically placed to serve as stepping stones. Me and the wife had our carts with us. The stepping stones made crossing the creeks simple. The park was just all around in tip top shape.

The elevation here is EXTREME. you'll be traversing up and down hills for the whole round. It really adds to the challenge for picking the correct disc for each throw. But what it really challenges is your stamina. This course is a workout. Be sure to bring lot of fluids. I mean a LOT of fluids. One of the more taxing rounds I've ever played. Highbridge/Idlewild kind of taxing.

Oh and did I mention that the course is free to play? Yep it even has that going for it which is borderline criminal if you ask me. It's permanent too I guess. Always a bonus in my eyes.

Water comes into play on about a third of the holes. Hole 1 and 18 feature multiple shots over the creek on each hole. It's present on quite a few others as well. There's a couple where you could end up in the creek off a bad rollaway or tree kick. It's always in the back of your mind on these holes.

The one thing holding this course back is the drainage on the back nine. It's been pretty dry recently it seems, yet there was quite a few spots of standing water. Nothing like I'd imagine it'd be like in the spring, but wet nonetheless. There were more muddy spots than standing water, but both were present.

A couple goofy spots navigationwise, nothing too major. I'd advise bringing a map or at least have one up on your phone if it's your first time playing.

While I did bring my cart, I'd highly advise against it. It's doable, but it's just much easier with a bag. Not a con really, but dragging your cart around gets irritating real quick. It's a good thing the water was low in the creeks or it might've been impossible. More something to keep in mind than a con.

There's not much to say that hasn't already been said. But man, this is a fantastic course. I came here expecting greatness and it delivered. Is this a destination course? Absolutely it is. If you're into disc golf even a little bit you'll love this place. Highly, highly recommend this course if you're anywhere nearby or passing through. Hell, I suggest you take a road trip to play this one. Just don't do it in the spring. That's the one thing holding me back from giving out my first 5. The drainage issues, while not a big deal on my visit, are clearly evident. If this place is dry though, there's not much, if anything, better.

Stunningly beautiful, and a nice quiet park make for a pleasant round of golf.

Requires every facet of your game to shoot a good round. It will very quickly expose your weaknesses, whether that be lack of power or accuracy or shot-shaping.

Multiple sets of pads make it a genuine challenge for any skill level. I'm a weenie-armed rec player and I played the short pads. It humbled me a couple times even from those distances. I may not get good enough in my lifetime to even attempt the gold pads. Still the best course I've ever been to.

Plenty of amenities/places to grab a bite just up the road.

Within driving distance from STL and KC. Get up early enough and you'll have plenty of time to play 2 rounds there (Which i highly recommend. Unless you're a local, it's an absolute waste to drive out there and play only 1 round).

Doesn't loop back after the first 9. Minor quibble maybe, but it'd be nice to be able to stock up on water or snacks/change clothes/whatever after 9 instead of having to haul everything with you the whole game.

Not a lot of parking. I can't imagine where people park when a big tournament comes through.

The oft-mentioned problems when it rains hard.

It sucks that I wrote this review so late and all of the good points have already been covered. All I can say is; I drive 300' feet or so, have horrible form, and can't putt for shit, but I thoroughly enjoyed the 2 rounds I played there and hope to have the time to get back out there very soon. Its awesome having such a high-caliber course within driving distance.

If you're on the fence about playing here, smack yourself and GO!

This was course #250 for me as well as review number 100.... Certainly was the appropriate course to hit both those milestones on!!

Not much left to say that hasn't already been stated by previous reviewers.... All the right standards for tee pads, signage, elevation use, design, etc....

Definitely designed to be Championship Caliber and was successful in that regard.

Several signature holes were especially eye- catching:

#1 Great use of the winding creek with basket placement on a hill on the other side of the creek. (Words don't do the visual justice!)

#10 Top of the world shot through a relatively narrow opening to a landing area on the way to a basket 900 feet away. and

#13 Right bend needed with a downed tree looking like the St Louis arch in the middle of the fairway, forcing an over, under or around shot.

Overall scenery was great with the rock bridges over the creeks and else where to the variety of hills....

I' m really struggling with that walk from 12's basket to 13 tee where you have to cross the middle of the 14th fairway to get there.... Looking back at the map, I get where the designer wanted to incorporate a piece of the creek for 13's blue tee pad tee shot but....

I just feel if it were an average course, reviewers would be more vocal about the negative aspect of that transition.

