-Well if you've read the rest, you know that it's definitely eye candy. It's a rather hilly course along a river with some rocks here and there and many excellent rock cropping greens. Accuracy is more important than it seems to be, since many pin positions are dangerously close to OB markers, the river, or bunkers that play as hazards. You still have numerous opportunities to rip a bunch of drivers and would be more likely to tame the long 500+ holes more easily without going out of bounds on the second shot.

-Many of the holes are traditional open holes in a quiet setting in the mountains, but some are a little more interesting and off the traditional spectrum. Like #13. It's one of the more interesting shorter holes around the Western part of NC. It's only 218', so very reachable but not visible from the pad. You are throwing out of what appears to be a small crater and instantly uphill out of a shoot. #4 is down the hill with the OB river directly below you, maybe 25'. You throw across to the other side that is not elevated like the side you are teeing off from. #7 is the infamous rock green where the basket sits inside off. #17 has the most elevation at The Boulders by a lot. Probably by more than 20' than the hole with the second most elevation change. It's an appealing tee shot down a big hill!

-Mark is a really great guy. Don't know if he's an employee or if he's the owner. Nice guy, very helpful. I heard that a championship layout is being made using both courses, so Mark and the staff are clearly determined to make this place a disc golf destination, which they already have. There's a selection of discs available in the pro shop. I think mostly Innova and MVP but I could be mistaken.

-The tee pads are very useful. They have small holes drilled into them, making them drain much quicker and less difficult for players to have a less slippery run up if it's raining.

-Many difficult greens. But very interesting. #7's green is arguably the most unique aspect of the whole course. Several others are close to OB markers, making it a must to play with caution. #9's green is without question, the most difficult. This hole is extremely tough. 375' and tucked into the woods on an elevated rock. 15' footers are daunting on this hole. A short putt for par doesn't get much more scary than this. #12 is behind the side of an enormous hill, almost appearing as a wall in play adjacent to the fairway. The hill slopes downward and ends in the woods where the basket is located. The landing zone is maybe 30' from the pin so you could make a birdie without having an adequate sidearm, but the landing zone is created by two hills. The one in play to the right side, and another one in the woods, creating a "ridge like" green. #16 and #17 are both difficult for the same reason. The baskets for both holes are next to bunkers, making you think before you go for it.

-There's a great balance between the elevation holes and the flat holes. It's not too physically demanding. Fun downhill holes to look forward too. I enjoy #8. The pad is on top of a large hill and the fairway goes through a tight tunnel in the woods and back out into the open over the road. #14 is the best opportunity to rip a driver down a hill without fear of losing a disc. #17 is more tricky because of OB on both sides, but is down a huge hill.

-As much of a travel destination this course seems to be, I don't think it's best to travel here in the summer. There's kudzu. I mean a LOT of kudzu. You are playing on the part of the property where there's tons and tons of it. You could be a few feet off the clear spot and lose a disc because the kudzu gets so rough in spots. It gets out of hand. #3 is where the problem really starts to show. It's wooded for the first half and gently fades left. Further on the left side there's kudzu EVERYWHERE. It was rough enough when I played here for the first time in the spring. But it's on a whole new level of insanity in the summer. #17. You know, the big downhill?! Well, you want to rip it but if you go OB left (very possible as it's not far left), you are 80-90% going to get cut up looking for half an hour and you'll likely lose a disc. This problem is very persistent. The lost disc potential in the summer is probably 80%/round. Wild guess, but probably not a bad guess. You already have to pay $15 to play all day. If you play two rounds here, your expected loss is about $35 to $37. You could lose a few discs because of the messy kudzu. That's a loss much higher than $37.

-Some measurements seem off. It says hole five is 310' feet and the basket is hard to spot from the pad. I've seen players successfully throw that distance and they went 40-50' long in the river. The hole is probably 260'. #15 seems longer than 284'. And I know for sure that #8 is a lot longer than 255'.

