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Tropical Extravaganza
by Thelma Kothenbeutel
| Links Corner Course Database ID Number - 1094 |
Release Date |
CRZ Filesize |
Par |
Course Length |
| 2002-09-08 |
24,339,623 bytes |
70 |
7319 yards |
| Type |
Style |
CRZ Filename |
|
IMAGINARY |
TROPICAL |
Tropical Extravaganza.crz |
| Course ID |
Course Key |
| e46436ff4d8542f292c472ad0b07b9fc |
1cd733c6eab57ab6cf412d174aed4268 |
|
LINKS CORNER REVIEW |
Reviewed by Mike Nifong
October 2002
Course type: Tropical Extravaganza is an imaginary/fantasy course situated on, as you have undoubtedly surmised, a tropical island. The proposed location is not specified, but the course uses the Princeville pano.
Historical perspective: Tropical Extravaganza appears to be Thelma's first course. Released on September 8, 2002, in the absence of any fanfare, it garnered three user reviews before that section was closed, with a one-star rating (50-59%); in light of my observations, I suspect they were friends or relatives of the designer.
What is included: Not much, but the 18.4MB download size is pretty modest by current standards. We are given a very brief read-me file and the customary cameo and splash screen, but there are no hole previews. There is also no tournament option, but I cannot imagine that anyone would miss it.
Technical merit
Where do I begin? Mesh shadows are frequent and occasionally severe. Elevations and texture transitions are very awkward, and sharp angles and too-straight edges abound. The reflective properties of the various bodies of water are not set properly. Some of the holes (e.g., #3 and #4) are plotted too close to the boundaries, resulting in some texture anomalies in the main view (and some very unfair out-of-bounds placements). There are some scaling problems (e.g., carts and benches on #1, '8-foot-tall deer' on #2 and #18). An area to which no texture has been assigned is visible on #3. Objects float just over the surface of the water (the ship on #7) or up in the sky (trees on #10). Do you sense a pattern developing here?
This course advertises its lack of beta testing, and I cannot help but wonder whether the designer has ever viewed a tutorial. I am pretty comfortable in flatly asserting that Thelma has never opened anyone else's well-made course in the APCD.
Artistic achievement
To be sure, a lot of the problems here are related to the lack of mastery of the APCD. In truth, some of the views from the tees do not look too bad, at least as long as you don't look too closely. But it quickly becomes apparent that there is no real theme here. Yes, the plants are mostly tropical varieties, but the planting can be both repetitive (try looking back toward the tee from the green on #2) and haphazard (e.g., the palm tree in the center of the #15 fairway that the mowers can apparently pass right through). In addition to the previously mentioned reflection problems, the water to the right of #3 shows up as black - if this is intentional, its purpose escapes me.
The bunkers are, in a word, dreadful. The edges are usually rounded and then brought straight down, giving them the appearance of green concrete curbing in most places, but they are often not consistently done even around the circumference of a single bunker, and the irregularities visible in the surrounding textures suggest a very untidy mesh underneath.
It speaks volumes about TE that the extravagantly colored flowerbeds, whose excess I would likely bemoan on a well-done course, are actually among the more attractive features here.
Play value
Tropical Extravaganza is one of those golf courses that needs to be issued with a disclaimer: ' Any resemblance between this depiction and any real golf course, living or dead, is purely coincidental.' Both as fantasy and as golf course, it fails to deliver.
Consider the length, for instance. At 7319 yards, TE is on the long side of average for a par 72 course, so the par of 70 may raise a few eyebrows in and of itself. But of even more interest is the way that length is achieved. The front 9 (par 36) achieves its 4051-yard (!) length with three par-3's, the shortest of which is 209 yards; three par-5's, the shortest of which is 602 yards; and three par-4's, two of which exceed 530 yards. Even the back 9, which plays at a reasonable 3268 yards for its par of 34, includes a 504-yard par-4. And the problem of length is exacerbated on such holes as the 532-yard par-4 #4, where the extreme (and unrealistic) elevation of the green makes it unreachable on your second shot even if your tee shot is perfect, and the 540-yard par-4 #8, which has a split fairway with a wide swath of rock and tall grasses (that plays as a hazard, by the way) cutting diagonally across the fairway in the normal landing zone for your driver - your three (all unsatisfactory) options are to lay up in the center of the first fairway segment, forfeiting all chance of reaching the green in two; to try to overpower your drive over the hazard on the right side, understanding that if you go too far right or do not quite carry the hazard you will wind up in the water; or to try to land and hold your drive on the ever-narrowing sliver of fairway down the left side, from which the green is reachable.
In general terms, the following observations can be made about TE. The fairways are very narrow, with severe and unrealistic slopes, and there is little margin for error. The greens resemble roller coasters, and pin placements are often extreme to the point of unfairness.
I suppose it goes without saying that the three par-5's on the front nine are all unreachable. By way of partial compensation, the only par-5 on the back (#18) is reachable, and there is also a drivable par-4 in the 256-yard #12, which actually plays just a little over 200 yards to a moated green. It may also go without saying that the two nines offer an extreme imbalance, with the front nine playing, on average, three to eight shots (depending on conditions) tougher relative to par than the back.
I noted with some interest that two of the three people who gave user ratings to this course reported that they had scored well. Maybe so, but that was not my experience: my best score was -1 in moderate conditions, and my overall average here was more than seven strokes above my average for all courses. The computer players found it very difficult as well: under b/m/m/m conditions, they were +11 (+1 to +5), hitting 69% of the fairways and 65% of the greens; with w/f/f/d conditions, they were +61 (+11 to +19), hitting 50% of the fairways and 35% of the greens (to put that in perspective, the previous worst performance for this same foursome was a +16 under w/f/f/d conditions at that epitome of arbitrarily unfair courses, Devil's Island). This goes well beyond challenging in my book - the word tortuous comes to mind - and I believe a more apt name for this course would be '(in)Terminable Excruciation.'
Normally, I would report to you on how TE translates to Links 2003 and how it plays in RTS (the greatest advancement ever made in Links, in my opinion, but that's another story), but in this case you are on your own. I simply could not muster the requisite level of interest to find out.
The bottom line: Recommended to all championship level PowerStrokers who regularly shoot in the 50's in windy conditions at Devil's Island and who have been looking for an excuse to try out the challenge of Easy Swing. What? There are no such people? Oh, well.
Course statistics: Par 70; 3 sets of tees; 7319 yards from back tees; holes are not handicapped. |
This course is available as a FREE download.
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