Reviews: 121
Avg. Rating:
GG Park
6 Helpful / 0 Not
Pros: -Right in the middle of the city
-Beautiful park setting with all kinds of eucalyptus trees, wildlife, and friendly people a like
-Has a good variety of right hand backhand and side arm shots.
-A few ace runs and decent amount of lengthy holes as well.
-Your'e in San Francisco
-Well designed trails, tee pads, tee signs, and layout.
Cons: -It can get crowded on the weekends.
-Pedestrians sometimes walk through the course obliviously.
-A few of the holes back track through to get to the next tee which can be a little dangerous
-It gets wet, windy, and cold ( Pro or Con)
Other Thoughts: Overall this course is great to play almost anytime of the year. You can easily find parking on the outskirts of the park or in marx meadow. I would have to say this is one of my favorite urban courses, just fantastic.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful.
Great course, great community
4 Helpful / 1 Not
Pros: Well maintained even though free
Beautiful trees and elevation changes
Friendly players
Right in the middle of San Fran, in one of the world's great urban parks
Cons: Very few long holes
Busy even on a weekday afternoon
Other Thoughts: The course has a low ceiling of trees throughout almost all of the course, and lots of tree obstacles. Best for the finesse players. Bombers might feel deprived.
4 of 5 people found this review helpful.
Unique
7 Helpful / 0 Not
Pros: -Set in a large and beautiful park. For the most part, you'd never know you were in a city.
-Free!
-Parking not a problem
-Obvious that locals put the time in on this course. Landscaping is impressive.
-The back 9 makes for very good golf. Felt like a better test then the front.
-Very nice tees and signs.
-Trees and other plants in abundance and quite varied.
-You get to throw a nice variety of shots, and even get to pull out your driver and throw hard a few times.
Cons: -Lacks some of the amazing elevation changes and water challenges that other Nor Cal courses have.
-Occasionally finding the next hole was a little tricky. I hadn't been here in years. I imagine another go around the course would have fixed this. All the same, a few more next tee signs wouldn't hurt.
Other Thoughts: I can't comment on crowds, as we were there on Christmas Day. Others were there, but we never had to play through and didn't feel rushed either. This is a real gem given the property it sits on in a major city. Nice work by the local players/clubs to make the course look and play great.
7 of 7 people found this review helpful.
Happy Birthday to me
3 Helpful / 1 Not
Pros: Beautiful course. Plenty of challenging shots. And although challenging, still a lot of fun for a noob. Really well maintained. Nice shade cover and a cool San Francisco breeze.
Cons: Couple tricky shots with a decent chance of losing a disc. Can get a little crowded.
Other Thoughts: I'd been saving this one for a special occasion and my 32nd birthday seemed like the perfect time. Had great weather, my best round to date, and met 2 different groups of people that we played with for a few rounds. Good times.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful.
Beautiful Course
15 Helpful / 1 Not
Pros:
Scenic course located in massive Golden Gate Park. The baskets are multi-chain DGA MachIII's and the tee pads are concrete of sufficient size. The golf here is fun. The holes make good use of elevation (would you expect anything less in San Francisco??). Multiple pin positions enable this course to change from lefty-friendly to rightly-friendly to nicely balanced depending on the whims of the people with the keys. The tee signs had nice secure indicators of current pins positions (see picture in gallery). While not heavily wooded by Northern standards there are enough trees that you need to mind your lines to score well; but the "rough" is not so thick that you get torn up or have an unrecoverable shot. Nicely maintained course. Netting in place to protect downline teeboxes from errant throws. Benches on many (all?) holes will help when you're waiting for the group(s) in front of you to tee off. The park shares space with other recreation areas but is generally secluded enough that you won't have much interference from non-golfers. There are restrooms facilities in the park (one located across the street from basket #18). The street parking seems abundant even when the park is crowded.
Cons:
Really, really crowded with lots of noobs on a weekend. Several blind holes require taking a look ahead for first-timers. The basket on #14 sits on the edge of a significant drop-off which you're not supposed to be on because of erosion control... so don't overthrow this basket. #15 and #16 throw back and forth on each other so be extra careful here. The course flow can be a bit unclear with backtracking on #6-#8 and a long walk from #16 to #17.
Other Thoughts:
There are several mandos in place well marked with signs on trees, they're there for safety reasons so please mind them. Kudos to the club that maintains this course, you guys have done a fantastic job.
15 of 16 people found this review helpful.
Golden opportunity
21 Helpful / 2 Not
Pros:
The course is in the midst of a huge multi-use park, so you can forget that you're in the middle of a sprawling city. Clearly, thousands of hours of work have been put in on the design, landscaping, and ongoing upkeep to make this a beautiful course.
Design
• Terrain- I loved the great variety of mature trees including pines, hardwoods, redwoods, Eucalyptus, and Kumquat among many others. There's a good mixture of tree lined woods holes with mostly wooded mixed terrain holes.
• Multiple basket positions- the course has 1 tee pad with 3 basket positions on each hole.
• Fairways- good variety, well defined, many fun holes with a good balance of left, right, and straight holes.
• Elevation changes- lots! Most holes have some sort of elevation change.
Basics
• Tees- very nice framed concrete
• Signs- colorful, with basket positions labeled
• Maintenance- the local club does an incredible job of landscaping and keeping the course looking nice.
Amenities
• Steps, paths, and logs that mark out the fairways
• Tons of benches and trash cans
• Map- a useful map is available online
Cons:
-Directions to the first tee-- we found the general area of the park, but finding the first tee was very confusing, so we wasted a good bit of time and that was frustrating. The map didn't seem to match the roads we were on in the vicinity of the course.
