Hilltop Meadows

Me and the kids played the front 9 only, so I can't write a formal review on the whole thing. Pros: -Nice piece of rolling meadows to work with. Uses some old abandoned ski area on a couple holes ... show more ›

Me and the kids played the front 9 only, so I can't write a formal review on the whole thing.

Pros:
-Nice piece of rolling meadows to work with. Uses some old abandoned ski area on a couple holes too.
-Good pin placements on most of the front 9
-New Innova DISCatchers with hole number
-3 tees on each hole
-Good use of the terrain
-Hole 5 - WOW
-Tee posts on the front 9 are just colored and hand written. They do the trick for the most part, and "Next Tee" sticks are everywhere, but could be broken down easily.


Cons:
-Fairways are very narrow with thick, dense, tall rough on either side, which is why it took me and the kids 2 hours to play the front 9. I would've liked to seen wider fairways mainly because there are some long distance holes that you have to land in a 10-15ft wide fairway, and are brutally punished searching in the deep weeds if you're not on the fairway.
-Fairways haven't been mowed in a while, but weren't horrible
-Natural tee areas are very uneven, hopefully they can save up for some pads.
-Not a lot of different shot selection due to the openness of most of the holes, BUT you do have to be careful in your selection so that you stay on the fairway.
-No bathrooms or benches
-Tee posts on the back 9 are just colored posts. NO tee numbers or distances. We finished hole 9 and started looking for hole 10 and never found it. We started playing what ended up being hole 12 (according to the basket once we got there), then the kids decided they were done. While looking from basket 12, I think that I could kind of see the layout, which would put tee 10 to the far east corner of the back building.
-Hole 8 White throws over where people walk from hole 3 to hole 4, but visibility is good, so it hopefully shouldn't be an issue for the most part
-We did run across a couple ladies walking their dogs on a path back there, but I doubt pedestrian traffic will be much of an issue.
-Wind and summer sun could definitely be an issue as most of it is open

Hole 3 was weird to me. Seemed pretty straight forward, but once you got to the top of the hill, it looked like the basket was missing. We picked up our discs and walked down the only path that was there, then we noticed a basket. So, once you get to the top of the hill, you have to blindly throw over the nasty thick rough, with no fairway, to the basket. Kind of interesting, but you definitely need a spotter for that shot to have a 5% chance of finding your disc when it lands in the rough.

Overall, this course is nice. You definitely have to shape your shots to stay on the narrow fairways. Next time up up there, possibly in November, I'm going to play all 18.