Pros:
- Port-a-potty in parking lot, drinking fountain on the back nine.
- Lots of risk/reward water holes on the back nine that offer a challenge not found on most other GR courses.
- Goose poop point (hole #15) is a rewarding hole that will test your mettle.
- Just a pretty course and a great location in general.
Cons:
- Quite a few missing/vandalized/inaccurate signs.
- Front nine is mostly wide open. Drive, approach, and putt... if it isn't windy, there's simply not much challenge involved.
- No elevation changes at all.
- The normal drawbacks of playing at a popular all-purpose park.
- Flooding and overcrowding are a big problem.
Other Thoughts:
Riverside Park, as the name implies, sits on the banks of the Grand River. It's a pretty park, but the river makes the course quite unpredictable. I'll break down the conditions into four categories:
1. Winter = Snow. And lots of it. This may or may not make the course unplayable, depending on how hardcore you are.
2. More than half of the holes are completely underwater about 25% of the time. Ice jams and frequent spring rain are to blame. The basket at hole #1 usually shows the high-water mark for the season.
3. Another 25% of the time the water level will have diminished enough to make only some combination of 13, 14, 15, and 16 unplayable. Hole 15 is usually the first hole to go underwater and the last to dry out. The pole course nearby (Riverside South) is often helpful in these cases since you can make up missed holes there.
4. 25% of the time, the weather will be perfect and the ground will be dry. Everyone knows when these times are, and this is when everybody is at Riverside Park. You'll have groups of 7 players, 4 disc throwing toddlers, and 3 dogs clogging up holes for hours at a time. Runners, joggers, walkers, and bikers create constant traffic on the path that winds through the course. High school cross country teams practice on the front nine. Medieval reenactors (both the geeky high school types and the 35 year old men whose costumes are waaay too elaborate) often conduct battles around hole 13 and 14. You'll frequently have people fishing in the fairways of holes 15 and 16. Concerts are held in the open area at the 17th and 18th holes. Are you starting to get the picture? This is by far the busiest park in the city when the weather is nice.
If you don't mind waiting and observing all the pedestrians doing pedestrian things, then you'll have a good Saturday afternoon here. Otherwise you're best off coming when the snow is on the ground or when a couple of the holes are underwater.
UPDATE 10/2009: The parking lot has been repaved and there are now teepads on all 18 holes. Teeing off on an even surface makes a big difference; I'm extremely happy that this situation was remedied. I've increased my rating from a 3.0 to a 3.5.