Mary Beth Doyle Park

I was involved in the clearing and design of this course although the course I was helping to design was never put in. Originally, there were 5 holes designed to go around the wetland (starting at the playground and working clockwise around the wetland) and the land where there is now 18 holes was to hold 13 holes. It would have been a fun course to play with enough challenge to get good players to want to play it. At the final hour ie when the cement trucks rolled up, the City of Ann Arbo ...
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I was involved in the clearing and design of this course although the course I was helping to design was never put in. Originally, there were 5 holes designed to go around the wetland (starting at the playground and working clockwise around the wetland) and the land where there is now 18 holes was to hold 13 holes. It would have been a fun course to play with enough challenge to get good players to want to play it. At the final hour ie when the cement trucks rolled up, the City of Ann Arbor declared the land around the wetlands to be off-limits -- obviously, this was very unfair to the official course designer who was now forced to make an on-the-spot decision and he chose to design and squeeze 18 holes in where the original 13 were to go.

Casualties of the redesign: Current Holes 2 & 3 was to be a single hole of 2's tee to 3's basket, a 330' drive to a basket on a knob. The land where Holes 13-15 are now was to be a single hole of Hole 13's tee to 15's basket, a 400+' drive to a small green. Holes 17 & 18 was to be a single hole of 17's tee to 18's basket, a hole with a cool uphill righty 360' turnover shot that played close to 400'. There was ample room to create good short tee shots, too.

History lesson aside, there are some good holes on the course along with a bunch of very easy holes. If you want to pad your ace totals, this course should be your destination as there are several sub-200' shots with little or nothing between you and the basket.

Pros: Good course for beginners/casuals. Good course to work on putter shots. Great course when you only have an hour to play. Good course to practice wind putting.

Cons: Overall, it simply is too easy for accomplished players and all the good players that used to hang out here when the old course was in don't come here very often. There are some casual doubles leagues starting up and it is a glow-friendly course so that might change. Also, because there are so many holes crammed into a small area, shots to baskets can easily invade the space of tees for other holes. What's up with the tee markers?, distances are incorrect on some of them and some of them don't face the tee.

I personally do not believe that 18 holes belongs on this track of land. Instead, I think a nice 9-12 hole course with 2 sets of pads that was friendly to players of all skills could have been put in here.
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