Pros:
*** NOTE: Current review based on front 9 only in cold and rainy conditions with snow on the hill and baskets removed for ski season - conditions may have clouded my judgement! ***
This will be an outstanding, pro level course if work continues and the course gets tramped in. Hole design is varied and interesting, with a fun mix of short and long, curved and straight, uphill and downhill. Elevation and winds are a huge factor during play here.
Cons:
Even from the short tees, the level of challenge here is huge! Players without good disc control may wind up extremely frustrated with the constant and never-ending combination of tight, crazy lines, huge distances, fall-away basket placements, blind pins, and extreme elevation changes. #8, in particular, requires a perfect combination of control and distance, with tees sitting in a fairly steep valley and a long, wooded, blind, right u-turn fairway to the basket hidden behind a little swell. If your disc doesn't land directly in the valley, you're left with steep, treacherous footing from which to throw.
This course is in its infancy and as a result, the fairways and between-hole trails are really, really rough. Lots and lots of trip hazards, brush, deadfall, and crazy shule are everywhere on the course. Make no mistake, playing here is a workout!
Signage really sucks. The permanent signage that is in place is pretty nice metal street-sign style with good graphics, but many of them are printed "upside-down" (not from thrower's point-of-view), so navigation and tee and pin finding requires some interpretation even with the signage. Most holes, even on the front 9, don't have any signage at all yet. Small blue and red posts mark the appropriate tee boxes, but some of the posts have already been knocked over, and there are no tee numbers on the posts, so one can only hope you're on the right tee. There are really nicely done wooden directional arrows on neighboring trees to direct you to the next tee, but there's no hole number on them, or even any indication of whether you're heading to the blue or red tee. Really, how hard would it be to Sharpie a hole # and a red or blue dot on each arrow??? As a true recreational player, nothing cheeses me off more than to have to hunt and search for tees and pins, when something so simple is easily remedied with a magic marker. Grrrrr. In fact, I think we totally missed hole 3 due to the lack of signage.
Other Thoughts:
I loved the challenge and variety of this course and am always a fan of ski-hill play, but the current state of "undoneness" and constant high level of challenge on this course really overshadowed any fun factor for the beginner/intermediate group I was playing with. We never encountered a hole in the front 9 that allowed us a "breather" or didn't severely punish even a small lack of disc control.
This course is quite a hike - you'll want to carry water and snacks, and wear really sturdy hikers with good ankle support. Long socks would not be a bad idea, either.
I will be playing this course again and will update my review as the work continues, but at this point in time, I'd steer any beginners away from playing here - for maximum fun factor, they should head to The Crowl Hole in Harbor Springs, instead.