+ The whole course takes place in a quiet spacious township park with breezey open fields and satisfying woods.
+ Plenty of elevation challenges.
+ Tees are long, wide and flat slabs of concrete.
+ The baskets have flags on top for visibility and almost enough 'next' arrows.
+ The tee signs are built well and have all the right info, but...

- ...The tee signs ought to be updated for the long baskets, where applicable, and maybe the fairway diagrams could benefit from a fresh look.
- Navigation gets a bit guess-and-check in spots.
- A few safety issues for other parkgoers and players alike.

I'll admit to a bit of ignorance, here. I thought that Lenni Lenape was the name of some dude who purchased that land that the park occupies. But then I researched the name and discovered that it's actually the name of an indigenous tribe who lived on that land long before anybody was ever named 'Lenni.' Whoops.

And what about the disc golf course on that land? It's fantastic, and it caught me completely off-guard. At first glance, I tricked myself into thinking that it was nothing special because I just saw the baskets within the open fields and an impressive hill or two, but that was it. Be careful on those open holes, though. There are a few walking paths that you'll have to worry about. Luckily, there is plenty of open space so you can see with enough early warning whether or not it's safe to throw.

Then the wooded parts started, and the course took on an entirely different feel. Links3 through 9 are invigorating and/or exhausting hilly walks in the woods. I wasn't expecting to break a sweat there. (Hot tip: don't come here hungover because the stark walks will make your headache worse!) Link4 was such a joy to play. As regular readers of mine might know, I love a woodsy downhill tee off, and that one is a great example of what I mean. Plus, since I played my round to the long baskets, where available, I enjoyed a nice uphill putt, too. Link5 right after is another great example, but I enjoyed the optics of that one more because it looked and felt like some sort of secretive disc golfing area. It must have been the surrounding hillsides and trees.

On the flipside of adventurous topography, I always have the bring up the potential for danger. There are exposed roots and loose rocks here. If you are unstead of your feet or accident prone, just slow it down a little. Use sturdy footwear.

After the steep hills and valleys finish, you are still enjoying a walk through the woods until link15. It is in this section of the course that runs the risk of feeling samey and dull because the dynamic landscape of the front nine is largely gone. It's always fun to weasel your way around trees. By this point, the course has already generated enough good faith that it can be forgiven.

Once you emerge from link14, the course returns to open fairways, and the hills make a comeback. It's almost as if the course designers knew that the lack of trees would need to be replaced with something. That said, I think that the final four holes are kind of bland. Link15 might be my least favorite of the course because of how straight, flat and wide open it plays.

And I guess I should mention that I felt a bit lost at times. I had no idea where to go after link12. And maybe one or two times I felt unsure for a few moments. But that's as bad as it gets here, in my opinion.

Bottom line? The course at Lenni Lenape Park is worth your time regardless of what kind of disc golfer you are. It starts wide open and finishes wide open with a satisfying grab bag of hills and woods in between. The venue isn't as impressive as other courses, and there are some dangers to be avoided, but for disc golfing this solid, it gets a strong recommendation. There are better courses out there, but not many!

Most of the tees and baskets are nearby so not a lot of walking between holes. You have to backtrack a bit if you play the green baskets but it's not far.

The course has been cleaned up a lot in the past year, with most of the fairways in the woods now covered with mulch. The 4 holes with longer baskets (the greens) are now always well maintained.

Most of the woods corridors are wide enough now to be realistic. A lot of brush is gone and the valley where 4 and 5 are located is much wider. The hillsides where 4 and 7 long tees are located have been totally cleared out and very playable now.

There are several enjoyable and exciting tee shots through the woods or down a hill

As much as I hate the island green 2nd hole, I love the island green 2nd hole. (It's always into the wind!)

Forces you to be able to work shots in both directions in order to be successful.

The addition of 4 longer baskets on some holes make the course more interesting. Especially #13 which goes from a shortish par 4 in the woods, to a pretty difficult par 5 with the last 200 or so feet in an open field.

The township is really doing a great job these days keeping the corridors open

There are no water hazards!

Some of the hills are very steep and sometimes slippery ,but they do make the course challenging and fun. You'd probably better walk down 10 fairway to get to 9 basket, 9 hillside is steep and slick.

#12 is probably the least enjoyable hole on the course, but it is slightly less of a plinko type hole than it used to be. There is a narrow line that has opened up for a right to left curving shot. It's not much wider than the tee pad though.

