(2.697 Rating) A likeable Rec course with a few leftover quirks from a recent course expansion.
- SKILL LEVEL FRIENDLY - I thought quite a bit, about how to begin my review for this one. There were no glaring flaws with North Lake Creekside, but there are also no glimmering jewels either. One nice positive aspect I thought, was the middle of the road difficulty presented. This is one where Rec players will have to earn their birdies and it also won't be a perpetual cake walk for Intermediates. Players with less skills may enjoy it too. I noticed some extra short tee locations several times which had light blue painted toe boards indicating a tee line. I could see these being good for beginners if they are present on each hole.
- AMENITIES - This layout has many of the typical creature comforts seen on established courses and I think more of this will be coming as the young layout evolves. Next to the gravel parking lot was a porta-potty. There are a couple of picnic tables by tee (1). Baskets are MachVs and are generally in good shape. Lots of extra basket placements and there are two tees on a handful of holes. I also appreciated the spread-out benches along the course layout.
- TEE SIGNAGE - Respectable hole signage at each tee. They have distances and an artistic description of the line. I would have liked to have seen next tee direction and pin placement indicators on them though.
- TWO COURSES ON ONE SITE - The topic heading says it all, although I'll add that the Lakeside layout targets a different audience, one that can bomb.


So-sos:
- RAW BEAUTY - The course looks real nice in spots. I would suspect that (15) is one of the more popular plays here due to the dicing dry creeks and slanted fairway making for a tee shot with some charm to it. A few other holes have a pleasant water feature in play and there is some decent tree coverage on about half of the holes. What keeps this course midway down on my course beauty ledger is the lack of and sparseness of exotic elements. There's a string of openish field holes from hole (5) thru hole (10).
- HOLE VARIETY - I found the play variety to be around average compared to all of the courses I've played to date. There is a modest mix of distances listed. DGCR lists hole lengths from the low 200s to the low 400s, but I think some new placements and alt tees have slightly altered these figures. The course is listed as an all par 3, although a couple placements looked like tough 3s without a deuce possibility to many rec players whom I assume are the target audience. Water is in play more than a handful of times and there's some mild 10 to 15-foot elevation movement on a few fairways.
- CHALLENGING - As already noted above, this one felt like a middle of the road challenge. Perhaps the back tees dial it up to an Intermediate level challenge. Having a big arm in one's arsenal is going to be more important than being a magician.
- TIME PLAY - The far quicker of the pair if you only have time for the one. I timed myself in at 59 minutes first time solo.

Not much
- NAVIGATION AND LAYOUT FLOW - I used a navigational app and still got turned around 3 or 4 times. There are several odd transitions on this course. When I got to tee (3), I threw (13) and didn't realize the goof until I got to actual (13). I had to scrap my field notes about how horrible the transition between (3) and (4) was… or did I? There seemed like there were several double backs and just too many instances where the seemingly logical flow was wrong. Probably the result of trying to keep as many tees and basket locations when the course went from 18 holes to two 18 hole courses.
- MISC - Besides the layout progression issues, there really wasn't much else wrong here, so I'll just add a few miscellaneous things. Roads come into play 2 or 3 times. Discs will get lost here due to the water, but it's only a moderate risk. Concrete tees are not present on every hole and hole (18) ends going away from the parking lot.

North Lake Creekside still has a little room to blossom out in my opinion as its still a bit fresh from the conversion. I liked it overall and if I ever returned to play here, I'd likely replay this one over Lakeside. Not that I think Creekside is attributably better than Lakeside, it's just that Creekside is more of a relaxing everyday type of a course. Anyways, overall I'm going with a tweener 2.75. Rec players are going to be the ideal audience, but Novices and Intermediates will enjoy it to. Definitely worth a play if you find yourself in Denton, but not worth traveling an hour out of the way. Advanced players finding there way to this park should check out Lakeside first if there is only time for one play.

-the holes around the creek are fun, scoreable, and offers risk/reward for red to white level players
-9 new holes but 6 are mostly open
-a few really nice holes: new hole 2, 15, 17
-almost half the holes have 2 tees and 2 basket locations
-Mach 5 baskets in good condition
-the pre-existing holes have great concrete tees, the new holes and new tee locations are fairly level turf pads
-2 courses on site
-2 practice baskets
-port-o-john at the parking lot
-a number of different possible layouts for lots of variety

-a number of different possible layouts for lots of confusion
-the new holes mostly feel like filler
-still needs new signage but there are blue post with hole numbers
-the area around 11, 12, 3, 13 is a bit cramped
-players finishing the Lakeside course will be walking through holes 3, 13, 17, 18
-hole 16 throws around the parking lot

I have mixed feelings about two 18-hole courses in this park. I do have to say that the local club has done a great job designing the new layouts, clearing areas for new fairways in the woods, raising the money for 20 more baskets, and continually improving the relationship with the city.

The Creekside course uses the original holes 1 and 12-18 as well as 9 new holes. If you're counting, that is only 17 holes. Old hole 14 has been split into 2 new holes (11 & 12). While the Lakeside course's original holes are mostly open and the new ones are wooded, the opposite is the case on Creekside. Six of the nine new holes are mostly wide open and the original holes near the creek are the highlight holes.

The original holes have 2 concrete tees and the new ones have mostly level turf. The original holes mostly have 2 basket locations. Holes 11 & 12 only have one each and 14 has 3. New signs will be coming soon and there are blue, numbered poles in the meantime.

One of the new holes is a nice challenge (hole 2, open to a guarded, right turning green next to the creek) but most of the new ones are not good holes and a few of them are problems for safety. Hole 3 is a bad hole that also throws blindly on the walk from Lakeside 18 to the parking lot. Hole 16 is a left to right throw around the parking lot and it also throws onto the hangout area near hole 1. It would be better to have the basket in the tree line where there is now a new path to hole 17 (which is cool and avoids further interference). Hole 9's green is close to a busy intersection; bombers will probably be skipping drives into the street. Additionally, I'm not really a fan of hole 18 (and the basket is in the throwing lane for 13's long tee) and I think holes 11 & 12 were better as one hole.

The Lakeside course has the room for the additional holes but it seems that the Creekside course does not. It feels cramped in the places where there were already good holes and the new holes are lackluster. I think holes 3, 16, & 18 should go away. I also don't see the appeal of holes 8-10 other than just having more holes and ditto for the reasoning behind splitting old 14 into new 11 & 12.

Overall, I'm not a fan of how the Creekside course turned out and I think one 28-30 hole course would be a better option for this park. You could easily skip around and only play the original 18 or add the new holes on the front side or the back side. As it is, there is too much interference and safety issues.


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-- Two practice baskets.
-- Two courses on site with a shared parking lot.
-- Port-o-potty
-- No. 2 is devilish with the basket not visible from the tee (RHFH/LHBH) and located 10 feet from creek.
-- No. 15 is epic, with two water carries (small creeks/ditches) to an elevated basket.

-- No map.
-- Baskets are numbered incorrectly; they appears to holdovers from previous course.
-- Tee pads and signs (mostly just poles with hole number) are a work in progress.
-- Nos. 7-8 are parallel, but they play in the same direction instead of back-and-forth.
-- There is a long walk from 10 to 11.
-- Getting from 12 to 13 is trick; you are either in the 3 or 13 fairway.
-- When you finish 18, you either walk back up the 18 fairway, or you cross the 1 fairway to get to the parking lot.

-- Just like Lakeside, this feels like a tweener (2.5 or 3.0). I went with the higher rating because of two courses on site.
-- Shorter than Lakeside; only two holes longer than 400 feet, none longer than 450.