Pros:
Idlewild is truely an amazing disc golf course that is long, challenging, and very well-maintained and offers a great layout with endless amounts of visual appeal. This course uses Mach3 baskets that are in good shape, level concrete tee pads, and really nice, descriptive tee signs on each hole. There are multiple tee pads and basket locations on many of the holes throughout the course.
The course flows great from start to finish making two 9-hole loops each returning near the parking area. There is one part of the course from 16's basket walking toward 17's tee where you have to cross 11's fairway, but there are signs posted to make golfers aware of this potential hazard, so keep this in mind as you navigate this area.
The course offers a great variety of short and long technical holes, and long open holes that take you in and out of the woods. There is a nice creek that runs through the course, and comes into play on 8 of the 18 holes. The course is very well maintained with little to no over-growth or foilage. Idlewild uses the Adopt-A-Hole program where local volunteers step and offer there time to maintain and upkeep a hole. This is a program that many courses would greatly benefit from. There are nice, wooden bridges installed to ease navigation through the holes where the creek comes into play, and retaining walls that frame the greens built around the creek. Some of the greens use an artifical OB around the back side of the pin and the creek along the front side to make an "island" green affect which only adds to the challenge. The bridges and retaining walls add a lot to the visual appeal of the course.
Idlewild makes great use of the elevations in the park, offering a wide variety of uphill and downhill tee shots, and plenty of uphill, downhill, and sidehill lies around the course. There are numerous epic holes on Idlewild, some of my favorites are 1, 3, 5, 11, 13, 15, 16, and 18. There are to many to list details, but I assure you that many of the holes at Idlewild will be etched in your memory for a long time. The holes range from 192ft to over 1000ft, averaging nearly 500ft/hole. There are several true par4 and par5 holes, which is one of the great features of the course. Although many of the holes have plenty of length and allow a player to launch a big drive off of the box, players are rewarded with stategy and placement over length.
You will have a chance to throw just about any type of shot you prefer (hyzers, anhyzes, rollers, thumbers, tomahawks, etc...), and probably some you don't. There will be plenty of opportunities to get creative with shot-making as you progress through the course. Idlewild will challenge all skill levels. There is a parking lot specifically for disc golfers, with restrooms. There is a practice basket for warming up before your round, but at the time I was there, it wasn't in real good shape. I've only played the course once; it wasn't crowded on that particular day.
Cons:
I had some trouble finding the tee box for hole 5. There is a sign, about half way up the fairway for hole 4 pointing toward the next tee, but unless you're looking for the sign, it is easy to miss. It is visible from the tee on hole 4, so keep this in mind as you go through this area. Relocating the sign to make it more obvious would be helpful so that it isn't overlooked.
Other Thoughts:
I always heard the locals in my area talking about Idlewild, Idlewild this, Idlewild that. Now that I have played the course, I understand what all the talk was about. A stunningly beautiful and challenging course, a must play. Of the courses that I have played, this one is by far my favorite, I only wish it were closer so that I could play it more often. I played the course solo, it took about 2hrs to complete the round.