Parc Des Familles is a beautiful multi use park set just under New Orleans . A feature is the 18 hole disc golf course , which sits away from the other park . There is ample parking near the beginning of the course , and a nice bathroom near the start and close to #16s basket on the left .
THE EQUIPMENT - Everything here is first rate . picnic tables under shelters near the parking lots , benches and trash cans throughout the course . There are 2 kiosks with full maps before you get to hole #1 . There is a putting basket close to the start of the course . The tee pads are a spacious 10' X 5' , cement and level with the ground . There are 3 pads at almost every hole . The signs are among the best , with Hole number , par , distance and flight path . They are featured on posts that are red tipped for the short pads , white tipped for the medium pads and blue tipped for the pro pads . The baskets are the Pro28 yellow Discatchers that are numbered .
THE TERRAIN - I'll get this out of the way early . The course is flat . I am not dinging this because unless you truck tons of dirt to build hills , there isn't going to be any elevation this close to the water . Aesthetically , the course is gorgeous , mostly playing through woods , with cypress , cedars and some Spanish moss hanging from them . The trees can be low hanging to force tunnel shots and low drives . They are also strategically placed in fairways to force choices . Nice use of doglegs and length . 9 of the holes from the longs are 500' + , with 2 of them being 852' and 888' . Most of the fairways are narrow but fair . The rough can be very rough . There can be standing water off to the sides ( or even in the middle , more in cons ) ., some of it being controlled by the drainage grates here ( ? ) .There are water carries on the last 2 holes of the course . with a couple of open spots . The course area was landscaped and grass cut when I was here .
THE HIGHLIGHTS - This course is solid and pro caliber . There are many strong holes here . #2 was a 564' hole that first bends to the left , then turns to the right . There are lots of trees in play to make you have to bend your drives and approaches . #9 ( 515' from the shorts , to the 615' longs ) is a long dogleg to the right , though sections of alleyways . #15 is a long par 5 ( 603' , 780' , 888' ) that's fairway gets narrower , and slopes down and to the left to the green . This is also the hole with any type of elevation . #17 is a tunnel shot to a landing zone in from of the deep pond .your 2nd shot is over the water to a open area green . #18 is a water carry back towards the #17 fairway . The green is just on the other side of the pond ( 151' , 437' , 561' ) There are some higher growths sprouting up from the ground to create doorways to the green .
SIGNATURE HOLE - I might have had to go with #9 . It just never let you catch a breath of relief until you hit the green .
NICE WALK - The course was quiet when I played , with the only sounds being the surrounding wildlife . You will have the opportunity to see some of it . This is where you might walk around , even if there weren't baskets and tee pads .
THE TIME - It took me the better part of 90 minutes to play the course , mostly from the white tees ( couple of blues ) ., but I was taking my time . You want to soak it all in , too . A group of focused fours could play this in 2 1/2 hours + depending on driving from the whites or the blues .

Very little is wrong with the course itself .
Maybe a few of the pad placements seemed to just make the length a little longer but not much else ?
Water Retention - The park went above and beyond by developing drainage for the course . However , I came and played it a few days after an enormous amount of rain was dumped on Eastern Louisiana . I was in water up over my toes on many of the fairways . Carry waterproof shoes in your trunk , just in case .
Bugs - Real bad as it gets warmers . Spray generous amounts of Deet on your body .
Other Critters - You possibly could come up on an alligator , or one of several poisonous snakes . Be aware and watch when you reach for your discs .
DISC RISK - Moderate . Longer holes = harder drives . A good ricochet off a tree could put you deep in a marsh . Some of the fairways tighten on certain holes . Use a spotter when possible .

I can't imagine how much money was poured into this course . I heard that they put a sand base on the fairways to elevate the fairways . Combining that with the drainage system . Who Does That ?!? Course designer John Houck did an incredible job designing this course .
This was a tough course to grade . I had to get all of the trudging through fairway water out of my mind . I graded it out at about 4.25 , but rounded it up , because of the care and interior features of the course . Thank You , Jefferson Parish Parks Dept. and N O Team DGC for making this happen , and allowing me to enjoy a round while on a visit to New Orleans .
MY RECOMMENDATION - The course has a 3 tee system on most holes , but still competitive even with the short ( red ) tees . Other than maybe the newbie , this course is a must for the local , the 1 discer , maybe disc playing family , the out of towner for sure , intermediates and pros . This is a high level course . You have to come here just to appreciate what a city and parks department can do , even with area surrounded by swampland . It's much too good a place to pass up . PLAY IT !!!!

