| Links Corner Course Database ID Number - 124 |
Release Date |
CRZ Filesize |
Par |
Course Length |
| 2001-01-16 |
40,304,919 bytes |
74 |
7886 yards |
| Type |
Style |
CRZ Filename |
|
REAL |
PARKLAND |
Greene County Country Club.crz |
| Course ID |
Course Key |
| 12de8f20eb7a11d4a9fd91a493c86371 |
33748c5403365d319d554ee255dba644 |
|
LINKS CORNER REVIEW |
Reviewed by James Wood
Course History:
This course is located in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania and was built in 1922. It is listed as a nine hole course in the information you will find on the web. The course has been redesigned and now consists of eighteen holes. The course is unusual in that it is a par 74. Six par 5's are on this course.
First Impressions:
This course has a park style setting located at the base of Whistlers Mountain. The shapes used here are somewhat boxy in appearance. Noting that this is Mr. Newman's second offering this can be expected as it is a common occurrence when the novice APCD user is not inserting shapes. The tendency is to keep the mesh clean and well organized but this will leave quite a few boxy fairways, bunkers, and water hazards. I would suggest using shapes as a guideline and moving verts to match the shapes and then delete the shape later. Stock textures were used and a few stock bunker shapes were seen. There is a first cut of rough but it is fringe. Fringe is tough to hit off of from the fairway. It is a tight lie and at least one extra club is required. The bunkers have a nice edge that has been properly turned and there is an occasional bad edge. The fairways have a very nice roll to them and elevation changes were very well done.
Strategy:
I'll go over the par 5's here since there are so many.
Hole #4 541 yards
Downhill off the tee box leaves a second shot of approximately 260 yards and almost 50 feet uphill. There is no real lay-up point so the second shot to the green is forced. A driver will get you there however. No hazards are between you and the green so there isn't a problem if the shot is missed.
Hole #5 571 yards
This fairway is a good example of the boxy shapes that can be found here. This par 5 is not reachable in two shots.
Hole #9 591 yards
A second shot of 279 yards with 270 yards of carry over water awaits you here. Normally you would lay up here with a 5 iron and then go over the water. That's what I did the first time I played it but the second time I had another look. An over the top driver will clear the water and put you onto the green. The green is a peninsula but it is large and a shot to the green will hold.
Hole #13 568 yards
Your tee shot here barely clears the water in front leaving you with another very long uphill second. Duplicate the shot you hit over the water on #9 and you'll have another eagle opportunity.
Hole #14 521 yards
Yet another good par 5 awaits you here. A second shot of around 230 yards going downhill 22 feet over a pond requires good club selection to get it close. This is a huge green however so any shot missed to the right should still be an easy birdie opportunity.
Hole #16 569 yards
A good tee shot should leave you with an uphill shot from 250 yards. The creek in the fairway is not in play. Another driver hit on the snaps should result in another eagle opportunity from around 20 feet on another huge green.
Favorite Hole:
Hole #14, one of the Par 5's mentioned above has a very nice tee shot.
Overall:
An excellent effort marred by a few mistakes and some poor planting decisions on a few tee boxes. Some of the tee boxes were very well planted while others had that ring of stones or bushes around them that looked unnatural. The stock textures that were used and where they were used was also questionable. A little more work on the bunkers by adding a second extrusion with a mapped texture of dirt would also have been nice. I would also recommend to the designer that in the future he add a Splash Screen and a Cameo Screen along with a text file especially when depicting a real course. Some of the planting was very well done here and you really have to like the look of many of the shots. I would recommend the course. It was a good layout and I enjoyed the round. Overall it is a very good effort.
Course Info :
Cameo Screen? No
Splash Screen? No
Text file?
Hole Previews?
38mb
Reviewed May 2001 |
|
CLIPNOTES by Ben Bateson (ousgg) |
Description
Real, mountain course |
Location
TBC |
Conditions
TBC |
Concept 4/10
A word of advice to those going out to create their local golf club: do not use a panorama and design brief which are commonly associated with fantasy courses! Thanks to some uninspired conversion work, it's very difficult to take Greene County with any credibility, but yet there are quite a few nice moments on this unusual Par 74 course, notably at the 7th and final holes with their rock overhang. The ambitious use of water and elevations provides a fair test and it's easy to see why - in real life - this course is regarded as a hidden gem. It's unlikely to gain the same status in Links golf, sadly. |
Appearance 3/10
Other than the lamented Whistler panorama, the stock textures take a lot to be loved and a rather blunt approach to planting and scaling hasn't really done the course any favours. The elevations seem to hinder good views, rather than facilitating them. There are a few nice moments in the low-level planting, adornments and rocks, but they are really just interesting more than lifelike or impressive. |
Playability 3/10
Despite the unusual layout, the high number of Par 5s, and the large, attackable greens, this is bland fare. It's really not helped by a lack of scenery and a hole length that puts a lot of reliance on the accuracy of your long irons (and who's got a lot of that, really?). With one or two greens proving beyond the pale, I can't really see Greene County tying down any long-term fans. |
Challenge 7/10
The length of the course means a lot of greens will not be reached, and even those that are might result in three-putts, thanks to some inconsistency in the design. Elevations will also take care of a few shots: thank the golfing gods that there are plenty of Par 5s where birdies can be picked up. |
Technical 2/10
No shortage of mistakes here, starting with the overall appearance which just cannot be believed in. The clones in the planting are symptomatic of a lack of attention to detail, and some mountainous elevations in odd places are surely not representative of Pennsylvania. The tiny size to the plot was another unforgivable oversight, with too many holes pushed tight against the boundaries. Given some of the designer's other courses, I found this deeply disappointing. |
| Overall |
A technical mish-mash which never really convinces you that it is drawn from a real-life design. |
19/50 |
Please remember that Clipnote reviews are the opinion of one person and do not constitute an 'Official' Links Corner review of the course. |
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