-Crowded! Because the course is so nice, it was really crowded on a Sunday afternoon, with lots of people waiting on every hole. You have to be prepared for some waiting.
-A few navigation issues: There's a long walk from the 6 basket back to the 7 tee. From basket 16 there's a long walk to find the 17 tee.
Other Thoughts:
Course Level = White (most suited for Intermediate players rated 875-925)
I think that if I was a local I wouldn't play here on weekends afternoons because it's so crowded. But as a first time visitor I really enjoyed myself; the terrain was just fantastic, and I definitely want to play here again!
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A note about my rating: My rating is a subjective measure of my
enjoyment of the course, on the day I played it, and it is NOT intended to be a measure of the
quality of the course. My Enjoyment Ratings are given "on the curve" in relation to all other courses I've played.
You can read more of my review philosophy and rating notes at
Disc Golf Course Reviews
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I'm always trying to improve my reviews, so if you mark this review unhelpful or you find a mistake, please send me a Personal Message here on DGCR to tell me what is wrong with it. I'll be grateful for the feedback.
21 of 23 people found this review helpful.
Home Course, Favorite Course
1 Helpful / 13 Not
Pros: -You're in the woods in the middle of a huge city
-Extremely well kept
-Great community
-Constant rotation of pin placements
-Still very challenging after years of playing there
Cons: -Can get really busy on weekends/holidays
-The occasional inconsiderate supagroup
1 of 14 people found this review helpful.
Golden gate park
5 Helpful / 1 Not
Pros: - 18 holes
- all tee signs were there
- beautiful park to play in
- cement tee boxes
- lots of ob
- elevation changes
- cool walking paths
Cons: - tons of dog walkers
- Lots of people play this course heavy traffic
- wait to tee off a lot
Other Thoughts: Great course to play.. My friends and I loved the course and the general beauty of this park. id recomend playing this course to anyone. Lots of different shots can be used here. Just alot of waiting for bigger groups or backed up golfers or dog walkers. but if you avoid that its an awesome course.
5 of 6 people found this review helpful.
I left my heart in San Francisco's only DG course
11 Helpful / 1 Not
Pros: - Good use of select paths as OB and mandos to avoid hitting passengers. It's also an added bonus because it adds some challenge and intrigue to the course.
- Nice landscape--beautiful setting. Now this true recreation! Like a good city park, you forget you're in the city for the most of the holes.
- Front 9 leads straight to hole #1 and kiosk, which is nice if you're in a hurry and can't play 18. The back nine, IMO, is better than the front nine due to longer holes, greater elevation changes, and a few more "tunnel" shots between the trees.
- Intuitive course flow. Didn't even need my map, primarily because of the layout, but also because the paths are so defined.
- Great care of course, tees, signs, baskets, fairways, etc. It's obvious that there's a heck of a DG community in the city.
- A lot of pins are guarded by these cool gnarled cypress trees, which requires paramount accuracy on approaches/putts, and even drives.
- Great elevation changes on some holes.
- Looks like the 3 pin locations are changed regularly (note: love the little dials on the signs!)
- This is definitely one of those "mostly wooded" courses, with very very few playing out in the open. So, if you like wooded courses (as do I), this one's for you! Nice balance of doglegs in both directions satisfies right handers and south paws.
Cons: - Busy! I started played here sometime between 7:30 and 8am, and there were already at least 4 groups of people playing ahead of me.
- Potential to hit parkgoers despite the mandos, OB lines, and other precautions. Think about every throw!
- No incredibly stunning "WOW!" holes, but a solid set of 18 nonetheless.
- Lack of water hazards. I'd be nice if there was a little pond or drainage stream somewhere
- Some fairway overlap and crossing. Holes #5-6 and #15-16 come in to mind. An errant throw could easily hit someone on the other tee, not to mention people going between the fairways.
- Despite having excellent wooded holes, it'd be nice to see a hole or two that's wide in the open where you can really let it rip. With that being said, the geographical makeup of the park makes this hard to do.
Other Thoughts: If San Francisco only has one DG course, I'm glad it's this one because it's solid no matter where it'd be located. Nice design, lots of tree hazards, elevation, and variety of shots requires a nice bag to par. What makes the course particularly effective is its use of safety precautions (mandos, OB, etc.) so in the long run, we all win at this park.
I almost had a heartattack when I first arrived at the course and I saw "closed for tounament" signs everywhere. Apparently they had a tournament during the weekend and they didn't take it down by the time I played monday morning. Having traveled over 3,000 miles, it would have been a major disappointment to not play. Fortunately for me I got to experience this course and I urge others to do the same!
Memorable holes:
#4: Very very technical and wooded, as you habe to pick your gap in the trees and thread it through some really big hardwoods. Shot selection depends on the pin placement.
#11- Mando here requires you throw on the left side of a tree and clear a pretty steep ravine. Better have a disc that makes a nice S-curve, as you're going to need it!
11 of 12 people found this review helpful.
AWESOME PERIOD!!!!!!!!
2 Helpful / 13 Not
Pros: -Everything people, placement of tees to holes, area, and day.
Cons: -A little hard to find the disc, but who cares thats what makes a great course.
-I don't have this course here in Huntington beach.
Other Thoughts: I had a blast! I just wish i could have played here with my friends from home but, I still had a blast can't wait to make another trip up.
2 of 15 people found this review helpful.
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1 
1/23/2011 
8/29/2011
Review By: Olorin 
This review was updated on 6/19/2020
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