Pros:
Set on open to lightly wooded rolling hills - terrain so well suited to disc golf, you could have thrown 18 tees + 18 baskets in the air and had a pretty fun course no matter where they landed. Throw in an experienced designer to think up some tricky placements and multiple tees and the result is a really fun course suitable for a wide range of skill levels and some interesting holes.
• Discplay: quite good with nice variety overall.
+ Elevation: Oodles of it, and used in several ways: big uphills and down hills, rolling hills, pins on/near slopes for roll-aways. Topographical changes come into play on the vast majority of holes, but a few play flat to give it some degree of balance in that regard.
+ Fairway types: Mostly wide open with some well-placed trees with a few holes that are moderately wooded, or start out open and become moderately wooded as you approach the basket. Some favor power, some favor placement, a couple require both.
+ Fairways shapes: reasonably varied, but not outstanding. Fairly open design doesn't really require specific lines, but allows for several routes and forces decision making. Some holes have well placed trees to take certain lines away but still offer a few different options, so you can sort of dial in as much variety as you want.
+ Hole Lengths: There a few opportunities to bomb as well as a few holes reachable from the tee, with a nice range in between. Distances are well balanced, especially given that the elevation makes most holes play considerably longer/shorter than posted, and there's always the alternate tees.
+ Risk/Reward: Several holes with rollaway potential... even if you reach the green in 1 or 2, you can pick up some strokes putting.
• Equipment:
+ Yellow Discatchers: easy to spot, pretty much brand new condition - you can read the hole # from a pretty good distance. Solar lights mounted on them for glow rounds.
+ Red, blue, gold tees appropriately challenge beginners to advanced players. Concrete tees for the golds were nice sized, level and grippy. Pretty much all the long (gold) tees were concrete, and I saw wood forms near the holes they still had to pour, so the gold tees should be complete pretty soon (might already be done at this point). Short & med tees were natural and marked with red or blue flags - not sure if they plan to pour concrete for those. Different color tees usually provided reasonably different looks at the hole.
+ Tee signs: provide hole layout and all pertinent info (laminated, but a bit flimsy). Next tee markers where necessary for the most part.
• Memorable holes: #3 downhill Ace runs... always fun.
#6 is a Scenic and long, open, bomber hole that plays down to a gulley and rises back up as you approach the tee. Elevation's not much of an issue if you can really bomb, but many players will have to throw uphill approaches.
• Routing/Nav: Laid out well with good flow. Loops back after 9 so you can easily start on 10 if you wish. Finding next tee was usually pretty easy, but we had to look around a few times. Had to check ahead to spot baskets on some, and threw to wrong basket on one (threw to 15's pin from tee #7 I think)... should've checked the tee sign first.
• Fairways were nicely mowed, well-defined and everything was well-maintained.
• For a course this open, there was surprisingly little tall grass flanking fairways to obscure discs.
• Aesthetics: Green rolling hills and woods in the distance create a very pleasant setting. It's a great place to feel "unplugged" as most of the course feels decidedly away from it all, except for Hwy 31, which runs along one edge of the property and was the only thing that kept me from being able to completely forget about the outside world.
• Extras
+ Disc golf dedicated - no other activities to be concerned with.
+ Porta-john by parking on the way to 1st tee.
+ Scorecards w/ distances (no map)
Cons:
• It's nice to have so many holes that allow a variety of lines off the tee, but that's not the same as having a few which force some specific lines and make you pay if you miss it. A few of those would have made for a more complete and balanced course.
• Map of some sort would have been nice, (on back of the scorecard would have been really nice)
• Not much shade on hot days - bring sunscreen and plenty of water.
• OB
1) I'm fine with using it to define a fairway and punish shots that land on adjacent fairways, but some of it felt artificial and "there just for the sake of being there" (particularly #2).
2) OB lines marked with thin, red twine; too thin (about 1/16") and not enough contrast to be easily seen from the tee. White or yellow rope that's thicker (maybe 3/8") would be much more visible from the tee. Not fair to land OB if you can't tell where the OB is before you throw.
• Highway is very audible while playing some holes - kills that "escape from it all" vibe.
Other Thoughts:
Wild Haven's a very scenic course that's pretty challenging and has a really high fun factor. Played the concrete (gold) tees even though I don't have the distance to score well from them, and still had a blast even though I ended up with a bunch of 4's and 5's. The blues were more suited to my skill level, but I have no doubt that decent MA1 players should be able to card 3's on most of the gold tees.
As open and hilly as the location is, wind's likely to be a factor here - being able to read it and use it to your advantage will bode well for you. Inability to do so will add strokes.