Excellent course which plays in a marshy swamp. Playing the course was actually a better tour of the Louisiana wetlands than many of the nearby "swamp" tours. It was teeming with wildlife and our group witnessed several armadillos, 2 snakes, frogs, hawks, and lizards. The ground holds water well and it's wise to bring a pair of high, water proof boots to pick up your disc from the large, ankle deep puddles you may find it in. It can get muddy.

In terms of actual disc golf play the course is very challenging. It covers a large distance and there are numerous par 4s and par 5s. The terrain is flat and the difficulty comes from having to shape your shot around large cyprus trees and hanging moss. It's not necessarily a super densly wooded course, but good drives are certainly rewarded. You will feel the hurt from thorns, puddles and awkward angles if you miss the fairway.

The maintenance of this course was phenomenal, especially considering how deep in the wilderness it is. 3 tee pads and 1 basket per hole. Best tee signs I have seen on a course with par, distance, and lines clearly Indicated. Tee pads concrete and firm. Navigation was very easy.

Overall an outstanding course. Challenging, beautiful scenery, and easy to follow. If you can put up with the wildlife you might find in a marsh, this is the course for you.

*Edit*: Played this course again recently (in the summer) and the swampiness must not be understated. Going off the fairway IS BAD. Reports of cotton-mouth snakes by many of the locals. Large spiders. Often ankle-deep water because of the frequent rains. It is a shame because the actual Disc Golf play is phenomenal, but these factors make it less about the golf and more about the environment. Be careful out there!

What do you get when you take a large beautiful piece of Louisiana swampland, and retain John Houck to design a disc golf course with what appear to be no restrictions? You get Parc des Familes Disc Golf Course!

This course is literally raised out of a cypress swamp, with fairways filled to a foot or so above the surrounding ground, then seeded with grass. The result is beautiful green fairways lined and interrupted by huge mature trees.

John Houck has designed a course true to his style, with a fine distribution of Par 3, 4, and 5 holes featuring multiple fairways and widely varying lines.

I played the intermediate (white) tees and enjoyed hole lengths varying from 219' to 792'. At 7486' total length the white tees are nothing to sneeze at. Add an additional 1000' for the blue tees, or subtract about 1750' for the red and you've got three distinct levels of challenge. All of the different fairway shapes are accounted for as well, from dead straight to gently curved to doglegs in both directions.

This course places a premium on staying on the fairway. I learned this lesson on my very first drive, when I faded about 15' off of the fairway only to find myself right back in the swamp!! Between the thorny plants, cypress knees, and 6" of muddy green water, you really don't want to be there! This gives you plenty of course management decisions to consider. Do you drive with a mid that you know you can keep in the fairway, or try to push it down a little further with that fairway driver? Try the tight line and risk getting kicked in with the gators, or play the longer, wider line?

The course infrastructure is as good as it gets. Innova 28-chain DisCatcher baskets, generous concrete teepads with perfect texture, large and colorful tee signs with all of the necessary info, and abundant trash cans and benches throughout the course.

With Red, White and Blue tee positions at every hole, the course offers reasonable challenge for Recreational, Intermediate, and Advanced Players. In some cases the three positions are widely spaced out, while in other they appear to be lined up one behind the other. But even In those cases there is an extra tree or a slight offset that closes down the line or otherwise raises the difficulty of getting to the basket. Very well done. And each tee has exactly the same pad and signage so you aren't penalized for choosing one set of pads over the other.

My biggest con is the complete lack of elevation on the course. There was really nothing to be done about this, but having 18 dead flat holes is just not as much fun as playing some ups and downs.

Only Hole 18 brought water strongly into play, with a bit on Hole 17 as well.

So while the fairways carved from the swamp were very well done and challenging, the land itself has some real restrictions with regard to disc golf.