Also, for an old guy like me, the walk from basket 8 to tee 9 was quite the uphill hike. I won't complain about hole 15's climb as that was part of the approach to the basket.

Reviews are all about point of view and expectations...

For me at my age and with a mediocre tee shot at best, I knew that coming to this course would be very challenging. This is not the type of course that I would play regularly just for fun.....

That said, I was able to appreciate the design and layout seeing that it is a phenomenal championship caliber course.

This is a great course! It plays through some low bluffs and mature forest surrounding Perche Creek. There are up to 4 tee pads (red, white, blue, yellow) on each hole, offering a variety of challenges and distances. Signage for this potentially complicated situation is very well done...I had no problem whatsoever navigating the course. But there is a trick you need to figure out for identifying which tee pad's map you're looking at...left as a challenge for the reader! Variety of distances and challenges, enough trees to get your attention but not oppressive amounts. This might be the first Houck-designed course I've played since I started paying attention, and I get it. Yes, there are alternative lines on many holes, and as a lefty I think that would be much appreciated in a competitive context.

There are some slopes that are muddy and difficult to climb, could use some Eagle scouts to do stair projects. There's no drinking water, and only porta-potties for facilities. None of that really detracts from the value of this park, but it might help to know what's there before you go.

I hate spending time looking for a lost disc, and my bag consists entirely of high-visibility orange discs. This is OK where I live in Colorado, where the ground is brown, green, or white, depending on the season. It doesn't work well in places with autumn leaves. Based on the covering of now-brown maple and oak leaves on the ground at Harmony Bends, I presume there's a couple of months where orange discs would be difficult to work with.

It's a wooded course designed by John Houck but with a bunch of elevation. Okay, I'm in.

The course tests your decision making from the first throw with your drive crossing over two bends of the snaking creek before a third crossing at the end. The wooded creek feature reminded me most of Selah Creekside and Hummel, although this is better than both of those. Midwestern wooded riparian terrain feels different than other places.

The front half of the course is wooded and very hilly. Hole 5 is one of the best with a big uphill blast to clear some tiered features on the hill before a bending fairway over a hump to the basket. Hole 9 is a 684-foot monster, requiring hitting a reasonable gap before a steep uphill climb. There are a couple ways to get to the basket well beyond the crest of the hill. Feel the wind come out of your sails if you hit one of the early trees.

The course opens up a little to flatter ground for holes 10-14. Hole 10 is a downhill bomb, but the fairway narrows and uncontrolled distance will mean an awkward second shot. Hole 13 was a fun, open shot with one of the creeks to your left (with an imposing bank). The fairway bends to the right before you have to negotiate a tree that is basically growing sideways across the fairway. It was pretty and fun both times I played it.

There are three tee pads on most holes. I played the whites and the reds. The whites are slightly shorter than the blues but usually feature a tougher gap or angle. The reds are significantly shorter with more birdie runs, but they are definitely not easy. Don't introduce your grandma to disc golf on these red tees (in fact, don't introduce her to disc golf at all. She's just happy you paid her a visit and is wondering if she can get you something to eat).

The tee signs are Houck classics, showing the different landing areas and approaches. All tee pads are concrete.

Drainage was an issue on several fairways (2, 10, and a couple others). I was lucky to avoid the big puddles by chance, but they were deep enough that getting my disc back would have been annoying.

Navigation was mostly fine, but on hole 9 I played what I thought was a brilliant third shot and then realized I had parked the basket for 16. The tee sign was obviously correct, but it's a long enough hole with subtle turns in the fairway that I thought I was taking the lefthand gap. Also be careful after hole 12. I accidentally skipped holes 13-14 before doubling back.

Hole 18 was one hole I have mixed feelings on. I'm not sure I found the right way to play the fairway on the right side of the creek, and I'm wondering if the left side of the creek really needed to be OB. Not sure. I don't hold water hazards against a course (I actually really like them), but FYI that the creek can be a real pain to retrieve discs from. I lost two discs here and took about 20 minutes to get one of them back (the other was 5 feet deep).

Since my review will likely drop this course from the #1 spot (temporarily?), I feel I should explain why I don't think this is a 5.0. There are two characteristics that my 5.0 courses have. One, the design is so great that you spend time on the tee box thinking what you might want to throw because you have options to weigh with good risk/reward decisions. Harmony Bends has a ton of this. Two, there are so many memorable holes that you can't decide which is the signature. On this front, Harmony Bends does not quite measure up to Maple Hill, Highbridge Blueberry, Highbridge Gold, or Selah Lakeside. It's a little like explaining why Weird Al Yankovic's "Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota" is a little better than "Albuquerque." They're both doing similar things, but one does it a little better. And I don't like arguing with you about Weird Al.

