Pros:
-Cement Tees
-Practice Basket
-Well maintained
-Some length (by comparison)
-Decent Signage
This a decent 19 hole course with that offer a little bit of length compared to many courses in the area. Baskets, Signs, and Teepads are well maintained. There are holes with multiple tee locations (although grass), that offers up some change (generally shorter).
There are a few trees on most holes which offer some sort of obstacles, however, they are easy to avoid. This makes this course a good place to work on multiple lines at a course. I have gone to this course and only throw backhands, forehands, rollers, or tommies for my drives and be able to work on different things without it effecting my overall score dramatically.
Cons:
-Multiple use overlapping course
-All baskets are straight on
-Lack of garbage cans for space
-Layout could be confusing for first timer
This park is huge. They spread the course across majority of the park. Normally this would be a great thing. Unfortunately, the course comes into play with a hockey court, numerous baseball fields, football practice, soccer practices, an ice rink in the winter, a playground, and the walking path on a bunch of the holes. The walking path does make for a good option to use as "on or over is out of bounds", however, the average REC player does not play that way. On most rounds here, I spend 10-15 minutes waiting for joggers, strollers, and dog walkers to get out of range just in case. I am not the stronger player, however, I am a decent control player and will take the extra stroke on a REC round over forcing it. With the course being mostly open, the wind is a major factor. I have heard of a few people being hit by discs here so being super courteous is the way to go. Baskets were pulled here for a while due to a disc incident.
There is a lack of garbage cans throughout the course. I usually pick up an entire bag of garbage when I play a round here. With the amount of activities at this park, you would think the garbage cans would be more accessible. Have to walk to throw sometime away leads to a lot of litter.
This course also has my number one pet peeve. All baskets are pretty much straight away. You can walk onto any tee and look straight and find the basket. There are slight left or right positions but nothing requires a true anhyzer or hyzer line. I understand with the course been mostly open that it is harder to force these lines, but there are opportunities. The best they do is put a couple baskets behind the trees.
Other Thoughts:
I do not particularly find this course fun to play. It is not a terrible course, don't get me wrong, it is just nothing special. It just get boring pretty quickly. It is a good place to try different lines. It is a reason to have to carry drivers in your bag. But no where near a destination course. I think if my friends that I play with didn't live so close, I probably would almost never end up at this course. Other than holes 15 and 19, the only variety is how long the holes are and where the tree you need to avoid is.
I am giving this course a 2.5 (decent/typical). That is what sums it up best. If they moved some baskets around to add some challenges with lines, I could see bumping the course up to a 3.0. They need to add a better variety of shots. Also bringing the retention pond into play some more would add to the value as well. All and all, it's decent. I just wouldn't want someone from another park district coming here to see what they should set up their course like. It would lead to more bad courses in the Chicagoland area. If you're local, it's worth playing. If you are from out of town, I would skip it. There are better options South and West of here.