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Blue Rain Valley 2003
by Rand Herron
| Links Corner Course Database ID Number - 1110 |
Release Date |
CRZ Filesize |
Par |
Course Length |
| 2002-10-11 |
74,936,040 bytes |
72 |
7392 yards |
| Type |
Style |
CRZ Filename |
|
FICTIONAL |
PARKLAND |
Blue_Rain_Valley_2K3.crz |
| Course ID |
Course Key |
| e3f55bedd45948a6a908b5cb920e745a |
74b343809cf3503b4d8d8426d25884a2 |
|
LINKS CORNER REVIEW |
Reviewed by Joe Turner `Loner'
November 2002
This course, which is Rand's second, consists of a well-blended color scheme. The tee boxes have a faint pattern to them but terrible looking rim of mottled green-white 'clover', separating it from the dark 'tall grass' that is short enough to be an attractive rough. A nicely checkerboard fairway running into a fringe, first cut and finally the tall grass rough. This of course ends in the patterned greens (same as the tee boxes) and a mild fringe. The main field of the course besides the nice selection of trees with their heavy undergrowth of bushes consists of either 'dirt' fields, pine needles or 'dead grass'. The heavy bushes planted inside many of the stands of trees assure the immediate loss of your ball, nice touch. Most of the free standing trees have tufts of brush with small flowers that are deep enough in color to keep from giving them that floating tree syndrome. The course has that narrow feeling of Firestone that the designer was shooting for. What didn't I care for, the deep dark lines (extrusions) that are around the areas where two types of textures meet. They aren't very attractive and can give you an 'erratic' bounce if you are unfortunate enough to hit them. Just like real life.
The fairways while being a little over narrow on the majority of holes are quite easy to hit with my east testing conditions. The bunkers were small and seemed to be quite avoidable for the most part. They were well made but they had a 'dry grass' rim, pale in color, which just didn't seem right. The holes shapes seem to be the challenging part of the course, not the bunkers at the greens or the ones on the fairways. He had a nice stream and a few large bodies of water, both nicely decorated, that could have been put to better use as hazards and not only as decoration. On the overwhelming majority of holes the greens where slightly easy even with the interesting breaks but a few holes (the one on hole # 17) seemed to be very over-slopped and should have been caught by beta tester, if there were any. As a general rule you could say that the greens were on the small side, combine that with narrow well shaped holes and you wind up with an interesting course. Hole # 15, par 4, 286y, the green is offset from the fairway and there is an excellent chance for an ace here, if not then you have an eagle hole. I enjoyed that one, back to that in a practice loop later, must make an ace. Hole # 13 par 4, 438y, is as close to a risk/reward hole you are going to find here. Ravine grass separates the fairway and I found taking the right side seems to be the best choice.
The shadows on this course made it a most pleasurable round when combined with the natural beauty and the challenges you face on this course. As nice and interesting as the course is it could have benefited from beta testing and some minor but helpful changes, maybe the next one. With his talent for design and imagination I sincerely hope that there will be many more courses from this designer. I had a most interesting round of golf and in spite of it's size, which I'm afraid will be the norm with the 2003 tools, I found it to be an excellent download. I highly recommend it to you and hope that you will find it enjoyable.
Reviewer Note
I am a player not a designer and therefore rate a course as a player for other players.
Summary :
Included: read-me, cameo, splash, custom flag, ball washers, hole previews, custom tees, cart path, buildings and other objects.
Not Included: recorded round and hole signs or numbers.
Statistical Information: par 72, 7392y, 3 sets of tees, 4-3 pars, 10-4 pars, 4-5 pars. |
This course is available as a FREE download.
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