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Valley View Golf Club
by Craig LeVasseur
| Links Corner Course Database ID Number - 1292 |
| Release Date |
CRZ Filesize |
Par |
Course Length |
| 2003-06-12 |
19,661,365 bytes |
71 |
7309 yards |
| Type |
Style |
CRZ Filename |
|
FICTIONAL |
WOODLAND |
VViewGC.crz |
| Course ID |
Course Key |
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LINKS CORNER REVIEW |
Reviewed by Simon Kent July 2003
Designer: This is Craig LeVasseur's first attempt at designing.
Playability: Standing at the tee, you would always know that you're in for a big hit with the downhill fairways, and that was easily apparent, as it lead to a 10% addition to my average driving length. The greens, as the designer noted in the read-me, are quite large, and along with bunkers not being placed in positions generally to hurt wayward shots, expect to have a higher percentage of greens in regulation when playing a round at this course. The greens were challenging, as they had good slope and curve, so reading putts is what will get you the low scores at Valley View GC. After 18 Holes, I finished on a -6 (65), with 85% Fairways and 88% Greens in Regulation, with a total of 25 Putts; quite disappointing really, considering two double bogies on the scorecard.
The Course: From the outset of the round, it's evident that the hole designs are quite interesting, as they were not the normal straight and long holes that are found on many a course these days, rather they were quite curvy, and forced you to consider what club to use off the tee, instead of just smacking the Berardway driver every time. That's a good quality to have in designing, and hopefully Craig can keep that up with his next effort.
As a first time designer, it must be hard not trying to do yet another Woodland course, but it seems to keep on occurring. However Valley View Golf Club had some interesting hole designs, which thankfully gave it some personality and differentiation from other courses set in the common Woodland setting.
Favourite Hole: The last and signature hole of the course, the 18th (Screenshot 3), was my favourite hole on the course, as it provided a nice way to finish the round, and hopefully on the designer's next course, every hole will be as enjoyable as the 18th.
Technically: Bunkers in many areas were shaped in an imaginary style, much like pieces in a puzzle, with the sand texture used, not really helping to establish a natural setting to the course, however they were well made and did not affect playability in anyway. The Panorama chosen blended in very well with the planting and trees found around the course, and I'm sure how limited rough textures are in APCD 1.1, but in this case, the rough 'looked' very ugly, and unfortunately drew my attention to looking at it on every hole, and rather not the scenery of the course like I should be. On Hole 11, when using the Dynamic View, the cup went invisible and disappeared, which is something that should have been picked up in Beta testing, and no seaming was used, which was especially evident where the water met with the land.
Other: There was no Cameo, Custom Flags or Hole Previews, while the splash screen was a small picture enlarged and didn't at all make me look forward to playing 18 Holes on the course; so in future is it essentially important for the designer to look at all avenues in getting these features added, as to many people, they are the luxuries that make a course enjoyable and what set's one course apart from another. A quote from the designer,
'I know now that I can produce a much better effort, but with the amount of time that I put in to this course I have decided to release it and move on to the next course.'
Even though frustration can set in with courses taking too long to build, it is vital for a designer to show commitment to what they set out to do, and not to just give up and move onto the next project. By getting things right, using beta testers, asking for help and taking your time, any course should turn out to be much better, and in the future, if this designer can follow things through to the end, until everything is done, their course will then be the best it can be.
Download Value: Another Fictional Woodland course made in the APCD 1.1, by a first time designer, for a download of around 20mb; if this is appealing to you, then download the course. Many course collectors with fast internet will more than likely download this course, but whether they'll play it is an entirely different matter. For low speed internet users I wouldn't recommend it for download, as there are a multitude of smaller sized courses that would be more appealing to you and your downloading time. This course will not be staying on my hard drive or being saved to CD.
Course Statistics: Links 2001 Course, Par 71, 4 Tees, Distance: Back- 6675m, Forward- 5873m, Par 3's- 4, Par 4's- 11, Par 5's- 3. |
This course is available as a FREE download.
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