I had a chance to stop by and play this course yesterday after work. Each basket is marked with it's hole number on an orange sticker. For those of you who have not been to the facility the course is located at the Ernie Rodrigues softball complex. The first tee box was well marked and you are going to be throwing from dirt tee boxes. Make sure to bring your dirt shoes with some decent sole as you will have to climb up and down a bit. Each hole is marked with a clay tile (with the exception of hole number 6...broken by kids?) that gives you some idea of where the basket is and occasional distance in feet. The holes are not real long but are a definite challenge. Several holes go through trees and really make you have to think about your throws. The baseball fences provide a slight challenge. If your disc goes over a fence, you'll have to walk around to get it as you are not allowed to climb over. No worries because you always throw great, right? All of baskets are brand spankin' new and in great shape. You can see most of them straight from the tee box (i.e. no blind throws). The most challenging holes are #7 and #8. If you have someone playing with you, you will want a spotter on the left side of the hole as right handers will tend to land over there. On #7, I spent about 25 minutes looking for my disc in the berry bushes which have tons of thorns. I was able to find the disc after shredding my legs on the thorns. On #8, there's a creek on the left which caught my driver disc. Luckily, there were people looking for their disc that saw mine dive under some weeds in the water.
The course is brand new and will only get better over time. I'm looking forward to going out and trying the course again this weekend. For now I give the course 3 stars.
Pros:
- Conveniently located for you Livermore Valley wine tasters who like to chuck a disc on the same day
- Brand new baskets
- Great mix of challenging holes
Cons:
- Gotta search around a little to find the tee boxes with the pink markers in the dirt and the floor tiles with tee box number.
- Some holes (i.e. #3) are a little close to the baseball fences although if you're careful you won't have to walk around.
- Nasty thorn/berry bushes on #7 will shred you if you go left
There's lots of good info on the Tri Valley Disc Golf Club Facebook site at www.facebook.com/groups/TVDGC/ read more