After working my way through the swamp for 16 holes, I was a bit surprised with how open 17 and 18 were. Kind of a let-down.

I am a big fan of Houck courses, and try to play them whenever I can. This was a completely enjoyable course, but compared to my favorites (Harmony Bends, Hillcrest, Selah Lakeside) it doesn't quite stack up. It can't, because the land didn't offer the same potential regarding elevation and/or water. That being said, Bravo on a(nother) fine course!

I was at about 4.25 in terms of rating this course, but given the limitations of the land, I bumped it to 4.5 because I don't know that it could be done any better.

Parc des Familles DGC carves its distinctive Houckian paths through a beautiful population of cypress trees. In addition to great aesthetics, these create some deceptively contentious landing zones where the wrong lie forces unusually exaggerated craning around some significant tree trunks and root tangles. Higher up, sprawling branches commonly create ceilings or horizontal windows. The frequent mid-fairway trunks form all manner of challenging lanes and lines. It's great to see such distinctive features have an appreciable impact on how the course plays.

True to designer John Houck's distinctive style, PdF's holes span a wide range of lengths and pars. These are evenly distributed throughout the course, so the pace appreciably changes from one hole to the next. The par 3's are friendly for any arm so birdie opportunities are common from all three sets of tees. PdF features two true par 5s, one (hole 4) that sports an interesting series of landing zones formed by a large number of cypress trees that requires at least 3 or 4 accuracy-intensive shots to score well, and a long (780 ft from the whites, 888 ft from the blues) tight-laned hole (15) with a slightly sloped fairway and some unforgiving rough that I've yet to achieve par on. 15 is a great culmination hole, as simple as it is brutal in nice contrast to the more multi-laned and sprawling layouts that characterize many of the other par 4s. That it comes at 15 rather than the end allows for a welcome bit of cooldown to soften the blow it likely serves.

Perhaps most notable for me is that PdF has probably the best designed and maintained set of landing zones I've ever seen. There is such a sense of how players will attempt a hole given a certain sight line, and landing zones both support and subvert these impressions. Holes 2, 4, 9, and 11, for starters, all feature a challenging array of primary and secondary landing zones where what you see from the tee is limited or out-and-out deceptive relative to the full set of possibilities in play. These are some of the most nuanced holes I've ever come across, many of which I'm still trying to determine an optimum strategy for after 7-10 plays through. The same can be said even if to a lesser extent for many other holes here. There's an uncommon amount of depth to Parc des Familles' layout that rewards familiarity and experimentation.

At other points these landing zones allow continued play from less-than-ideal shots. A simple example of this is hole 12, which plays tight off the tee and is best begun with a drive that finishes on the fairway's right side. The landing zone towards the left is significantly more generous than it appears from the tee, however, allowing recovery from a RHBH drive that fades too much. This aspect of the layout allows continued play in a way that maintains challenge while alleviating unfruitful frustration. In all, I would characterize Parc des Familles' layout as being especially nuanced. The excellent grooming helps draw out these subtleties.

The three sets of tees go a long way towards making the course accessible for players of all levels: the shorts don't water down the fun, and the longs will challenge anyone. All tees are concrete and amply-sized. Parking is ample. The course is a 25 or so minute drive from downtown New Orleans, making it quite accessible.

My biggest criticism of Parc des Familles' design is the unusually large divide between the par 3s and the par 4s/5s. The par 3s all provide legitimate chance for birdie, sitting < 250'-275', and generally focus on tunnel shots or big hyzers. A few (10 and 14 come to mind) are noticeably bland. Such consistent contrast with the longer holes is great, but the lack of holes in the 300' range is starkly felt: there are no challenging par 3s here that you'll have to fight to avoid bogey on. It seems a weird omission on a course that covers such a wide spectrum of disc golf possibility. Just one or two such holes would add even more depth to the course.

The last two holes play out of the woods in a more open area and are notably less impressive than the majority of the course. 18 in particular is a not very rewarding shot over a small patch of water guarded by sprawling, skinny tree branches. These two holes are a bit of a letdown.

As this course is in southern Louisiana, its terrain is basically dead flat (a raised tee on 3 is the one appreciable point of elevation).

