Springvale Park

Pros - Lovely piece of land - Tucked back off the highway, this beautifully maintained, multi-use park has mowed trails, paved trails, beautiful trees and natural plants. Makes for a very pleasant w ... show more ›

Pros -
Lovely piece of land - Tucked back off the highway, this beautifully maintained, multi-use park has mowed trails, paved trails, beautiful trees and natural plants. Makes for a very pleasant walk in the park.
Quiet - Despite being beautiful and with various usage options, I have never seen more than a handful of people here at a time. I was able to let my dog run around, no problem.
Paved teepads, long and short - Every hole has a paved long and short tee box.
Hole variety - Despite my beef (below) with hole design, there’s no question that there is an excellent variety of shots on this course, including several par 4’s which is always a treat.
Signage - Every tee box has its own sign with the footage and location of the other tee box. UDisc seemed to generally agree with the distances on the sign, and I was happy with my shot selection based on the information.
Lost/Found - I lost a disc here once and the grounds people called me. When I went to get it, they had plenty of discs. It’s always nice to have people call!
Beginner friendly - The short tees are much easier, making it a pretty good course for those just getting into the sport. I threw a bogey-free round and -9 from the shorts. I had some good shots and some bad shots. I don’t play enough tournaments to know my rating precisely, but I’m probably about a 925. (For added context I threw +5 from the longs)

Cons -
Short tee pads - On the < 300 foot holes they’re fine. However, this course has several long par 3’s and par 4’s. A nine foot long tee box is just too short. They’re also regularly slightly lifted so starting a run-up in the grass is at best awkward and more likely a tripping hazard.
Disc eating holes - I’ve only played this course in the summer and early fall, but the number of ways to lose discs on this course is insane. There are swamps, lakes, thick woods, and belly-high grass. Bring a kid along and pay them $20 to spot. You’ll save $50 by not needing to replace lost plastic.
Signage - It’s a pretty big park and has multiple trails for different activities. To get from the basket to the next tee box, most (all?) holes have a sign with an arrow to the next hole. This isn’t always sufficient. (I’ve never seen anybody write “too many signs” in the con section of any review. Why don’t more courses put up an abundance of signage??)
Mostly boring baskets - With only a couple of exceptions, the baskets aren’t guarded around the green in an interesting or fair way. It’s all fairway work on this course.
Bugs - At the height of summer, the deer flies are so bad that the course is literally unplayable. With the lakes and the tall grass, there are tons of bugs and little garter snakes around. Some bugs don’t bother me too much, but I could see it being frustrating for others.
One big loop - Small complaint, but it strikes me every time I play here. I know many courses don’t have two 9-hole loops, but this course would be perfect for two loops. It’s off the highway, so a commuter could pop off for 9 holes. Or, with the bugs, you could play one loop without going absolutely crazy. The course is long, it took me almost 2 hours to play. With the layout, you’re so far away from the parking lot that it’s a long walk back to the car if you need or want to bail early.
Course design - I know this is a broad complaint, but I found myself frustrated over and over again with the use of space. Ultimately whoever designed this course had some good ideas and then ruined several holes with things like a tree right off the tee box, sticking a couple random trees in the middle of the fairway so you can’t shape shots, putting a wall of trees up, putting disc-eating hazards in the worst possible positions, and generally having things in play that will swat down good shots with an unfair hazard. On several holes I stood on the tee box feeling like I had absolutely zero good options. It was so frustrating, especially on such a beautiful piece of land. On the other hand, some holes were so boring that I found myself shaking my head. Good courses have holes with options, pars that make sense, and reward players for consistently making good shots. You can have tight fairways, tall grass, long holes, whatever. But you can’t make it so that my good shot is worthless because I didn’t hit a random gap between some trees in the fairway that don’t belong there.

Other Thoughts -

I vacation in this area almost every summer. I will probably keep playing this course because it’s so, so close. But I will likely bop between the shorts and the longs based on what’s more fun and would keep me from losing discs. I would not recommend making a special trip to play this course, but if you’re in the area and it’s not deer fly season then give it a go.

I always try to answer the question “what would my game be like if this were my home course and played here several times a month?”. Honestly? I’m just not sure. Playing the shorts would be too easy, and I think I’d just develop a solid putter and mid-game off the tee. I’m tempted to say that the longs would give me a well-rounded game thanks to the variety of hole sizes and shapes. But I think the things that make me frustrated about this course would add up. Would I really be able to develop a long game if I were constantly manipulating how I was throwing to accommodate for unfair hazards and short tee boxes? Could I throw my approaches with confidence since I know that I’m at the mercy of random trees in the fairway? Could I develop a good variety of putting skills and stances with the wide open greens? And could I develop a rhythm and a sense of the discs in my bag if I were constantly looking for and ultimately losing discs? I think what I would ultimately develop is a weird knack for being good at THIS course and then possibly struggling on other courses. It would be like learning a language in a classroom. All the pieces are there, but there’s a lack of fluency, you know?