In terms of rating and overall feel, I would say this compares most closely to Sabattus Eagle. It's a superb course with terrific design that is a hair below the best of the best. I got up well before dawn and drove out of my way to get here, and I'd do it again. I've got a funny little feeling I'll be coming back again next year.

-well maintained
-great layout
-very scenic
-great mix of lengths and styles
-easy enough for beginners but still challenging

-so many trees to hit
-very tough if a bad throw
-some holes have very steep hills to climb

overall, the course is amazing, it's very challenging but still possible to do well. i've played the longer holes differently each time so i still get challenged differently each time

This course was a joy to play. I would given almost anything to have a course of this caliber as my home course.

* Huge park, seemingly exclusively for disc golf
* Two creeks that are utilized throughout the entire 18
* Many, many different kinds of shots required to play this course well
* Excellent signage on the tees
* Great directional signage pointing you to the next set of tees
* City of Columbia is maintaining the tees, fairways, and greens for this course extremely well (they were tending the tee pads when I was there)

* Need more signage from 8 > 9. It's a long walk that passes through many intersecting pathways.
* Tiny parking lot, maybe 15 cars max. It was a ghost town when I was there (noon on a weekday), but for this caliber of course I would expect it to be packed on the evenings and weekends. The parking lot is grossly inadequate
* Zero trash cans anywhere except for the parking lot. This is an extremely long course, people will have trash throughout and shouldn't be expected to haul it all the way back to their car. This is ten times as important for pet waste. Dog owners will either not bother picking up after their dog, or they will just leave dog waste bags throughout the course. Nobody is going to carry that around for 18 holes. Considering how much the city is spending to maintain the grounds, they should be able to account for some regular trash pickup (I saw city vehicles driving on the course, so access isn't a problem)
* More shade in the parking and surrounding area might be nice. There's one covered picnic spot so far, and plenty of shade around #1 and #18, but the rest is baking in the sun all day. I didn't even consider using the porta-potty that is just sitting there collecting heat and funk all day long, every day.

Really loved this course. I stumbled upon it while passing through the area and am so glad I had the opportunity to play a very new Houck course that clearly has a ton of support and love from the city. I've played a lot of Houck courses in Texas, but this is the newest I've played, and it shows. The variety in shots is greater than I've ever seen in his courses, the signage is astounding, the use of natural obstacles is wonderful.

Columbia locals, PLAY THIS COURSE EVERY WEEK!

-Beautiful lay out, land is dedicated to DG only
-Wasn't crowded on my visit
-Legitimate Par 4's and 5's
-Great elevation change
-Forces a variety of lines/throws
-Makes you think about your shots and place them accordingly
-Well Manicured
-Multiple concrete tee pads

-Long course, rough terrain, maybe a couple more bridges. Not necessarily a con, but could be quite strenuous to some.
-Water Hazards; really fun to play, but if a disc goes in, a lot of the time you're never seeing it again. Course can/will flood
-Backups can occur if there is a group of weaker players

I played after the river had flooded, subsequently it was very soggy and water was extremely high so it was pretty sloppy out. I really would like to get back out there when it is dry, as it was still extremely fun to play. Practice basket at the start. Parking lot right at #1. Tons of signage and maps at the start. Challenging course, but not impossible. No "lucky" holes, lines are there, you just need to nail them. Many water hazards in play on a large, quiet chunk of land, much different than the city parks im used to in STL. Rock bridges over streams and long course over varying terrain which could possibly be tiring for some players. Fantastic course Overall, i haven't played many courses outside of St. Louis, but i would bet this is one of the best in Missouri. It lives up to its claim of being a championship caliber course.

Challenging course with multiple tee pads and multiple pin placements.

Seating at the long tee of every hole. Signage was absolutely amazing, couldn't have been better. Each pad had its own sign with ideal routes to the basket. After each hole signage was placed to direct you to the next pad you want to play.

Very clean park, even though there weren't trash cans.

Be ready to hike through the course. There are multiple HUGE holes and lots of elevation change, which is fantastic for someone who loves to disc golf.

You won't be able to get a quick round in if that is something your looking for.

Course was absolutely fantastic and if you are in Columbia its a must play if you are driving through.