The park closes early (presently around 6 pm even in the summer months), which can make catching rounds after a work day hard to do. This may or may not be permanent.

The resources and design put into the course's drainage are notable, but standing water still accumulates, especially in cases of steady rain. The front nine fairways can get especially wet, though remain playable (itself a feat). The back nine drains remarkably well (it literally has drainage ditches), and the course overall handles rain the best of those in the area, but portions can still remain wet and muddy days after rain. Again, it's southern Louisiana.

Parc des Familles sits comfortably among the best courses I've played. Its well-crafted, multifaceted and varied layout is a significant addition to the area's disc golf offerings: by my measure, the nearest courses of ballpark equivalent quality are at Blue Angels, over three hours away, and still not quite in PdF's league. This is easily the must-play course for visitors to the area. If you come needing a guide, or even just food recs, hit me up!

Found the course to be solid course with many challenging holes. Three tee pads, fairways were in good condition. We played middle tees. Nice to see the park be putting in such a great course.

Played in August 2018, There was standing water on the course, but nothing a disc golfer can't handle, seemed like my midwest puddles are deeper.

Played with disc golfers from Idaho and Florida. They both enjoyed the course, and enjoyed it more than City Park.

Not sure this is a 4.75 course relative to other courses around the country, but I would recommend highly worth playing if you are in the Big Easy.

This is a course several years and hundreds of thousands of dollars in the making, and it was absolutely worth the wait.

John Houck really gave his best on this course design, and the city stepped up and literally built the land this course is built on.

Located in a Louisiana swamp, sand was trucked in to raise the level of the whole course a few feet for better drainage, and to keep undergrowth from creeping back in. But now every hole is just beautiful.

Every fairway is a wide green carpet through the woods, typically interspersed with old gnarly cedars and cypress trees. It's reminiscent of many other parks with large pines and oaks, but with a real Gulf Coast twist. I factor in course-beauty a fairly forgiving amount to my ratings (not that there's really anything to forgive here), and this is one of the most beautiful courses not just in the area, but out of the 50 something I've played as of this review.

The holes are typical Houck. a mix of shorter 3s, a few longer 3s here and there, some true 4's and 5's, three tee's for all skills on every hole, and every tee is clearly marked by a colored post with a fully detailed sign. Oh, and all three tee's have generously sized concrete pads. I felt like I threw forehand more often on this course than I do on most courses, but that might just be because of the design of most other courses, and I haven't practiced anny's in a long time.

One of my favorite features is the raised fairway on hole 15. It's basically a flat mound about 15' wide and 200 something feet long on your approach to the basket. I don't care too much for the hole, but that's just personal preference. I still recognize it as a cool design and unique feature.

The cons are really either nit-picking, or not the fault of anyone involved in the course design or construction. But there are a few things.

Bring your bug spray. The dense swampland this course sits in has more bugs than you have ever seen. There were a few times I mistook the buzzing around me for mowers, and then realized it was just the flies/mosquitos/everything else.

It's a little sandy because it's new. I'm sure it will compact after some rain and some more grass growth.

The real con, and again nothing to do about it, is the lack of elevation. If this course was built in a hilly area, it would be a 5. As is, it is the absolute best a course can be in the area. Just stunning, phenomenal, engaging, brilliantly inspired course design right here.

The park staff takes so much pride in this course, and they should. They have been building this course for years, and are so proud of how loved it is by the community. I've gotten to speak with some of the grounds crew, and Chad, the guy who manages the park, and they are all starting to pick up disc golf too!

Before I forget- be sure to watch out for wildlife. I've already seen some alligators and a rattlesnake on the same day. Give them a wide berth, don't be a hero/idiot.

The three tees seem like they can be placed close together sometimes, but offer an incredibly diverse level of challenge. Playing the Red tees on my first run through the course I felt constricted, and like I never had the chance to just hurl one. But just moving back to the white tees solved that, and the Blue tees- well I'm just fine throwing from the whites thank you very much.

This is easily one of the best courses in Louisiana, and a must play if you're in the area. I live about an hour and fifteen from this course and have no reservations driving down on my days off to play a couple rounds.