--Very well maintained.

--DD Veterans are as new

--Free to play

--Great lookout over Lake Elysian from 12-14

--100% guaranteed deer sighting

--Rather limited elevation change is used to maximum potential throughout. #14 calls for an amazing shot that you've probably never practiced--straight up a 40' hill, about 25 percent grade, through a line of guardians WITHOUT carrying straight through into a fenced deer pen.

Seriously multi-purpose park, playing along active roadways. I wouldn't touch this place with a 5 meter disk retriever on a warm summer's day, let alone a weekend.

Flow is pretty wonky, starting with 4 --> 5, and generally encompassing the back nine. Long walks that make no sense and probably weren't necessary from a design standpoint.

This is a good park course. If I lived next door to it, I would tell Lou Gehrig that he was not, in fact, the luckiest person alive. I thoroughly enjoyed my round here. If you find it empty-ish and off season, I doubt you would disagree. Like many MN park courses, it is short, technical and laid out in a multi-use park, in this case on a lake whose shoreline will teem with visitors all summer long.

Starting with two flat, mostly open holes, it starts to play subtly with elevation on #4, and builds on that until it reaches a climax on 14, which is straight uphill, through a line of trees, turning hard left short of a deer park, and finishing on a grassy plateau nestled along a semicircle of woods. Up to this point, one would have noticed a certain lack of flow from basket to next tee, but the next 3 holes defenestrate any pretense of feng shui before gently setting you down on a flat, straight 18th.

Moral of the story? You're going to walk a lot further than the 4450 feet of this otherwise short par 57. If that's ok with you, you'll probably have a great time, and wouldn't be wrong to go around again, although it would only be fair to point out how close you are to two other very interesting alternatives, Maiden Shade and Waseca Couty Courthouse Park.

(Side note, updated course media as of December 11, 2023)

https://www.dgcoursereview.com/courses/lakeview-park.12696/media

- TEE SIGNS have been installed! Noting elevation changes and Mando's.

^Each Hole is named after a US battle, from the Civil War to Present (The board by Hole 1 noted an alternate course title "Veteran's Memorial Disc Golf". Not sure if this is a club or the intended name; Lakeview Park is the park name)

- Disc Golf Driving Range at the Janesville Golf course (found out afterwards)

- Manicured course, maintained by the city. Very scenic, even in early December.

- Requires a full arsenal of shot types, shapes, and distance.

- Elevation is a MAJOR theme of this course (will talk more about this)

- Multi-use park offering several playgrounds, baseball fields, volleyball court, boat access, (a presumed beach?), with a cute Deer farm within the park, and several shelters.

- Gannon Buhr would go crazy for all the playground equipment here

With all the striking beauty in a course like this, it's painful to note the Cons, but there are several that are hard to simply overlook. And honest reviews are necessary. Let's get into them.

- All tee pads are a step too short. You don't need a big run-up to throw far or effectively, however it becomes a mind game, putting your timing and body at risk. This is especially true when the tee pads aren't flush with the ground.

^To work around this, I chose to tee off to the sides when patches of ice were unavoidable on the tee. (played in December, one day after flurries hit the area)

- Amenities. Although the course offers a lot, (covered in the Pro section) it doesn't offer bathrooms or garbage cans. Again, I was playing this course a little "out of season" so it wouldn't surprise me to find out that both are seasonal.

- Some of the holes don't flow well into each other, step wise... Specifically, Holes 13-15, You finish Hole 12 on top of a hill, to then walk, slide, or roll down the hill to Hole 13's only tee pad. Hole 13 is an elevation gain of roughly +27ft from tee to basket.

^Then, You have the option of staying on top of the hill and playing Hole 14 Short OR going down the hill to 14 Long; a tee shot of +37FT to the top, if your drive is clean, and not in the Deer enclosure .

^^Hole 15's tees are the most backtracking you'll do on the course, and after 13 & 14, its easy to just settle for 15's short tee pad, which is what I chose.

- There's a building near Hole 1. A mando requires you to throw to the right, and miss the building. Warming up to play the round, a few practice shots later and one of my discs landed on what I believed to be a brick roof of the building. Come to find out by scaling a 9-10ft wall, this part of the building is open roofed and the disc had fallen into the abandoned showers. Neither door was unlocked, but luckily, someone else piled broken cinderblocks together and it was just enough to climb back out. This, in my opinion, is a legitimate hazard.

Overall, I'm incredibly impressed with the product Janesville and Nolan Crockford put forth in this design. The course spans nearly every inch of the entire park.

I hope that they are able to fix the tee pad situation, as I can see this course being a fun yet challenging tournament destination for all levels of disc golfers. Some tweaks are needed, yet the course is still young and will continue to grow into its own.

Comparably, in the area, you have two new challenging courses: Janesville and Waseca. Waseca features a LOT more length than height, while Janesville has more height than its length.

I will be returning in the spring to give this another attempt. In the meantime, I'll be editing and posting some course photos I captured along the way.

