Central Park Schenectady

Pros: Well kept course, great baskets, fun "loop style" layout where you get to really explore the park, technically difficult, lots of parking space, great use of signs for navigation from hole to hole as well as individual hole layout signs. This town is proud of this course. It is relatively new, and it is well taken care of. There are some really exciting "risk/reward" shots throughout the course. Here are some of my favorites: Hole 8 - Short uphill par 3. Pin located on the edge of ...
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Pros:
Well kept course, great baskets, fun "loop style" layout where you get to really explore the park, technically difficult, lots of parking space, great use of signs for navigation from hole to hole as well as individual hole layout signs.

This town is proud of this course. It is relatively new, and it is well taken care of.

There are some really exciting "risk/reward" shots throughout the course. Here are some of my favorites:
Hole 8 - Short uphill par 3. Pin located on the edge of steep drops where a missed 25 footer can lead to a 3 putt.
Hole 10 - Relatively long par 3 slight dog-leg left where the approach goes over a muddy creek at about 290 feet. If you try to snake a drive up close and miss even slightly, you'll either find hazard or be in woods trouble on the left.
Hole 14 - Relatively short par 4. Elevated tee shot into a mess of trees. The risk comes on the approach assuming you have a descent tee shot. You often have to bend a 180' throw through trees to get close and if you end up hitting one of them, you have a 120' up and down just to save par.
Hole 17 - Short dog leg right par three. Definitely a forehand thrower's hole, but if you turn over a midrange flick and lose it to the left you fall off a huge ridge with moderate vegetative growth, making for a super difficult par.

Cons:
The course is built into an existing park so it is not uncommon to encounter fellow park goers just "hanging out" in the middle of fairways or walking their dogs through the course, etc.

There were very few trees cleared for the course (if any), so a lot of drives are sort of just "rip and pray" situations. Often times you'll throw an excellent throw that just doesn't fortunately avoid the numerous trees downfield (holes 1 and 11 particularly.

The course is also somewhat short, and even the long holes require a combination of short controlled throws. Not a single hole where you can really let one fly.

No trash cans, No convenient bathrooms that I could find :(
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After living in New York for 2 years now, and playing this course close to 50 times, I'm way overdue for my review. Normally, I'd give this course a B+, but with the close proximity to Hyzer Creek and Joralemon Park, it scores a bit lower. A couple of the holes are real spray and pray, more-so for novices, with no realistic way to duplicate birdies consistently. Most of the holes are very fun and deuce-able, the flow of the course is great with great signage. This course could be improved wit ...
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After living in New York for 2 years now, and playing this course close to 50 times, I'm way overdue for my review. Normally, I'd give this course a B+, but with the close proximity to Hyzer Creek and Joralemon Park, it scores a bit lower.

A couple of the holes are real spray and pray, more-so for novices, with no realistic way to duplicate birdies consistently. Most of the holes are very fun and deuce-able, the flow of the course is great with great signage. This course could be improved with better tees and maintenance, different pin locations (move them around sometimes, extra sleeves.) I think it will get better, and while it might never be one of the top courses in NY, it's certainly worth playing over and over again. Last winter (2013-2014) most of the course was a sheet of ice and was basically unplayable for months. It's tough and challenging from the blue (pro) tees and easier from the white (am) tees, IF you can find all the white tees! Better to bring a local guy with you for your first time, even in a somewhat crowded city park.
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First time we played this course today ... very difficult to find tees after baskets at times (thankful for my iPhone) ... and sometimes the basket to tee is further apart that two holes alone .. often having to walk backwards down a hole to find the next tee box. The first and second hole were inundated with sweat bees today everywhere ... awkward water in certain places on the course as well. I will give it a thumbs up on the white and blue tees, but again finding the tees is not straightf ...
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First time we played this course today ... very difficult to find tees after baskets at times (thankful for my iPhone) ... and sometimes the basket to tee is further apart that two holes alone .. often having to walk backwards down a hole to find the next tee box.

The first and second hole were inundated with sweat bees today everywhere ... awkward water in certain places on the course as well. I will give it a thumbs up on the white and blue tees, but again finding the tees is not straightforward. There is plenty of room to expand this course too, and hole layout could be better improved. It has DisCatcher baskets and they are well taken care of; some paved tees and trails are pretty good. But there was lots of trash (i.e. broken beer bottles) at various points.
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