Pros:
Spinners on the Green - Disc Golf Pro Shop is the nicest pro shop I've seen. Several of my PROS will be related to Spinners, which is where you want to park, start on 12, and finish on 11.
Playing and parking are free.
If you return a disc Spinners offers a $3 credit in their store, which is a really big place with lots of stuff and was full of people when I was there this afternoon. The person who lost the disc pays $3 to get the disc back. I returned a disc there that I found and elected not to receive the credit so the guy getting his disc back won't have to pay anything. What a great service! They have a lot of used discs for sale for $4-5.
I met two local guys, Paul and Michael, who allowed me to join them and that always helps with course directions and other information. They told me that Spinners sponsors free beer at Dukes, a place right next to Spinners, every Friday night from 6-7pm and then there's a night tournament afterwards. There is a doubles tournament every Saturday at 10am and it's a random draw for your partner with a $5 entry fee so there's awards to winners and a separate ace pot. At 8am Saturday the over 50 group plays. There's a league every Monday and Thursday at 4pm. Winners get credits at Spinners.
I really like the small ponds, even though I left some plastic in there. None of the water shots, (1, 9, 11, and 18), force you to go over the water, but allow for a reward if you want to take that risk. I tried for the basket on #1 over water instead of the safe way on land to the left and that's where I lost a disc. In the description here it says, "Three small lakes come into play on 7 holes" but I could not see how water was involved in more than the 4 holes I mentioned. On #18 there's a long and short tee. Only the brave of heart and strong of arm would play the long tee with more water; not me!
The course did not play nearly as long as I expected from reading the reviews here. There are 4 basket positions for each hole and in the short positions, like today, none of the holes were distance challenged even for my noodle arm.
The concrete tee pads are nice and the tee signs are great with the exception that they don't let you know which position the basket is in.
Although there are not many trees to create lines to challenge your technical skills there are enough mature trees used as guardians to make it difficult for ace runs.
The course is set in a beautiful park that's well maintained by the City of Scottsdale. Because of this nice grass your discs won't get nicked up, like on other desert courses of dirt and rocks in the area.
Cons:
If I didn't have locals Paul and Michael guiding me it would have been frustrating to know which basket to throw at and also to find the next tee. Both of these problems could be solved simply and inexpensively by Spinners if they added a "next tee" arrow marker in each basket and put a washer on each tee sign marking which basket position is currently being played. Both of these are common in other good courses and would be an easy upgrade here.
Since it is a nice park and there are fish in these ponds there are non-disc golfers to contend with. On #9 there was a family having a good time and some were fishing. My preferred shot here would have been a RHFH to stay away from the water, but that's where they were. So I threw a RHBH and went over the water to avoid them. I succeeded on that one and it hyzered back to land.
Other Thoughts:
The course is very active with disc golfers. Paul and Michael told me it's usually got more disc golfers and that found discs here are always returned. A trio ahead of us let us play through. So they seem courteous.
I might give this place a 3.0 if it was just the course on it's own. I'm giving it a 3.5 because the value adds Spinners offers.