Elver Park Disc Golf Course

Elver Park is Madison Parks' largest community park, a 250-acre property in the southwest corner of the city off McKenna Blvd, and its 18-hole disc golf course is the only one on Madison's west side. Every hole has two basket positions, red for a shorter, easier line and blue for more distance and precision, so the same course plays very differently depending on which set you're chasing. The current par is 56 across the 18 holes, with two of them (2 and 17) set at par 4. A citywide disc golf permit is required for anyone 16 or older to play here, at $7 for a day or $50 for the year.

The course looked different as recently as 2023: holes 2, 3 and 4 used to send throws across a wide, open hillside that doubled as one of the park's most popular spots for exercising, picnicking and just sitting with a view, and the mismatch created real safety conflicts with patrons who had no idea they were standing in a fairway. Working with professional course designer Patrick Blake, the Parks Division cleared invasive buckthorn, honeysuckle and box elder from wooded ground east of the hillside through 2023-2024, rebuilt those three holes in the trees, and reopened the finished layout in June 2025 after a full reseed. The rest of the course shares the park with softball diamonds, tennis and pickleball courts, a splash park, an accessible playground and a winter sledding hill, so it stays busy with more than just disc golfers.