I did a hole-by-hole on my phone during my last round because I wanted to make sure I could accurately explain why I feel the way I feel about this course. I thought I might as well share it here. They are mostly brief and play on on my points above.

1L - I think this is one of the most interesting holes on the course. Long but straight with room to shape the shot correctly.
1S - Boring. All the fun is gone.
2L - Disc-eater (tall grass & swamp) with some risk/reward. Can get windy.
2S - Good risk for a beginner with tall grass in play.
3L - Some choice here with FH v BH fairways. Tall grass on the right, water hazard on the left.
3S - Choice gone, but good practice for a FH or a RBH left-to-right drifter.
4L - One of my favorite holes on this course. It’s a 250 foot downhill shot right at the basket which is all of 15 feet in front of the lake.
4S - Same as the long but just shorter
5L - Called “Diablo” and for good reason. Par 4. Very tough but I’d say fair. Sharp dog leg right with a swamp at the bend. Either lay up with a BH or throw a 200+ foot FH into the LZ. Nasty rough in play off the tee.
5S - Still a par 4 but 365 feet. Probably a good distance for a beginner. Good fairway but some “WTF why are these here?” trees and some good trees, too!
6L - 200’ hole over a swamp. Ace run.
6S - Just shorter.
7L - Par 4. I’ve lost a couple of discs on this hole. Tall grass and a very tight fairway. Plays like a ball golf hole.
7S - Listed as a par 4, but I’d call it a “par 3.5” Too far for a 2, too short to get anything but a 3 or 4. Feels like the long tee but just a little closer.
8L - This is the first hole where I was like “Why? Why did they do this?” It’s an interesting shape overall, but you can’t shape a shot to the hole because of trees in all the wrong places. I teed off twice here: I parked it once (just missed the “fairway trees”) and then the other one I hit the first fairway tree.
8S - I actually thought the short was more interesting. It removes one BS tree and turns the other one into a fairway splitter, giving you a choice. Fun hole from the short.
9L - Narrow tunnel shot that ends on the right. No complaints.
9S - Same but easier. Good for beginners.
10L - Par 4, dog leg left. This 600 foot monster is ridiculous. You play over a small valley with the other hilltop sitting about 300 feet away, but the trees at the bottom of the valley have branches that make you throw into the hillside. Then there’s a tree right off the short tee box about 100 feet in front of the long box which makes it ridiculous to try and shape a low-flying laser under the branches to try and get as high up the other hill as possible. Throwing up and around the corner is completely blind with a ditch in play. Once you get up the hill, there’s a spray-and-pray situation with a wall of trees between you and the basket. This hole could be so much better.
10S - Almost all of my complaints from the long are still in play, but that tree that’s 100 feet in front of the long box is just off the corner of the short which means you can’t really take a big rip off the short box to get up the hill and around the corner. So frustrating.
11L - Disc eater. Field hole where the “fun” is throwing over belly high grass to the basket surrounded by more belly high grass. Ugh.
11S - Shorter but still the grass everywhere. Some big bushes were in play which force you to go high to the left or right, putting the tall grass in play big time.
12L - This hole is ridiculous. 365 feet with a swamp between 300 - 350 feet, a 30 - 40 foot strip of short grass on the near side of the swamp, and then more belly-high grass everywhere else. Those are some pretty undesirable choices. If you can use the small box to get a good rip off to clear the swamp, a spray-and-pray wall of trees is there at 355 feet. Good luck! Literally nothing about this hole is fun.
12S - I think this was 255 feet. So you’re closer to the swamp but it’s still in play, especially for a beginner. If you have enough arm to clear it then you just have to get lucky past the trees.
13L - This hole looks like #4 at Blue Ribbon Pines: a pretty tight tunnel shot with trees perfectly lined up on either side. It’s a long par 3 for a tunnel shot, about 350 if I recall. However, right at the end of the tunnel is a big ol’ tree. So stupid.
13S - A more normal tunnel shot with the basket about 40 feet to the left at the end of the tunnel. Fun hole for a beginner!
14L - Shorty (225 or something) flick hole with trees all over the fairway. Uggghh.
14S - Same but shorter. Tree right off the tee box again.
15L - More field-y hole with some spray-and-pray but a wider gap that is playable.
15S - The angle on this makes the spray-and-pray trees into small fairways that give you a choice when you tee off. I liked this one, actually.
16L - Signature hole. Par 4. Plays like ball golf with a big, mowed fairway and tall trees and rough on either side. Beautiful but boring.
16S - Same but shorter than longs.
17L - Shorter hole (225ish). This one plays over a smaller swamp, but there’s a tree about 75 feet off the tee box that’s just silly. It adds an unnecessary layer of frustration to a boring hole.
17S - At sub-200’ and no obstructions, this hole is so boring. The swamp isn’t even really in play. If they tied a sharpie to this hole for people to sign the discs they used when they aced this hole, it would be dried out in a month.
18L - Field hole. No obstructions. So, so boring.j
18S - Same but shorter. zzzzzzzz