Aldrich Park is beautiful, spacious, and about perfect for disc golf, as long as you go there when students aren't around, which I did on a late Saturday afternoon. Here's the apt description Google gives the park: "Circular, 19-acre botanical garden in the center of UC Irvine, site of many ceremonies & events."

Object disc golf! I've always avoided disc golf courses that do not have baskets. But I've had a paradigm shift after playing to concrete street posts all around Aldrich Park with different varieties of colored tape on them. One benefit to object golf is that all you need to do is hit the object. I've missed many birdies and a few aces in the past when my disc hit the chains and did not stay in the basket. That problem goes away throwing at an object. I heard some object courses have an audible gong when you hit the object, but none of that here.

The park is not flat. It is kinda like a 19 acre bowl with ups and downs throughout. Therefore there are elevation shots galore.

There are a lot of mature trees that add to the challenge.

I haven't been on a Sunday morning yet but it sounds like that's when the locals come out in force. I can't verify that.

There are FOUR different courses here. The information says to study the course maps beforehand, which cannot be emphasized enough. I just played safari since I had not studied the maps and that was fine for me on my first trip.

People will likely be around at any point in time because this is such a nice park in the middle of a university. But if you compare that to the options in Southern California for disc golf (Huntington Beach, La Mirada, or El Dorado) then UCI looks really good if you can miss the busy times there.

Since this is a university I'm surprised all the distances have not been calculated and entered for all 4 courses. Come on students! You're tempting me to go back with a GPS and do your job for you.

mashnut, one of the senior reviewers of this site, gives this place 1 disc. I agree with his pros and his cons, but compared to the other Southern California courses (mainly Orange County) I think it deserves a 3.5.