-Boulders is a better course than River Run, but the lost disc potential is high throughout the round and it gets very steep in the spots with all the kudzu. I was originally going to give it a 4, but this problem can't be ignored. I don't review courses from a fact based perspective unless it's very obvious since I'm very opinionated. The kudzu is very bad. It wasn't as bad in the spring, so I'd recommend you make your stops here when it is not summertime.

-I enjoy playing the Boulders, but I don't think it's the best NC has to offer. If you love hybrids, you may disagree with me. I love hybrid courses too, I love hilly wooded courses more with some open shots here and there. The views of the mountains are spectacular and make the quality better. I think the scenery has a lot to do with why many people love this course. I like it a lot, but I don't think it's epic. The work put into these courses though is undeniably outstanding. The labor is a well earned 5. Maybe the championship course will truly be epic if it ever comes! Some of the OBs at North Cove to me are a bit too repetitive. Many OB markers in playable spots that I think would be more interesting to see how the hole plays if they weren't there and players had to play from that spot. I think some of them are necessary, but others were pretty silly but at least there's no bunker green here.

The obvious takeaway is that North Cove is a very eye-pleasing course due to its well-manicured fairways, ever-present creek, and numerous large rocks. Formerly a golf course, both disc golf courses play along roughly 3 tiers of shelf created by the creek and the hilly terrain. The course is a bit unrepresentative of the area terrain by being somewhat flat in comparison, with most of your steep inclines or declines occurring on a few transitions between holes. The former ball golf course fairways make North Cove a surprisingly easy walk. For comparison, Stumpy Creek in Mooresville feels much more like an arduous walk.

The holes are all well-executed and many of them have unique or scenic features like greens set with a backstop of boulders or raised baskets looming tall against the Blue Ridge backdrop. IMO the strength of this course lies in its many clever par 3s. Most if not all of these had a fair mix of fun and challenge with sand traps and OB creek keeping them from being too easy. The par 4s are a bit easier if you have a decent arm but generally have a pattern of requiring an early gap to hit from the tee and a green with OB or hazard lurking near by. One feature that I found interesting was that many tees had low ceilings to contend with, keeping the holes from being easily hacked with rollers.

The course does a good job of keeping any holes from being blah. Either a raised basket, sand trap, creek, elevation change, or interesting terrain undulations from the former ball golf course days keeps the holes from feeling too much like wide open field holes that plague most disc golf on ball golf courses. Another nice feature is that you don't really play any decidedly uphill holes. There aren't many huge downhill holes a la Ashe County but there are a lot of little, fun downhill holes. The creek is wide and rocky but a very shallow stream so losing a disc is not likely.

Design-wise the course feels fairly balanced and prompts both backhands and forehands. Most of the holes seem attackable with either style so it's dealer's choice off the tee.

No one in my group had enough working signal to use Udisc, so navigation was a bit of a chore. The tee signs are informative but just plaques that sit on the ground so not easy to spot like a sign on a post. The lack of benches also make it tough to spot the next tee. There was a mowed path to the next tees but the cut length was marginally shorter than the fairway so easy to miss.

I've low-balled the rating a bit because even though the course does a good job of not being a boring, ball golf course type of track, it's still on a really open ball golf course. It would be more my cup of tea if it had some more wooded holes to add a bit of balance (and shade in the Summertime). The other thing is that it's not a terribly hard course either. All of the holes seemed very scoreable and I got the impression that in a tourney, if you're not birdie-ing every other hole you're probably losing ground to the field. Much of this is due to soft par 4s.

The tees are like rubber floor tiles you'd see in a gym or rec. center. They were really grippy when it was warm and dry but a bit slick when my shoes were wet. I didn't feel unsafe using them but they were definitely different.

I think it would look better if the raised baskets had some sort of support besides just the skinny pole. It's a little rough on the depth perception when the basket looks like it's just floating in the air.

I'll likely boost the rating a bit if they add a more challenging layout. As it stands it will likely be a darling and very popular course among the filthy, unwashed masses of disc golfers that prioritize mowing schedules over actual course design. But for a pay to play course I have no problem with them trying to appeal to the widest spectrum of players possible instead of catering to the elite level players.