Pros:
First and foremost, the course has been significantly improved since the reviews prior to mine were written, and so the course you'll play now is significantly under rated. If you're traveling to Phoenix and looking for courses to play, keep reading and disregard the rating. This course deserves about a 3.75 rating, so I'm rounding up to 4.0. It's a close second to Fountain Hills as the best non-pay course in the Phoenix area to visit (of the top rated ones I've played).
As I learned at the Sunday doubles, the locals/HOA responsible for the course have removed the infamous tees with rocks, originally installed by the landscapers of the neighbourhood (who didn't know any better). And I believe I understand that the course was made longer in the process. The tee pads are now proper, the holes are all par 3, and it's now a 20 hole course as they've bridged the gap between hole 18 and the start of the course with 2 more holes (the 20th hole being a memorable addition). Another tidbit I heard there was that the local disc golf association was going to be allocated a portion of the trees the HOA had purchased for the neighbourhood, to place to enhance the course. If this comes to fruition, it will be massive, and I can't wait to see the results.
The course starts and finishes in a beautifully landscaped park with a threatening lake, but ventures out into the green spaces of the neighbourhood where fences and pathways become boundaries. While that isn't a good thing, the width of the holes is mostly very adequate, and the basket placement intelligently done so that the fences aren't brought into play as an obstacle; generally the tee is on the house side of the green space, and you're throwing diagonally to a basket on the street/pathway side. The paths and streets have sparse traffic, so this isn't an issue, rarely will you have to wait to throw. Worst thing to worry about is a car running over your disc while it lays in the street, and the cars were politely avoiding the discs when my group had some go OB.
The course is beautiful, and there are a lot of similarities to Fountain Hills for me, so it begs comparison. While Fountain Hills has it's massive lake and the iconic fountain, this course a small lake with multiple beautiful waterfalls feeding it from an elevated pond, all in play on a half dozen holes. The use of the lake is similar; 4 baskets placed near the lake forcing risk/reward decisions of whether to go for birdie over the water, or play for par on a safer route. What I like better here is the grass is lush and, with one exception, the landscape doesn't slope towards the water for otherwise good shots to roll into the water. Also like Fountain Hills, a lot of the remaining holes try to make due with a sparse number of trees, and fall back to basket placement near pathways and streets to create difficulty. But because the park is far less busy here, it works, whereas this is a big gripe for me at Fountain Hills.
Cons:
The cons of this course are pretty straight forward, but don't outweigh the positives by any means:
- Since the bulk of the course moves counter clockwise in a circle through the green spaces between the roadway and houses, for the majority the houses are on your right and the roadway on your left, with the basket always on the left side of the fairway (near the road). This means it favours players who throw right to left naturally, to throw safely down the fairway and skip towards the basket. This course would be tough if you threw primarily LHBH!
- The water in the lake is very murky, so what should be a trivial retreval isn't. I watched a couple people lose discs in the lake and spend a long time trying to retrieve them with rakes, only some getting them back. This is a big pet peve of mine, I don't like hazards where you don't get your disc back, murky shallow water included.
- There's a couple holes where fences to private property come into play a bit, and it doesn't take a horrible shot to go into their yard. In one case it's a very narrow fairway, and in another case the tee pad and the basket are both on the road side of the green space, so if you throw out into the fairway and your disc doesn't fade on time, it's gone.
- Baskets near roads/pathways is never preferable, even if you've got clear visibility and they're sparsely used. Sometimes a disc hangs out there for 10 seconds and in the meantime a car is now in the picture.
- The tee pads have distances on a brick at the back, but there's no signs, although finding the baskets is generally pretty easy.
- There isn't a big map of the course on site, so bring your own.
- The course lacks trees and you can generally pick your own line to the basket. I can't remember having to throw any forehands, and can only recall 1 hole where I needed a turn over shot. This would be a bigger issue for me if I didn't live in a city where most of the courses are disproportionately left-to-right!
Other Thoughts:
It can't be said enough, the current ratings and reviews here for this course aren't fair, and I'd make the argument they should be reset when significant changes are made to a course.
If you're deciding where to play, the courses in Phoenix break into 2 categories for me: landscaped park (lots of water and OB, fewer trees), and desert (rocky ground, plenty of short brush trees). Of the 4 landscaped coures I've played in the area (Fountain Hills, Maricopa, Vista Del Camino, and Fiesta Lakes (a pay to play ball golf course), Fountain Hills and this course are my favourites, and geography will probably decide which one you go to first with them being opposite each other, both outside Phoenix. And I do prefer the landscaped courses to the desert ones, save for maybe Buffalo Ridge Park (which you NEED someone to guide you on your first game).
Go here. Try it. If you're expecting a 3, I guarantee you won't be disappointed!