Can be difficult to play in the summer because the undergrowth can get pretty high but a lot of that has been removed. I've never lost a disc here but there have been a few 20-minute searches in the summer. (update! I did lose a disc here this past winter, in the leaves. A lot of the brush is cleared out now)

#4 is a wonderful hole, a curving par-3 down a hill and then back up, but the blind tee shot makes it tough to find a disc if you get offline at all. (update: This hole is quite a bit wider now than it used to be, the corridor used to be about 15 feet wide and now it's probably 35)

The woods holes are sometimes used as nature trails by pedestrians, so be forewarned.

There are no water hazards? Maybe?

After opening with a nice friendly downhill open hole, it gets tough fast, and you walk up a steep hillside 3 times in the first 6 holes. You'll need decent shoes. Once you get used to the right lines on the wooded holes, it becomes an enjoyable challenge. It was tough and frustrating when I first started though. But the more you play it, the more of a fun challenge it becomes. The lines start to become visible. It has been cleaned up a lot in the past year, they have nice cement pads, baskets are in good spots, and it's there's usually an obvious path to get to the next tee. Some complain when you come back out of the woods, the last 4 holes are kind of dull, but I find them to be a welcome relief, 15 and 16 anyway. #17 is kind of dull, a wide open shot with really no hazards other than it's 400 feet uphill. #18 is probably the most fun tee shot on the course, downhill and there are some hazards. The park entrance is a bit easy to drive right on by, so follow Google Maps. Once you're there, the first tee is near the pavilion and it's not hard to navigate after that. If you haven't been here before, you'll probably need to walk ahead a bit to see where the hole goes, especially in the woods. There aren't any water hazards but if you get off line in the woods, you really have to keep a close watch on it. Of the 7 courses in the Lebanon area this is probably the most difficult to score on, and that may be why it's not usually busy. Once you get used to it, it's really pleasant, but the first few rounds can be a chore.

As an update, I'm moving this up from 3.5 to 4 stars. They have done a lot of work in the past year to widen some of the narrow corridors a bit and clear out a lot of the rough areas. A lot of the undergrowth is gone and there's a lot less time looking for disc. The 4 holes with longer baskets used to be unplayable, but now you'd never know they were recently added. I'd play all 4 baskets as 1 extra par though, playing 4, 7 and 10 as a par 3 and 13 as a par 4 is painful. Bump them all up 1 and you'll be much happier.

With all the work done on the course in the past year, I think it's a 4.0 now. Sure, they could use a bench or two because it is a tough walk at times, and there are a couple of holes that are just filler, but there are a lot of fun shots, it's well maintained, and it's not hopelessly narrow for the most part. Playing here a lot makes pretty much any other woods course, like Roland Park or Codorus Red or Blue, seem spacious in comparison.

As for the difficulty, the easiest configuration relative to par is to play all yellows, and then the 2 green baskets on #7 and #13, both of which add one to the par. Even par was 917 on that configuration at a recent league night.

Playing all yellow baskets, no greens, is slightly more difficult, even par was rated 920 earlier in the year. The most difficult configuration is to play all yellows and the two greens on #4 and #10, both of which turn difficult par 3s in to crazy difficult par 3s. Even par on that is usually around 930 rated. I haven't seen any rounds yet where all 4 green baskets were in use, but that would probably be around 930 rating at even par.

An 800-rated player would shoot about 12 over, no matter what configuration they play, but it would be an entertaining +12. There are numerous birdie holes here, it's not all a difficult slog. From #7 through #16, it's not unusual to have multiple birdie attempts if you can throw it 200 feet with some accuracy. Even #4 and #5 aren't impossible for the average player to reach as both play quite a bit downhill.

+ The property provides for a great mix of open and wooded holes. The layout takes full advantage of available elevation and provides a balance of left-to-right and right-to-left holes

+ Clever use of walking path on Hole #2 to make an island for your drive. It's an otherwise open 450' par 3, and the ring of walking path comes into play when placing your drive, and on not overrunning your putt. The only downside to this design is that it IS a walking path in a park, so you might have to wait for traffic to clear

+ Starting with Hole #3, you're in the woods until #15. But there's a steep grade that runs through a section of the woods, so you'll find yourself dealing with trees AND elevation on some of the holes. And you'll probably breathe a sigh of relief when you finally reach the fifteenth tee

+ The Main layout features two par 4's. Hole #13 becomes a par 5 when playing the Long pins, and it might be the best hole on either layout. After a long ally through the woods with an OB property line and dangerous downslope all along the left, the hole makes a substantial turn to the right with an approach across a valley to a slightly elevated basket out past the line of the woods. A really great hole that's unfortunately not described well on the signage (more on that below)

