I'm calling this course good because of the location, flow and overall beauty of the area. Course could use a little love but we had a blast just finding holes. Tees are natural and most are really cool when you find them. Probably not a destination course but worthy of a play if your in the area.

For some it will be route finding, no baskets and uneven tees.

Mix it up

The Shady Rest DGC is set in large pine forest. The terrain is mostly level with just a little elevation to contend with. With ZERO signage, one player who seemed to know about the course, directed us to tee off from one area. Turns out, the guy was totally clueless and had sent us to the wrong tee pad.

One problem with this large pine forest is when you look out from the tee box, you're looking out at 100 pine trees. One of those 100 pine trees has either two ribbons or two thin painted lines, most of which are badly faded. I had a most difficult time spotting the target tree.

I finally ended up following this group of three teens. I was able to follow them for about five holes before getting totally lost. The first few holes did, however, have faint paths leading to the next tee. Then the tee pads are fairly rough natural pads which someone has outlined with a few branches.

No baskets.
Absolutely no signage.
Semi-dangerous, rough teepads
1000s of pine trees to try to locate which one actually is the target.
Difficult to Impossible to navigate.

This course actually has a decent terrain to work with. Unfortunately, this course has probably received less maintenance than any course anywhere. If someone would just put a little TLC to work here, the course might have a chance of reaching average status. The way it now plays, I can not in any clear conscience bestow an average rating upon this abortion of a course. Sorry!

The course plays through a nice pine forest. There isn't any underbrush to punish errant shots, but there are enough mature trees that getting off the fairways means you'll have to get creative to recover for a three. The land has some rolling hills that add some variety and challenge, with a couple tricky uphill shots and a couple fun downhills.

There is a pretty good mix of hole lengths, with a couple holes that play as multi-shot par 4s and some shorter reachable holes. Most of the holes play fairly straight, but you will need to work some different lines to have a look at deicing some of the holes. There are some chances to throw a tighter bending shot mixed in.

The tees are terrible, they're soft sandy patches that are rutted out and not even close to level. Many have roots and rocks sticking up to add a little more chance of a broken ankle. There is a walking and biking path that winds through a lot of the course. It doesn't seem too heavily used, but we did have to wait a few times for pedestrians to clear and there are some spots where you can't really see if someone's coming from the tee.

There is no signage, the only marks for targets are tape on trees, and many of the tees aren't marked at all. With no numbers on either it can be a little tricky to find your way around the first time, especially in a few spots with multiple tees and pins in the same area. If you don't like object courses, then the lack of baskets here will be a con for you.

This is a very approachable course. There are some longer holes, but no punishing brush and pretty reasonable lines to hit. More experienced players won't find a ton of challenge, but it's a pretty wooded park and there are some fun lines that make it worth a quick stop. This is pretty much the only option on this side of the Sierras, so if you want to play on your way up 395 you don't have a lot of options.

Tight fairways and a good mix of short and long pins.

No baskets or permanent tee boxes, although every tee is clearly marked with trails leading to each tee from the previous pin.

With a couple tweeks, would be a sweet course when pins are permanently established.

Pro's
This course is set in a pine woods at around 8000' elevation in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. There was fresh plants and flowers growing due to recent rain. Piles of volcanic lava rock were scattered throughout the course, though none came into play. Playing this course was like taking a very pleasant hike in the woods. A good mix of short and long holes, the shortest being 240' and the longest being 645'. Moderate elevation change on about 6 holes. About half the holes had trees cut to create fairways and the rest were left natural and you choose your own lines. The first 10 holes play roughly in a circle and you end up back where you started, a good time for a break if you need one. There are restrooms and water very near the parking/starting spot . The second 10 holes are more stretched out, but still come back to the beginning.

Con's
Where do I start? The tees are supposed to be trees with a single red band of plastic ribbon around them, but about 1/3 of them were missing. The only way we found them was to search the ground for the "tee area", which I'll get to later. After we found the tee, next came the search for the "basket", which consisted of a tree with a double red band of the same ribbon. Many of these were also missing; what we would do is walk down towards where we thought the basket should be and we would usually see the ribbon on the ground by a tree, so we would play that as the basket. There were a few that we just picked our own target because we just couldn't find anything definitive. Then it would start all over searching for the next tee.
The tee area consisted of a dirt spot with a branch or small log laying across the front. Most of these were rough depressions, sometimes with rocks and roots and the occasional stump protruding. Footing was equally bad whenever a second drive was needed on the longer holes. We really had to clear an area (pine cones, rocks, sticks, etc) before we made our throws.

This course had no risky holes--no chance of losing a disc--which could also be listed under pro's, I guess. No water, no underbrush, no black holes.

There were supposed to be 3 sets of pin placements, designated by red, yellow and white bands of ribbon on various trees. All this did was triple the confusion, since we only saw yellow and white occasionally. I think they should put the effort into maintaining 1 set before they think about 3 sets.

I could tell this course gets some play because we saw a few beer cans and various trash around, but it can't get much play from the locals or you'd think they would maintain it a little better, unless they're not motivated. Or maybe they don't want outsiders to play it, who knows?

Other
Don't even attempt to play here without the aerial map provided on this site, you won't even find hole 2, maybe not even 1.
This course needs some serious TLC, someone WHO PLAYS to take charge. Mammoth Lakes is a DG kind of town, so I was kind of surprised to see the shape that this course was in. Given the setting, the potential is there for a great experience. Unfortunately, it was somewhat ruined by the difficult, (sometimes nearly impossible) navigation, and the poor condition of the tee areas