Amid the beauty of surrounding hills and forests, the White Lightning track at the Short Mountain Distillery offers a picturesque play that is also a letdown due to the lack of marked tee areas and frustrating navigation.

The White Lightning layout is a combination of wide open and heavily wooded holes. The first two holes are in the open before ducking into the woods for Holes #3 through #9, which are some of the better holes on the course. Parts of Holes #14 and #15 return to the edge of the woods, but all the other holes are wide open.

The wooded stretch offers several of the better holes, including three par 4s through the forest.

The White Lightning layout is near the Red Apple layout, which is clearly the better of the two courses, especially regarding navigation and teepads.

It seems like a strange Pro to mention, but since Shadrach's updated review in 2022, there have been changes and now there are no livestock, fences or cowpies on the course.

This course would be nearly unplayable without a map. There are no signs or teepads on at least half the holes. When my friend announced "Hole #1 starts somewhere around here," I was surprised. He reported having played it previously in a tournament, where small flags marked the natural teepads. We relied on the UDisc map and the little blue dot to guide us toward an approximately location for those tee areas.

The wide-open holes are bland and most of them feature no obstacles except moderate elevation changes. Sometimes the field grasses are at a challenging height, though most of the open land had been recently mowed and was quite playable when I visited.

The wooded holes were in definitely need of course maintenance. Knee-high weeds and briars were scattered about the fairways and there were some rough sections just off the fairways. An enormous tree had fallen on Hole #5 and blocked most of the ideal line toward the basket. The Hole #14 fairway was littered with lots of briars and appeared to not have been mowed in months.

The Mach 3 baskets are of mediocre quality and tend not to catch well.

The instructions request that visitors only play the courses while the distillery is open, which we did, though there didn't seem to be any monitoring of that request. We parked, walked around the restaurant toward the course and barely saw a soul on a Sunday afternoon. In fact, if you didn't know there were two courses on the grounds, you probably wouldn't detect that fact as most of the baskets are a decent distance from the distillery area and restaurant.

The course has seemingly had some changes recently, as the order of the holes for White Lightning don't align with the posted map. Also, there are reportedly a couple of connector holes between the two courses, but we didn't spot them during our rounds at Short Mountain Distillery.

Overall, the White Lightning course is worth playing once with an accurate map if you're visiting the distillery but the plethora of bland holes and unpolished layout didn't resonate well with me. I joked that if I ever came back to Short Mountain Distillery, I'd play the Red Apple course twice and skip White Lightning.

The more diverse, larger of the two courses at Short Mountain, the White Lightning features some great holes in a beautiful setting. (Updates: See first con below, and Other Thoughts.)

-Natural Beauty: Superb. The open holes have great views of the tall hills and meadows around, while the wooded holes are even further isolated from the rest of the property than the Red Apple course, providing tranquil forest scenes.

-Terrain: Mostly great for disc golf. Holes (1)-(6) and (17)-(18) are in rolling meadows with moderate slopes, (8)-(15) play in the mature woods like the Red Apple course with undulating hills and a creek, and the transitional (7) and (16) have a texture between the two and include a pond. A thrill to play on.

-Variety: The open holes don't have many obstacles to deal with, which is a knock, but overall White Lightning delivers excellent variety. The woods section doesn't get old with different shot shapes, lengths, and terrains, while the transitional holes play over their slopes with such natural unaffectedness that I've experienced very few other holes like them.

-Shot Shaping/Gameplay: Of the 12 holes I was able to play, the challenge and excitement of choice were always present. The meadows holes will have you driving; (7) will require great angle control and a nice approach for the birdie; (9) crests a hill and forces both speed and flight path control; (10) and (B) throw substantially downhill, with a creek green on the former; (14)-(15) are excellent two-shot holes in the woods. Probably an intermediate-level challenge that could deliver some great thrill if it was kept up.

-Bonus Holes: (A) and (B) were originally designed as connector holes so that you could play Red Apple (1)-(15), take a loop of White Lightning (A)-(15) and (8)-(B), then finish Red Apple. However, you could play the short two hole loop of (B)-(A) to make White Lightning a little longer. Since the holes had more the character of White Lightning, I listed them on this course's page.

-Facilities: Restaurant and Distillery on site.

Some major problems need to be addressed for White Lightning to realize its potential.

-Maintenance: The huge and obvious knock on my visit was that (2)-(6) and (17)-(18) were unplayable. The grass was far too high on (2)-(5), while the other three played through a horse enclosure and didn't seem highly safe. Regardless, out of those holes only (5) had a basket. With this setup, (1) is so far from the rest of the holes as to feel pointless, effectively eliminating the open half of the course. UPDATE: It basically didn't change from one September to the next February, which leads me to guess that it's unlikely to ever progress past having only half of the course playable.

-Amenities: Mostly lacking. The holes with baskets have decent Mach III's, and several holes had distance on their tee signs, but otherwise there wasn't much. Natural tee pads and no indication of fairway bends. On the plus side, spray paint marks the hole transitions pretty well, and the maintained holes all had clear numbers.

-Cows: Like Red Apple, there are cows on most of the course that leave pies. Some horses as well, though I didn't venture on that part of the course.

-Visibility: Some of the baskets are hard to spot from the tee. They could use brighter flags or more indicators.

-Tight lines: The lines in some of the woods are questionable. No single one stands out, but several will require choosing your 5-foot gap a hundred or more feet off the tee.

-Getting There: Like with Red Apple, I have no idea what the correct route to the first tee is. I found a way from Red Apple, but to get that far I had to hop a gate.

White Lightning has great potential. I think if they maintained the open half and added amenities and signage, this would be a 3.5-4.0 course and the main draw of the two. It's a beautiful tract and many of the holes are of an intermediate difficulty that makes for fun gameplay.

As a whole, the complex is really lovely, and I think the distillery is missing out on some leverage by not advertising and polishing these courses. Especially in something of a dead zone for disc golf (other than Burde Ridge, obviously), this is a welcome pairing of courses.

2nd Update: After some time and reconsidering, the state of the course is such that it deserves to be more in the top of the Decent category. The existing holes are fun, but don't hold up as well after 260 courses as they did after 80. With a makeover it could still be excellent.

* The course is located in a beautiful setting.
* Creeks and fences are used to delineate OB that is interesting, understandable, and fair.
* The land has interesting contours and this topography is used well.
* Even though at least half of the throws are in cow pastures, it never felt like field practice - every hole had some twist which made it interesting and fun.
* Distance drivers get a good work out on this course.
* Nicely executed natural tee areas.
* The wooded holes were well thought out - and still long.

* Temporary course - this course felt much more ephemeral than the Red Apple course (also on site).
* The wooded holes were not as well-groomed as the Red Apple course, but better groomed than many parks I have played.
* I think # 15's tee area might be too close to the #14 basket.
* As temporary course, you do not get amenities like benches.

This is a very fun and well thought out course. It does not suffer from the boring 'long hole in a field' syndrome. I really enjoyed hole 16, which requires a long, placed drive to set up a throw over a small pond to the basket. The hole offered challenge, but was not mean.
This course would be rated much higher if it were permanent and had all the bells and whistles it deserves.