- great elevation change
- lots of mature trees create challenge and necessary shot shaping
- some open holes mixed in with technical challenge
- nice Dynamic Discs baskets in good shape
- navigation is fairly straightforward; good use of next tee indicators
- nice concrete tees
- area mostly devoted to disc golf with high quality scenery
- dual concrete tees on some holes
- well maintained, especially for a privately owned course
- tee signs have color maps and are generally serviceable
- brooms at every tee for clearing pads
- nice built in screen to protect tee area for hole 15
- practice basket
- nice variety of hole lengths

- a few areas with some backtracking
- website for donations seemed to be malfunctioning
- some punishing rough with thorny areas
- a few long walks between holes, though generally well marked
- a few minor safety hazards with trails crossing fairways
- navigation between 16 and 17 is a bit confusing

Veteran Hills is a beautiful course in southwestern Wisconsin that is perhaps less well known because of the iconic Justin Trials a little ways to the north. It is close enough it's worth making a day of it here, at Justin Trails, and hitting The Pines in Cashton in between (guess what I did).

While Veteran Hills is objectively a very nice course, it didn't quite wow me in any particular way and I ended up scoring it about a 3.75. Justin Trails is the superior property in the area, although if you prefer more technical woods golf, Veteran Hills might have a slight edge in that category alone.

Elevation change is quite good here, and I particularly noticed it on holes 11 and 14. Hole 11 throws uphill, but the tee is dropped down a couple of feet from the earth around it so you really have to pull up and out of it. This was a fairly unique shot. Hole 14 is an awesome downhill shot into a ravine which is always fun.

Unlike most courses, this course had no garbage cans anywhere on the course and was specifically marked as a pack it out, pack it in course. I'm all for this design if people will honor it. The course was very clean so overall I was impressed.

Other amenities were decent, with a practice basket and solid tees, signs, and baskets. I didn't note any benches; as I recall it was only a few natural log benches but I may have just forgotten to make a note.

The hilly, shadowed terrain here can definitely hang onto some snow late in the season and I saw a few patches in early March despite temperatures going above 50. You'll get a bit of a workout here but it's not the intense terrain of Justin Trails. Still, the elevation change is excellent for southern Wisconsin.

There were a few trails crossing fairways I didn't love; it was pretty deserted for me but it was also 7 AM. Otherwise the area is devoted to disc golf. Navigation was mostly great with next tee signs, but there were a few confusing areas and a little backtracking. The only really annoying aspect was the very long walk from hole 17 to hole 18... feel like another 1-2 holes could have been installed here. Overall, the layout of this course is very good and uses the available terrain well. Many of the tees were shared, but some did have separate blue and red concrete tees which adds some more variety. If you like longer holes, the blue tees are a better option, but the red tees are still plenty challenging (I'd consider this more of a white and blue setup, personally).

Unfortunately, I couldn't get the website to allow me to leave the suggested donation. I didn't see a cash drop box or I would have just left cash - the owners might consider adding something like this.

This course has some good technical challenge and requires varied shots, but it is not especially dense in the woods. The middle of the course is quite open so there is a variety if you like more open holes. While most courses have very forgiving rough at the end of winter, this course has some persistent thorn thickets that you really don't want to mess with. Be on your guard. The plus side was in early March there were no signs of mosquitoes, ticks, etc.

Veteran Hills is definitely worth a stop, particularly if you like wooded and hilly courses. I think all of the 4.5 scores are giving it a bit too much credit personally, but it's a very fun course and well worth the trip.

-There are some great layouts on a decent amount of holes. The designer of the course did a great job in my opinion of making holes fun, offering plenty of challenges while also giving some ace runs. Solid design out here

-Signage did a good job at indicating where the next hole was which was important with some of the walks between holes on this course. Arrows on trees indicated direction of next hole.

-Some decent scenery to throw in.

-Decent baskets that all catch well.

-Nice variety of hole lengths and a great variety of wooded and open holes as well as some great elevation shots.

-Unmarked Barbed wire 5 feet off fairway on hole 18. I threw a shot slightly in the rough down near the basket, when I went to putt I brought my arm back only to get stabbed by a rusty barb wire fence blending in with the shrubs I had my back against. This is unacceptable, wire that close to the fairway needs to be marked by bright ribbons or signs. After my round I had to stop by a gas station to get a bandage and antibiotic as the rusty fence pierced my skin with ease.

-Early holes on the course had very difficult rough with chopped shrubs and trees pushed to the rough, making a bad shot difficult and brutal (see thorns below) to find.

-The rough out here contains several different species of some brutal thorns. Not only should you be concerned about getting snagged on a hidden rusty barb wire fence, these things punish shots off the fairway throughout the course. Plain and simple, the rough out here is about as rough as it gets, WEAR PANTS and LONG SLEEVES.

-There are stumps throughout most fairways. Watch your step out here, get too complacent and you will be doing a nose dive onto other stumps. They clearly had to "cut" this course out in about 50% of the course, making chopped stumps common.

-signs weren't always accurate for the hole design. The signs for the hole design are general curvy lines to give a guy an idea of where the hole is. I don't have a problem with basic signs giving basic hole designs, but at least be accurate on the sign. There are no trees shown on the signs, making it difficult to determine where the break (dogleg) happens etc. We found ourselves walking halfway up the fairway to find the baskets on several holes due to our lack of confidence in the signs. In general, you don't want to be doing that on a course with longer holes.

-Only 1 garbage at the start. This gets the job done, but still seemed odd not to have at least another 1 or 2 throughout the course

-Seemed like some long walks between holes.

All said and done this is a good course that deserves a play if in the area. I strongly suggest wearing pants to this course or plan on walking out with bloody scrapes all over your arms and legs unless you throw with lazer-like accuracy. I rated this course a 3.5 because you cannot rate in ¼ increments but it is truly is a 3.75 course. Since the current rating on the course was above what I feel it should be, I always go with the lower option and vice versa. They did a great job at bulldozing this course into the landscape; there must have been a lot of hard work put into creating the fairways as there are chopped stumps everywhere, making the trip factor out here a major problem. I can't stress enough how big of a downer running into barbed wire out here just 5 feet off the fairway was. Nobody expects to go find their disc after a decent shot and run into barbed wire blending into the shrubs just off the fairway. If there were signs, my group didn't see it. After playing this course and driving from MN hitting up disc courses on our way to Alpine Valley, my friend and I decided this is not a course we would go out of our way to ever play again. In fact, we kind of found ourselves wishing we didn't drive the 1 hour total out of our route to play it. It's a good course and great if you live fairly close (within 45 minutes) or are going close by, but don't expect to walk out of this course and be blown away like some of the other reviews have said. I have been coming to Wisconsin to hit up tons of the great courses this state has to offer for many years now, but Wisconsin has much better disc than this to offer in my opinion and experience.