+ There are three holes with substantial left-to-right lines (#7, #9, #16). They're all downhill and short, but they're pretty varied and require different shots

- The only weakness I'd note is the signage. The maps are made in an old style which prints using just a few standard sizes of emblems for trees, arranged to give an overall picture (check the pictures on this site). The maps show you a general idea of the hole, which is enough if you can see the basket from the tee. But when you can't see the basket, the limitation of these maps can jump up and bite you. This really became evident on that terrific par 4 hole #13: the map shows a straight hole, but the second half of the fairway has a dogleg right. Admittedly this is easily "solved" by walking forward when you can't see the basket, and it's not a problem on multiple plays. But sometimes you trust the map and it can cost you strokes

~ The wooded holes are probably the better feature, because the open holes are pretty unremarkable. The open ones are fun to throw, and can be affected by wind - but with the exception of the walkway island on #2, not memorable

~ There's a large area of stone on the left side of the 18th fairway. It's a manmade rectangle that's probably 30' x 60' (likely something to do with drainage - it's big enough that you can see it on the uDisc maps) and the stones will really mark up a disc that fades out well short of the basket. There's nothing on the sign indicating whether to treat it as O.B. or hazard - so you should decide on the tee how to treat it, should you or another player find yourself in it. It's on a slope, so good luck getting footing among the rocks. My advice is to not allow anyone to play from the rocks, regardless of whether you assess a penalty or not

~ Multiple pins have a lot of weight when I'm rating, because they broaden the range of players who will find a challenge, and keeps the course interesting over time

~ Lenni Lenape is a solid "4" to me because of how well it uses the topography to create varied challenges throughout the round. Some of the wooded and sloping fairways reminded me of a personal favorite of mine (Perkerson Park in Atlanta). So I might be a little biased. But Lenni Lenape is definitely worth a play.




COURSE AMENITIES:
Very good concrete tees, decent baskets, adequate signage. Cart-friendly except for a few transition spots green-to-tee. Picnic pavilion and bathrooms


RECOMMENDED COMBINATIONS:
The obvious nearby course is South Hills, but Jackson Recreational is nearby, and so is the nice little Mt. Lebanon Camp Meeting niner. Neither of them are the same challenge as South Hills, but if you're trying to avoid crowds, they make for fun alternatives

With size of the park a very good layout. Open holes to start the round and to end the round with the heart of the course being in the woods. Forcing you to think more creatively with your shots. The lines that you have on this course you will find yourself trying more overhead shots, sidearm shots, anhyzer. Risk rewards holes like holes #7, #9 and holes #16. The island hole #2 shows creativity with the course layout on property that simply doesn't have the water that maybe many others would like to have. Elevated shots throughout the the entire course.

The biggest con for me is playing right next to private land on hole #13. This is a slight annoyance because if you throw a bad hyzer and it deflects off the trees, you may have issues getting your disc.

This is a good course for challenging yourself to be more creative with your shots. For me, this course pushed the idea of working on my sidearm shots, encouraged the side arm rollers, the over head shots that when done correctly simply save you shots on this course. I have had my most favorite shots happen here and I believe it is because if you have a weakness this course will bring it out so if you want a better round, experiment.

Course makes great use of elevation. There are some downhill bombers, ravines and uphill shots to traverse. Really good job of making some unique holes that you won't see every day. In particular one hole is guarded by two large rock piles after a tight lined downhill bomb. The last hole is also pretty cool - parked on top of a retention basement that requires good placement. On the whole it has a good mix of open and wooded holes which is difficult for many courses to achieve. Mostly wooded holes that really require you to hit your lines. Difficult but not absurdly so - I would not recommend for beginners. Fairly easy to navigate as well with good tee signs, next tee signs and quality concrete pads. Dunkle did a nice job with this one.

This course is a jungle. If you're not prepared it will take your lunch money and more than likely one or two of your soldiers as well. Be prepared to spend some time hiking in the brush. Could use a little more maintenance though that's really no fault of the designer.

Bring your A game. This course requires an awesome variety of throws to succeed. You're going to need to bring your best backhand, forehand, tomahawks etc. the whole gambit of throws is required which is what I liked best about it.

Newer course, no trash, freshly cleaned fairways so no brush or weeds (it was early spring though), new grippy teepads, easy to read not missing tee signs.

Steep! Hills abound in the first 9 (all I made it through due to flying in that day). I am sure that #6 is 189 long and 189 up!

I think this is going to be a phenomenal course once all the grass grows in, and the wind isn't blowing 30 mph like the day I played. Don't miss this one if you are nearby!