What can I say... I would love to give this course a much better review as it was designed by "Steady" Ed Hedrick himself, but I can't. The property this course is on, is absolutely beautiful and I am really happy that this course still remains in the ground after all these years. I am 37 years old and this course was designed before I was even born so this is an old school course. With that being said, you can definitely tell that this is an old one as soon as you start playing it. The baskets look as though they may even be the original baskets that were put there. If the local DG scene is trying to keep this one as close to the way Steady Ed wanted it to be, then hats of to them for allowing that to be. However if this is not the case and this course is the way it is solely due to neglect, then it is horrible. Several of the baskets are broken with the cages either laying on the ground or very close to it. The fairways looked to be fairly well manicured with no huge issues that I noticed. However, you do NOT wan't to get off the fairway on this course. It is pretty hard to do to be honest but when I sailed past Hole 1's basket and into the woods on my horrible upshot, it took me quite some time to get to my disc even though I could see it as soon as I stepped up to the wooded area. All of the baskets are single-chain baskets and catch about as good as a brick wall. This, once again, could be due to the baskets possibly being the original baskets and in that case, I applaud that. Each basket has a large 10' concrete circle around them which could definitely cause some damage to your putters, especially if you are using a stiffer baseline plastic. I use a super soft rubbery blend for putting (RPM Magma Soft) so I didn't really notice any issues but I could see how a stiffer putter could get some big gashes from the concrete circles. Another thing I couldn't get past was the par's on the course. All of the holes were marked as Par 4's except for one 3 and one 5 and if I am not mistaken, there is not a single hole over 300'. This I assume is also due to the age of the course and the discs (Frisbees) that were once used for this course. Normally, I would just ignore the par's but I had driven 4.5 hrs and went right to it without practicing. Due to this, and the age/condition/style of the baskets, I played them as they were listed. Laugh at me... I don't mind. Overall, this course design is pretty fun and has a really good mix of holes for it being such a short 9 hole course but this definitely isn't a course that I would ever play again, even if in the area. I am from TN and just hit this course on a weekend trip to Idlewild in KY so it wasn't like this spot was the reason for my trip. I searched to find a short 9 hole course in OH so I could play at least one quick round in OH and yes I saw the course reviews before I played the course. Seeing that this course was designed by Steady Ed is really the only reason I settled on playing this one and even though it wasn't anywhere near the best course I have ever played, I am super happy that I've got this one on my list now because of it's history. If you are near the area, definitely hit this one up at least once so you can play an original Steady Ed design but don't expect the course to blow your mind. In the end of this review, I would just like to say that if I were local to the area, I would probably hit this course from time to time to get a super quick 9 in and to design my own safari holes to play because the land is beautiful and the park seemed to be rather dead. If you would like to see this course on video, please consider checking out the video I have attached below from my round at Embshoff Woods:
https://youtu.be/0TwIt8c_-o4
What can I say... I would love to give this course a much better review as it was designed by "Steady" Ed Hedrick himself, but I can't. The property this course is on, is absolutely beautiful and I am really happy that this course still remains in the ground after all these years. I am 37 years old and this course was designed before I was even born so this is an old school course. With that being said, you can definitely tell that this is an old one as soon as you start playing it. The baskets look as though they may even be the original baskets that were put there. If the local DG scene is trying to keep this one as close to the way Steady Ed wanted it to be, then hats of to them for allowing that to be. However if this is not the case and this course is the way it is solely due to neglect, then it is horrible. Several of the baskets are broken with the cages either laying on the ground or very close to it. The fairways looked to be fairly well manicured with no huge issues that I noticed. However, you do NOT wan't to get off the fairway on this course. It is pretty hard to do to be honest but when I sailed past Hole 1's basket and into the woods on my horrible upshot, it took me quite some time to get to my disc even though I could see it as soon as I stepped up to the wooded area. All of the baskets are single-chain baskets and catch about as good as a brick wall. This, once again, could be due to the baskets possibly being the original baskets and in that case, I applaud that. Each basket has a large 10' concrete circle around them which could definitely cause some damage to your putters, especially if you are using a stiffer baseline plastic. I use a super soft rubbery blend for putting (RPM Magma Soft) so I didn't really notice any issues but I could see how a stiffer putter could get some big gashes from the concrete circles. Another thing I couldn't get past was the par's on the course. All of the holes were marked as Par 4's except for one 3 and one 5 and if I am not mistaken, there is not a single hole over 300'. This I assume is also due to the age of the course and the discs (Frisbees) that were once used for this course. Normally, I would just ignore the par's but I had driven 4.5 hrs and went right to it without practicing. Due to this, and the age/condition/style of the baskets, I played them as they were listed. Laugh at me... I don't mind. Overall, this course design is pretty fun and has a really good mix of holes for it being such a short 9 hole course but this definitely isn't a course that I would ever play again, even if in the area. I am from TN and just hit this course on a weekend trip to Idlewild in KY so it wasn't like this spot was the reason for my trip. I searched to find a short 9 hole course in OH so I could play at least one quick round in OH and yes I saw the course reviews before I played the course. Seeing that this course was designed by Steady Ed is really the only reason I settled on playing this one and even though it wasn't anywhere near the best course I have ever played, I am super happy that I've got this one on my list now because of it's history. If you are near the area, definitely hit this one up at least once so you can play an original Steady Ed design but don't expect the course to blow your mind. In the end of this review, I would just like to say that if I were local to the area, I would probably hit this course from time to time to get a super quick 9 in and to design my own safari holes to play because the land is beautiful and the park seemed to be rather dead. If you would like to see this course on video, please consider checking out the video I have attached below from my round at Embshoff Woods:
https://youtu.be/0TwIt8c_-o4