-Clean, "park-like" course that rarely results in uncomfortable search for a disc. Most the course is mowed park grass. The park seems to be well-maintained and cared for, no serious signs of neglect by park maintenance.

-Elevation - There are several holes on the course that elevation plays a major factor, including a big risk/reward put at the end of something like hole 12, then again on hole 16. The course really does have some fun elevation that does result in some extra physical expense, but nothing most disc golfers would have a problem with. Off the top of my head, I cannot think of many courses that I've played that have the elevation play so well, especially with the putts. Pretty fun.

-Baskets - All seemed to catch fairly, our group didn't have any issues.

-Pads - All the pads were brushed concrete but small (see cons).

-Signs - I'm not weighing this too heavy because the course is fairly new and there were clear indicators (posts) that signs are a matter of time down the road here. They may even be playing the course out for a while to ensure the layout is what it will continue to be. There was enough evidence for me to assume the next time I am in the area and go to play this course (within the next year) I would assume the signs will be up

-Pads - As mentioned above, the pads are concrete, however the size was majorly overlooked. This was a major oversight when giving the dimensions to the concrete guys. I do not require much room to throw, I do a standard x-step and these pads at best allow you to just barely do that. I had to start with my heels off the back of the pad. Some in my group had to start off the back at least a few feet because of their run-up. These are definitely the smallest concrete pads I have stepped on at a course, and I feel I've played enough courses for that to say something.

-Although I do like the design of a lot of the holes out here, I did notice that the course did not have many holes that require you to end to your right. I'm a guy that will throw a flick when the hole ends right and it's the preferred shot and there was only 1 hole that the flick really made all that much sense to me. The big side of the hill throw required more of a big sweeping anheiser in order for the disc to settle on the hill so I couldn't really even use it on that hole.

-Garbages - What garbages? There are garbages at a shelter about 100 feet from the parking lot on your way walking to hole 1 (before you even likely ever need a garbage) and then there is a garbage on the walk between hole 14 and 15. Due to this, we found someone was just laying there empty beer cans by the pads (not us). Minimally it seems like every 4 holes could at least have a garbage. That's even a bit weak, but at least a guy knows he can dump the empties in a few holes and doesn't have to have his empty beer can dripping in his bag. This is a park, pretty easy to jump on that gator and grab a garbage every so many days.

-Needless walking - There seemed to be a few holes with some lengthy walks, and due to the lack of signs at this time I got lucky I played with someone that had been there before. To get to hole 1 you are looking at a couple hundred feet from the parking lot. To get to hole 4 from hole 3, you have a couple hundred feet around a baseball field. After hole 4 due to lack of arrows, it would be easy to walk the wrong way. From 14 to 15 you have to walk about 300-350 feet around the deer fencing down a hill to get to the pad. If you had never been here before there is a chance you never find 15 and just skip it and go to the much closer number 16 pad. Just seemed like the design leading from hole to hole wasn't necessarily planned out the best, even perhaps the length of holes could have extended a bit to make them meet up a bit more intuitively.

In summary I felt like this was a pretty decent course I hadn't played yet in the state. I was pleasantly surprised and if I lived in the area or within 30 minutes I'd likely play it quite often. That being said, I live about 1.5 hours and can honestly say I wouldn't go too far out of my way to play the course again. That being the case, its questionable if I would ever play it again because the supporting courses in that area just aren't all that attractive to help a guy build the courage to drive there for some disc. Janesville, Mankato and Owatonna discers have a nice course to go and get some variety on. The newness of the course definitely plays into my rating. If they do in fact fix the Tees, put up the signs, slap in a reasonable amount of garbages I could see this course creeping up closer to a 4, maybe just short of 4 caliber. However, due to some of the other limitations mentioned I'd have to really stretch myself to even consider that. If anywhere in the area, go play this course, its one of the better courses in the area, however, the bar for the area isn't extremely high.

-Excellent variety of shots and holes. Forehands, backhands, woods, open, tunnels. Every shot will come into play. Automatic 4* right there for me.
-Somewhat intuitive layout. There are a few clusters of holes where you plainly see the next basket and it's teepad. Course maps are offered at the start.
-Well maintained. I went one time so take that with a grain of salt.
-Not so rough. There's an animal enclosure where you could lose a disc for good on a very errant shot. Other than that you should have little trouble locating your disc.
-Scenic and shaded. Great views on a nice lake. And plenty of trees to beat the heat.

-No signs. There's posts where they're going to go and this is a new course. Don't let that deter you.
-Short Teepads. Not enough space for a full run up on concrete.
-A few elevation-focused holes seem to silly to me. Just my opinion. Throwing up a very steep hill with a small space to land the disc, or a crapshoot shot up a hill into a wall of trees seems like a recipe for a somewhat luck-based hole. These holes are grouped together and there's 3 of them. Two offer a short tee to circumvent this "problem".

Great course, give it a try. A lot of love and care went into it, and it's awesome that it's here! Longer pads and signage with measurements would make this near perfect!