To say I was stoked when I heard Torma Town had reopened, after a brief stint of being closed, would be an understatement. I had heard so many good things about the course, and I was really excited to check it out. Let me start outright and say: Torma Town delivered on that promise of a great course!

Being a private course there is some variance in the styles of tees: some are made out of pavers, some are carpet, there is a circular tee, etc. There may have been some slight variance in the baskets as well, but none that I really noticed - and the baskets are numbered. I don't think either of these things are a big deal, and overall they are fine. The tee signs did a decent job telling you if you were standing on the Long tee pad or the Short tee pad. This is something I really appreciate.

I bet if you ask everyone who has played Torma Town, each one of them will compliment the course on the variety of hose design. There is a nice mixture of open holes, technical & wooded holes, touch shots due to elevation change, and a few with some very daunting OB in play. This course will make you dive deep into your range of shot selection if you wish to get through it clean. Hole 6, as an example, can either be thrown as a flat shot with a late hyzer to reach the basket - or as a huge spike hyzer over the trees. This is a great hole because it is one of the few left in the Charlotte area where a spike hyzer is actually in play.

As previously mentioned, the use of elevation by the course designers is wonderful. Hole 5 is a scenic, downhill bomb towards the basket, and is definitely one of the highlights on the course. Hole 13 is somewhat reminiscent of a downhill version of "the Gauntlet" from the old Hornets Nest layout, followed by 14 which is almost like an uphill version. Hole 4 is another standout, very short shot, slightly downhill, but with OB and a steep drop off just behind the basket.

Hole 11 is a really cool downhill shot, with the basket stuck in the middle of a split tree. I am glad to see the course have an interesting basket location in play, but without leaning too heavily on this idea.

Many people have said that Matt Torma and other regulars at the course tend to do a good job of attempting to return lost discs to their rightful owners when they are found. This is something that I rather enjoy hearing. A good community can really elevate a course to the next level in my opinion. Which is especially exciting considering the overall quality of the course.

As wonderful as this course is, there are a few areas where I think the course could benefit from a bit of a facelift. One of the first areas would be the tees. I didn't mind either style of tee pad, pavers or carpet - I personally would probably prefer them to be uniform throughout the course. Although I'd say my biggest thought is that some of the tees made out of pavers seem to have loose pavers near the end. Maybe that is why the newest pads seem to be the carpet style, to avoid this issue in the future, but I'd hate to see someone roll their ankle on loose pavers.

The course would likely benefit from new tee signs as well. Between UDisc, DGCR, and the tee signs there are a lot of discrepancies in hole distance and it was confusing at times to try to figure out which was listing the correct distance on that particular hole. Better signage is always a plus, in my opinion.

As I mentioned in the Pros section, the course owners seem to do a good job of trying to return lost discs to their owners, but there is still quite a bit of rough around the course. Hole 5 is a great example of a hole that most beginners are going to dread. You have to have a decent throw here or you can end up in the rough right below the tee if they can't clear the initial section of rough, or even in the rough that creates the OB for Hole 7. It would be hard for Intermediate and Advanced players to find such trouble, but newer players might struggle here. There are also places around the course where I wouldn't be surprised if a disc were to be lost permanently, to where nobody would ever, realistically, see it again.

The biggest Con that I noticed while playing the course was the overwhelming amount of fire ant hills players will have to dodge while on the course. Large fire ant mounds were all over the open holes, every few feet. The larger ones were pretty easy to avoid, but some of the shorter ones I found myself tripping over. I haven't heard this mentioned before, so I am not sure if this is a seasonal problem, a relatively new problem, or I'm just a whiner. But it would be unfortunate if someone puts their bag down on one of these when they don't see the mound and end up in a world of pain.

Overall, Torma Town is an excellent course, and I am very happy that it is in the Charlotte Area. It is a course I hope to add into my rotation, moving forward. It provides one the more unique and fun layouts to play in the area. For now I think I am going to give Torma Town a 3.5 rating, but if the paver tees were fixed and the tee signs were fixed - it would possibly warrant a higher rating from me. If those were fixed and the fire ants could be dealt with, this course would easily deserve a 4.0 rating from me.

While I am still not sure how I feel about Stroke-and-Distance on Hole 7, I understand why it's being utilized on that hole. I feel like the two par 4s are really well done, and a lot of fun. If there were enough space, I'd personally love to see one more par 4 added on the course, but that would just be me being greedy. Because the course is already so much fun!

This is only the second private course I've played, and it was clear to me that the course owner has put a lot of work in on this one. I am really looking forward to getting back out there!

Favorite Long Holes: 5, 7, 13, 17