Pros:
- Picnic Hill is an older course that seems to have fallen into disuse. The wooded ridge that the course occupies provides 12 holes of an older style of golf: short, technical, and wooded, but with an overall good eye for line shaping and elevation changes.
- The first hole is fairly open-ish, with trees at the left edge as you throw from the corner of Polk & 23rd up the hill to a basket nearly underneath the big water tower. There's no sign or visible tee for hole #1, so pick a spot that looks good to you. After that signage is a hit-or-miss affair. Look for the posts, and make sure you have access to DGCR's map link or else this will be a real slog. Even with the map, the tees for hole #'s 1, 8, and 9 are difficult to find. Downed trees and overgrown schule make picking out the small "animal trails" (aka course paths) more of a chore than it should be. The signs themselves have long ago shed the laminated paper stapled to the posts. And many of the natural tee areas are sketchy at best. Baskets are in fine shape, though.
- The woods are very beautiful with a wild, overgrown feel. Large patches of ferns and wildflowers make the course a joy to play even with the pain of navigation and routing.
- Several fun shots of an old school style...#'s 1 & 7 are fun tight uphill shots. Hole #9 is a downhill longer hole with plenty of opportunity to get in the crud.
- Most holes had two sets of tees, which often didn't add too much to the difficulty but did add to the routing confusion greatly, despite the occasional 'Next Hole' signage.
- My favorite holes were #7, and the #'s 1a-c additions between 1 & 2 that stretched the original design to twelve holes while eliminating a long awkward transition.
Cons:
- Routing and nav. See above. Definitely use the map found under the Links section, or else don't even bother.
- Overgrown, with knee-high schule, but generally thin enough to be playable, if that makes sense. This is wooded high schule, not solid knee-high prairie grass, so stuff like ferns and random scrubby plants. Finding discs in the rough wasn't too bad a deal despite the shagginess.
Other Thoughts:
- Inside knowledge from one of the courses og players (shoutout to tallpaul) is that this course was once quite nice and "cutting edge" but ran afoul of NIMBYs who would sabotage course maintenance and the like. While this was years and years ago, I can see where and why this course eventually fell into disrepair, which is a shame because the bones of a really solid 12 holes are here, it just needs some attention. I don't think the NIMBYs are still an issue from the look of the surrounding properties; someone should come give this place some love.
- With just a little effort this course would easily be a 2.5 disc course. Worth hitting if you're looking for a natural vibe and enjoy playing "find the holes in the woods" with no particular place to be. If you're on a bagging trip, I wouldn't necessarily say to skip this one, in fact, it's infinitely more enjoyable (to me) than, say, Pla-Mor; but, don't go without the map, and know what you're getting into in order to plan accordingly. Skip if in a hurry.