Pros:
Absolutely beautiful course with some very picturesque holes, with challenges to match. A whole bunch of factors come together to basically make this the best course I've played to date.
The 27 holes weave in and out of a fairly dense forest and back into grassy clearings with much more spaced trees. Each set of 9 holes forms it's own loop returning to the parking lot, so that you can play any set of 9 or 18 holes you desire. The parking lot and start of the course is on the high ground of a hill that slopes down into the surrounding creeks, so there's usually an uphill/downhill factor in most holes.
The baskets are adequate older DGA baskets with no issues, well maintained, and the various tee pads are often made with large paving stones and bricks with a few newer poured concrete pads. All are nice and long though sometimes slightly narrow. The signage is good and most of the course has various indicators of how to move from a basket to the next tee. Navigation was rarely a challenge.
There's red and white tee pads for every hole, and on some of them an additional blue (hardest) tee, that generally seemed to take the tact of giving you a more occluded entry into the fairway without being much further. Then on top of that there's 2-4 pin placements per hole to keep things fresh if you come here often. There's even a bead on a set of hooks on the tee sign to let you know which placement the pin is in!
It's hard to put my finger on exactly what it is that makes this course exceptional; everything about it is great with no weaknesses, but what exactly is outstandingly unique about the course? I think there's 2 really memorable aspects for me:
First, it's pretty. Very pretty, at least the parts within the grassy clearings with some trees with lots of character and rolling hills surrounded by the forest. There were a few tees where I just stopped to enjoy the beauty of the hole for a second before throwing. There was one completing a loop, I think it was hole 18, that made me regret not bringing my camera because I could have made a great desktop background out of that view.
Second, there's some really good course design here largely due to just how conducive the landscape is to disc golf, but credit to the designers that they didn't waste it. Some of the holes are really interesting in how they play the ceiling created by the trees against the rolling landscape of the hills. Traditionally when we talk about hitting a gap in disc golf, it's implied that the gap is horizontal in nature, between the trees on the left and the trees on the right. Here, on numerous holes, the gaps are vertical, and you've got to hit a spot between the ceiling created by the tree branches and the floor created by the rising or falling slope of turf.
One hole stands out for me where you have to play downhill and then uphill again, but in the apex of the gully the tree cover will knock down your discs as you try to squeeze out max distance. There's a risk reward decision there and on many holes, challenging how high do you dare throw in the name of distance.
Cons:
You can always nit-pick, but the complaints here are really small.
The strongest complaint I can come up with is that there's an over abundance of holes requiring left-to-right shots relative to the right-to-left shots, meaning that a really good RHFH or LHBH game would have a significant advantage here, I think. I have a heavy preference for RHBH but found myself trying to throw a lot of long distance forehand here because the hold demanded it.
Besides that, while the holes that played through the scenic grassy clearings near the parking lot were amazing, some of the holes playing through the forest were a little too "plinko" for my tastes, with the fairway not being fair. I'm pretty confident hyzer flipping up tunnel shots, but there were a few here where all you can do is throw it up the gap and hope you get fairly far before you inevitably hit a tree, and don't kick too deep. One hole I recall, the biggest gap was 3 to 4 feet (it would have been okay from the tee pad immediately in front of it, but didn't play very well from the harder tee). To put this into perspective, though, it's a 27 hole course and this is maybe 5 holes we're talking about where I'd complain some trees needed to go. Generally, there's a well defined fairway to hit even through the wooded holes. This problem is sparse.
The tee pads were a bit narrow. The grass was thin and since it rained the day before it was a bit muddy. Stuff like that. You really have to reach to try to criticize this course.
Other Thoughts:
It's a challenging course and I like that. I didn't play great in my 2 rounds here but that's what you'd want if you're lucky enough to get to play this course a lot. It would take time to learn the best shots for all the holes and put up some good scores.
What I'd give to have this as a home course... I could play thousands of rounds here with the multiple pin placements and never get bored.
It's great golf all around, and lots of variety. I am really glad I made the trip out. The drive through the state park to the course sets up some high expectations, and you're not disappointed in the slightest when you get there.