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The Ghost of Jail River
by George Moore
| Links Corner Course Database ID Number - 1011 |
Release Date |
CRZ Filesize |
Par |
Course Length |
| 2002-08-25 |
23,422,148 bytes |
72 |
8245 yards |
| Type |
Style |
CRZ Filename |
|
FICTIONAL |
MOUNTAIN |
Jail.crz |
| Course ID |
Course Key |
| cd019820b7ac11d69d0a444553540001 |
9303df5dfe907bcc807b57ebe1458973 |
|
LINKS CORNER REVIEW |
Reviewed by Robert Rundel
September 2002
'Whoooooooooooo!' That's the first sound you hear on this course. Actually, the 'Ghost' in the name of this course is a reference to the 7th hole, where three grassy mounds in a very large bunker resemble the eyes and mouth of a ghost from above the green. Apparently the ghost also inhabits the 1st tee, since his ghostly noises are quite loud here.
Unfortunately, the ghost seems to have laid a powerful curse here: The Curse of the Cloned Trees! Everywhere you look, there are identical trees--big ones, small ones, green ones, red ones, orange ones, brown ones. There are cloned shrubs too, and cloned wildflowers, and cloned deer! I have never before seen so many cloned objects. Screenshot 1 shows an example from the first hole. There are 5 identical trees on the left, and 7 on the right.
And then there's the question of fairness. The designer says in a readme file, 'The Ghost of Jail River is a very difficult course, but it is also very fair and playable.' I'm sorry, but I have to disagree. I enjoy difficult courses, and I have played many of them. There's a point at which difficulty becomes frustration. I will present three evidences of this for your consideration:
Evidence 1: The 17th hole. This is a 280 yard par 4 (the shortest par 4 after this is 474). You can drive the green with a 3-wood. Except that you can't possibly stop the ball! The green is an island which must be 100 yards long, and only 10-20 yards wide, surrounded by an endless channel of water which flows around and around it. The banks are very steep (see Screenshot 2). In fact, you can hit a 5-iron or so up the fairway on the right, and end up with a decent chip to the long axis of the green. But this is an unreal hole that would never exist anywhere anytime.
Evidence 2: On many holes, the fairway has a quick right-angle dogleg to the left or right. The net result of this is that your drive is now across the fairway, rather than along it. Since the fairways are all narrow, to say the least, you have a landing area only about 20-30 yards long. It's not that your drive must be straight, it's that it must be a nearly perfect length to stay on the fairway. This might be an interesting challenge once or twice, but nearly half the holes are like this. And most of the fairways are elevated, with banked sides, so it's really easy to roll off into the rough, or worse the water, down one of those nasty stone embankments. See screenshot 3 for an example from the 4th hole (and note all the tree clones here!). Do you remember Devil's Island?
Evidence 3: The greens. I have never seen so many very long, very thin, greens, most of them tilted nearly at a right angle with respect to the hitting direction, and all with numerous levels and slopes. Screenshot 4 is an example from the 16th hole. Can you say 30 yard twisting uphill putt??
I haven't played Mr. Moore's first course, The Test, but at some 8100 yards it sounds somewhat similar to this one. I think Mr. Moore has some major talent in designing a beautiful and artistic layout; there are some really beautiful hillsides (except for the clones!) like the 5th tee, and a nice large rock behind the 1st green. I love his trees, if they weren't repeated so often. His APCD work looks good to me, especially his handling of elevation changes. But please, Mr. Moore, stop trying to prove that you can design a course tougher than I ever want to play. I'd really like to see another course from you, this time somewhere around 7000 yards, with an emphasis on scenic beauty.
Summary :
Details: Imaginary Forest Mountain course, par 72, 8245 yards from the back tees, 4 par 3s, 4 par 5s, 3 tees per hole. Includes cameo, eye-catching splash screen, no hole previews, custom panorama, hole handicaps. |
This course is available as a FREE download.
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