Aesthetically beautiful as far as courses go. A stream runs throughout the course, which makes for manageable but challenging water hazards. Great use of elevation changes and the natural landscape. A few open holes that allow you to go big with drives, while there are moderately wooded holes creating more technical throws. The addition of 6 new holes that focus on more technical shots has only improved an already outstanding course.
Overall, a very fun course and great addition to the Chicagoland area.

Never found a readily available water source, meaning plan accordingly. With all of the outdoor pavilions and family areas, there are a few areas where people seem to be omnipresent and clueless as to what is going on around them.

While this is not the most challenging course, I personally believe this is one of the most fun courses in the state. I am excited for it to be a part of the state championship series this year.

Let me start with a disclaimer: I played and hung out at this park from my youth throughout my teens some 30 years ago or so. I always thought that it would make for a great DG course, and now my dream has come true!

The course is set in a wonderful scenic park, and mostly follows a small creek, that winds through an abandoned limestone quarry, which created the featured canyons. I have never seen this kind of elevation on an Illinois course before. You will be throwing off hills, across valleys, and along the curving creek.

The course also has large concrete tees, very nice tee signs, and all of the amenities that make for a great course.

On your way through you will see some other cool features like old bridges.

Wood chips cover the paths in wet areas.

The course meanders a little, but there are plenty of signs to make navigation a snap.

Not much rough to speak of, manicured grass fairways, and a good amount of trees, which are utilized perfectly to enhance the course.

The course is hilly, so I wouldn't recommend it to handicapped people, or people with a weak constitution.

I would describe the outhouse style restrooms as: "Enter at your own risk".

This is my favorite IL course, and I highly recommend it. It may not be the best course for beginners, as there is a lot of water, but the water was shallow, clean, and not too hard to recover discs from.

- Excellent, varied disc golf from start to finish
- Variety of shots required, and challenges that need to be faced
- Great equipment, Mach X's catch incredibly well and tee pads and signs are as good as you could wish
- Plays through a very pleasant park, simply walking through it without the golf would be enjoyable on a nice day

- Some longer walks between holes, notably 4-5, 12-13, 18-parking lot
- Public use park can be busy and a number of holes play close to or across walking paths
- No major water carry if that's your thing

The Canyons at Dellwood is an absolutely fantastic addition to the Joliet area disc golf scene. Playing through a beautiful park with its namesake features, The Canyons makes the choice of which courses to play during a day of disc golf in Joliet and surrounding communities an increasingly difficult in a very good way.

A healthy dose of elevation change, creeks bordering fairways and backing baskets, tightly wooded and more open bomber holes are all present and used to good effect throughout the round. The course is challenging without being frustrating, and really seems to reward good play.

This course does not have quite the challenge or valley shots of the nearby Highland Park, or the water carries of Round Barn if that kind of risk/reward is your cup of tee, but there really isn't much of anything to complain about as far as the quality of golf is concerned.

The equipment really is top of the line, after playing to Mach 3s (and really just about any other baskets) at neighboring courses, the Mach Xs are a delight. Over 3 rounds with 4 people, I don't think I saw a single good putt spit through or bounce out. The tee pads are large and grippy and the tee signs give all the detail you need before throwing the hole.

A couple of longer walks slightly break up the flow of the course, but a little extra exercise never did anyone any harm, and the course is pleasant enough to walk through.

I played on a day representative of what I would imagine is the busiest the park gets. A cross country meet resulted in dozens of middle and high school runners and their parents running along the paths and spectating. This resulted in us waiting to throw on a couple of holes, and deciding not to throw on 17. My other two trips to the course did not result in any disruptions to our round by other users of the park.

I've loved each of my rounds at The Canyons, and will certainly be putting it near the top of my rotation of courses to play in the Joliet area.

Update (7/5/2016):

I have increased my rating from 4.0 to 4.5.
The addition of Holes 6A, 6B, and 8A-8D, the new concrete Blue tees on many holes, new and updated tee-signs, and all the other improvements the park district continues to make easily bump up my rating. The new holes are great and add more wooded, technical holes that this course needed, and you can now play multiple different 9 and 18 hole loops that end back at the parking lot as well as all 24.

