Pros:
Course with many curves cut through snowshoe trails. Concrete tees on almost every hole, with serviceable if basic tees signs with distance and map. Unmarked (on sign) short tees? are white carpet chunks off to the side of most fairways. (wouldnt recommend playing from them) Discatchers have the hated rejection bar, but because of all the blind tunnel shots on this course, yellow band makes them mercifully easier to spot without walking the hole.
Dual pins on almost all holes, unused sleeve spray painted red for reference. All distances and hole maps correspond to the short pins. I played them in all long pins. Trick to finding the long pins: most holes here follow the curves of the preexisting snowshoe trails for most of the fairways, then curve into the woods on one side or another of the trail to the tunnel-protected basket. The long pins typically amplify and extend the tunnels into the woods, so however the map shows the hole dogleg'ing at hte end, continue further past the dogleg than it shows and you're at the longs.
The trails this course plays on are mostly flat with some rolling terrain, but what it lacks in elevation it makes up for with extreme curves.
This course forces a series of sharp curves, both left and right, almost to the point of candy-cane shapes sometimes. However, the woods are thick and tall enough to keep players honest, and force them to play the curve, rather than needing mandos. That, combined with the tall tree stumps on the fairway, forces players to pull out some hard curves, both directions, and adds height to the holes that would otherwise be flat and more forgiving.
In the short pins, this course has many deuce opportunities, but forces controlled distance, and modest shot shaping to achieve these results. This course throws a lot of late trouble at you once you veer off the open trails. The first part of the fairway is open, but the basket is protected, sometimes quite tightly, once you veer into the carved tunnels.
The long pins on this course are tough, make no mistake, especially because its all par 3. Most longs force an accurate distance drive and a solid second drive or upshot just to get a decent putt.
Forces you to shoot through some clever gaps at the end to get to the basket, which is this course's signature and one it uses with variety to keep things fresh and add intrigue.
Forces more shot shaping for long approaches and second drives than it does off the tee, this course has only modest risk reward because of the lack of rollaway hillsides or water, but it makes the best of the location by guarding the basket well.
Beneath each basket, there is a small concrete block sunk into the ground with a NEXT TEE --> spray painted stencil in red. Very helpful, especially since there doesn't seem to be maps available for this course.
Despite lack of elevation or water, this course (like UW parkside) uses thick wisconsin forest to create an interesting array of challenges and lines. A solid course that I enjoyed and will play again, but still flat, and not as memorable as the really good ones, like its older brother next door.
Cons:
The edges of the trails have been carefully logged, in part for the golf course fairways it would seem. However, there are still the stumps of those trees 3-5 ft above the ground, so not quite clear. This tree trimming widens the fairways beyond the trails and shapes them for the holes. If and when they finish this project next year, this
The longs, while very challenging, sometimes approach boring holes, scoringwise, for this reason. Because of the kinks in the fairway combined with distance, even if u chuck 300ft with a nice hyzer at the end, you still have to drive again and get a curve to get a putt on the basket. Some of the holes should argueably be fours from the short pin placement, such as 420ft #5 or the 435 #10. Many holes are already in the mid-300s, playing all long pins adds between 40 and 60 ft to the posted distances on almost every hole, and usually adds another kink to the fairway. Seems like a few par 4s (on either course) would be justified, and make par achievable from long or short pins. One or two wide open 500ft holes on a par54 city course like Brown Deer is one thing, but a pay to play course with 3-8 wooded holes of 400 or more (dep on short/long pins) seems like it should just post a few par 4s. Not knowing the distance or location of the long pins was frustrating, and definitely cost me time in scouting holes.
Also, the logging that has gone on recently has opened up the fairways remarkably, but its also left a mess with tractor tread marks and trambled brush strewn about. Ground can eat a disc here, and eliminates ground skip distance after impact.
The flow of this course is mostly ok, but hole one is very hard to find. (See below)
Other Thoughts:
THe best wayto play these two courses IMO is to park in the lot marked for the DG course, and start on hole 1 of TR1, then cross over to after hole 7 to TR2 (hole 9).
BONUS HOLE: After hole 18, walk to the signpost in front of you. Looking past the abandoned cabin on the left, play to the practice basket, which is down the tunnel towards picnic table/fire ring area (short of the power pole, but tucked into right side)
Once you play the bonus hole, Teepad for Hole #1 will be to your left. From that main lodge, tee #1 is left.
You are out in nature, and its a long walk to play both courses, so bring water, food and bug spray if you are going to play the whole 36.