For better or worse, the County park that the Timberbeast course is in was recently "parkified" (for lack of a better word). The county brought in a brush hog and took out ALL the undergrowth and basically everything that wasn't a tree - and a few of those, too. Basically, you can see from one side of the park to the other, now. As you can imagine, this has dramatically changed the course, so much so that the locals that I talked to that were shooting about even on a regular basis are now shooting about 5 - 6 down.
On the positive side, this has opened up a lot of new alleys and the locals have considered changing a few of the holes, specifically holes 6, 13, and 15. They have invited me up there to check out their proposed changes and to possibly add a few of my own.
So the Beast will play a little differently, now, but that isn't always a bad thing as this gives us a chance to add a little bit of distance to a few holes, and the veg will grow back over the next couple of years, so this could eventually make the course better overall.
The more noticeable changes are:
Hole 4 - tee pad moved left about 20' into the trees to protect it from hole 3
Hole 6 - the short basket - has been lengthened about 120'
Hole 9 - the tee has been moved back and to the left about 35'
Hole 13 - hole right before the tracks - the basket has been moved back and left about 75'
Hole 16 - now an enirely new hole about 240' through a treed glade to a protected basket
Hole 18 - basket has been moved back about 200' to nearly the Caboose
There have been a few more less noticeable changes to a few of the other holes, but they shouldn't affect play much.
The County has just ordered 18 new Discatcher Pro baskets for the Beast. They should be installed in the next week or so and will really dress up the Beast.
Was able to make it up to Troy a few weeks ago to see the park after the brush was cleared and it's not as bad as I was led to believe; but in a few places, you can now see from one side of the park to the other. The course is definitly more open, but this can be a good thing in that now we have the opportunity to make some of the very short - and now not very legitimate - holes a little more challenging and also to possibly fix some of the flow/safety problems of crossing fairways and tee boxes. I'll post more info once the changes take place.