This is a fantastic course that just keeps getting better. Currently my favorite in Illinois.

The Canyons is a brand new 18 hole course in Lockport's Dellwood Park. The park is a mix of open and wooded terrain, with a creek and some limestone walls. The course has excellent equipment including roomy, level, concrete tee pads (white tees only), DGA Mach X baskets, descriptive tee signs and tons of easily visible signs pointing you to the next tee. There are natural surface red and blue tees to adjust the difficulty for beginning or advanced players. I played the white layout, and my comments are based on that layout only.

The thing that stands out the most about this course are the risky greens. There are a good number of baskets placed in close proximity to the stream that winds its way through the course and a few baskets on hillsides with rollaway potential. The terrain is excellent for disc golf and has been used to create several memorable holes with very few throwaways. The elevation changes have been taken advantage of to create fun, but tricky downhill holes and a couple of challenging uphills. Hole 16 (250' with a ~30' elevation drop) is the type of cliff shot that is rare in the Chicago area.

There are several two-throw holes to break up the standard par 3s. Of these 8 and 11 are probably the best. They are both in the mid 500's distance wise. For the white level player, this requires two well executed long shots to card a birdie three.

The excellent and thoughtful design extends to the paths. In several instances, instead of walking along the edge of the woods, a path has been constructed a few feet into the tree line. This keeps the sun off your head, and you safe from tee shots from the next hole. I love to see when a longer route for a path is taken, so that it comes to the back of the tee area instead of to the front. Paths are either woodchip or crushed gravel.

This course has a few issues, but none of them are major problems.

There are a few long walks between holes. They are well marked, but it breaks up the flow a bit.

The layout loops back upon itself in a few places. No fairways cross, and the signage makes it obvious which way to go; but this is still not ideal.

In two instances, fairways play parallel to one another in an open area (1 & 2, 16 & 17). These fairways are open and almost entirely visible from each tee. The chances of hitting someone are slim as long as people are paying attention.

A few of the two-throw holes feel like tweeners for the intended skill level (3, 4 and 17). On all of these holes, a good shot should get the majority of the way down the fairway, but be outside of putting range. The player is left with a routine layup.

Tee signs are at the white tees only. For those playing the red or blue layouts, this creates some extra walking if they want to know hole distances.

The Canyons is a great addition to the Joliet area disc golf scene. The park is very scenic and has plenty of fun throws. For a course that just opened, there are very few rough edges.

The course is not stroller or cart friendly for anyone but the truly determined. This doesn't factor into my rating, but it's something to keep in mind.

*2019 Update*
A lot has changed since 2014. The course has expanded to 27 holes and has added additional pin placements (sometimes with 2 permanent baskets) on several existing holes. Quite a few holes now have concrete blue (long) tees which in some cases really change the way the hole plays. There's a pro shop now. Multiple practice baskets.

I gave this course a 4 in it's original 18 hole layout and with all of the improvements it's easily a 4.5. The added holes bring more severe elevation changes into play and are accessed by picturesque boulder bridges across the stream.

Great clear printed signs that show the distance, path and OB and next tee direction.nice long concrete tee pads.brand new baskets,mix of long and short shots some uphill shots and nice drop shots.Also a few nice holes are in a wide open field changing things up before you head back into forest .Nice size 18 hole park.seems longer than most other 18 hole parks in area.Theres lots of garbage cans which are great to keep the park clean but also keep alot of bees when its nice out.Amazing views throughout including rock formations and creek beds.It really is a great new addition to the J-town/lockport area.lots of other courses near by make this a hot spot.Considring how new the course is it looks great alreadg and yet they continue to work on it everytime im there which is of course awesome!

Gravel parking lot isnt as nice as asphalt.No alcohol /cans permitted in the park.longer walks from some baskets to the next tee kinda break up the vibe of things.other than those minor things there really are no cons. At this park.

Thanks to the designers, workers, volunteers and the town of lockport for allowing us to have another awesome park and thanks for continuing to work on it for everyone else to enjoy! Cheers