|
Mountain Springs
by Dave (Moldy) Mackey
| Links Corner Course Database ID Number - 658 |
Release Date |
CRZ Filesize |
Par |
Course Length |
| 2001-11-19 |
11,862,733 bytes |
72 |
7347 yards |
| Type |
Style |
CRZ Filename |
|
FICTIONAL |
MOUNTAIN |
Mountain Springs.crz |
| Course ID |
Course Key |
| 08d09dc0dd4111d58e350080ae000001 |
b62ed93b64ce1d3b6be5822a9b415551 |
|
LINKS CORNER REVIEW |
Reviewed by Dave Campbell
December 2001
Expectations: I was anticipating this review since Dave has produced quite a few courses and most have been well liked. I'm thinking this course has to be in a mountain setting with abundant water.
First Impressions: Mountain Springs is the last of seven designs Dave has uploaded to the Links Corner and was made available in November 2001. His other courses in order of release are; Optimus Hills, Xanadu (which I reviewed), Jungle Utopia, Columbia C.C., Pine Valley and Lakewood C.C. Mountain Springs is a playable fantasy layout that has you negotiating 7,347 yards from the longest of five tee options. The fantasy element is certainly present here as there are some unconventional hole layouts, but all in all is playable and fun once you know the danger spots. It is unmistakably a mountain course, lightly forested and set at the base of the lovely Banff panorama. Let's take a closer look.
Playability: I first played the back 9 with 'Holee' in an LCL match and to be honest I didn't care for this course at first glance. The tight fairways and abundant OB areas, as well as the strange hole layouts really put me off. I think playing PS Champ and having the breeze up made this course very tough. Well this morning I played the whole course again in the above conditions and am I glad I did. A whole new experience and I was wiser to the hazards in the design because of my previous experience, and my score reflected this. I will say that Dave has constructed some very interesting holes that require much thought to play correctly. Other holes were ideas best left on the drawing board in my opinion but I'm sure that's an opinion that won't be shared by all Linksters. If you turn up the wind and make the greens fast and choose the difficult pin settings, even the best players will have to work hard to stay under par. I know this is very appealing to many players so keep that in mind during my review.
The tee boxes are fairly standard, oval shaped for the most part with a cross mowed texture. I noticed a few with a slightly extruded edge that was done well. The choice of textures was not to my liking, particularly the rough texture. In fact many textures clashed too much for my taste, but this would obviously be a matter of individual preference. With a few exceptions your tee shots are open, I did have to shift right or left between the tee markers a couple of times. Landing zones could be tight, pinched by bunkers or water and the fairway elevations were rolling and constant and were well done imo. Some fairways double doglegged, others were split . even multiple times and many were real tight. A nice fringe collar surrounded the fairway and if you strayed even farther you would normally only encounter rough. You will be presented with many water carries both off the tee and on the approach.
There are hazards aplenty in this design in the form of bunkers, various forms of water, and the most deadly of all . wild looking areas with OB 'bushes' texture and wild ground planting. The areas look nice but there is no recovery from them, and unlike water they are not as apparent. Your first glimpse of one may be a dyna cam shot your ball flying in there, and a choice of drop or rehit. On the par 5 10th hole there are fourteen bunkers that line the fairway and green. There are many ponds and creeks to be wary of too and you can look forward to multiple force carries over water on several holes (5,6,7,8,11,12)
The greens are nice and offer good targets. The putting will test you but not too severe overall, at least at moderate pin settings. A fringe was spotted around all the greens and there is a good greenside bunker presence.
There is nothing in the way of objects on this course, custom or otherwise. I saw a few buildings but that was it. Also no sounds were evident (that I could tell) and there are no hole previews provided. This is all fine as it seems to work, and will feel like a round on a course that has been left with a bit of a wild look to it. Just load up one of Bill Permenter's nature only sound scripts and you'll be all set.
Drawbacks: I already mentioned that I'm not a fan of the textures used, especially the rough texture, so I won't belabor the point. Others may like them better than me (obviously Dave does) so you be the judge.
I noticed a few shadows in the tee box and fairway bunker on the 11th hole. Funny that the only shadows I noticed were on the same hole in different locations. Overall the bunkers and mesh were knit well. I hit from enough of the sand traps to know for sure . lol.
I've mentioned the OB areas a few times. I think in some cases the placement is a bit unfair, but once you know these areas you can avoid them to the opposite side. On the tee shot from the 13th hole the left side of the fairway is all OB and there is a 45 degree elevation feeding toward it as well. There are fairway traps on the right but they are definitely the lesser of two evils. In my second round I teed off straight toward the traps, making sure I avoided the left side completely.
There are two holes I really have a problem with on this course. The 472-yard par 4 9th hole plays as tough as any par 5 on the course, and if this had been my design I think I would have made it a par 5. After a perfect tee shot I was still left with a 244 yard approach, over trees, with front and back bunker protection, to the skinny width part of the green. With my anemic PS game I'd stick that shot on the green maybe 1 out of 10 times, and I bogied the hole of course. The 285-yard par 4 17th is the real puzzler for me though. A par 4 with no fairway, are you kidding me? To top it off the whole back part of the green is surrounded by the OB waste areas I talked about, and a huge trap protects the front. In my first try at this hole, in breezy conditions, I hit my 2W perfect with 116 chs and flew the green. I had to rehit and ended up in the bunker and double bogied the hole. I like the idea of trying something different, and you can obviously drive the green (or over the green in my case), but it's just too fantasy for my liking.
Best Hole: There are many good holes to be had. I liked all the par 3's as they offered many different looks and pretty views. Usually I favor par 3's or par 5's but in this case the 376-yard, par 4 5th hole gets my vote. It is visually beautiful the whole length, tests your drive with water present on the right side, forces you to carry the same water on your approach to the green. It also shows some of the nice rockwork I mentioned earlier and the mountain reflection in the lake is awesome. My screenshot is of my approach setup and the very pretty view afforded here.
Test round stats: -4 69%FIR 55%GIR 24 putts. Great round for me as I putted real well. Made more than one putt over 20'. I was playing the Champ tees but the rest of the conditions were easy, which also helped.
Comparable courses: The Spruce's at Twin Lakes by Ron Hubbard, Pine View by Gary Turner
Overall: Mountain Springs is a playable, creative layout and the time and care in its construction is obvious. I highlighted several things during this review that are my personal preferences and may not apply to all Links players, and I would recommend that you all download and try this course. At 10 meg it truly is a bargain, and is full of pretty views and challenging golf. Of Dave's seven course releases he has not had one rated lower than the mid 70's at this site, which means he's consistently putting out a finished product. Just make sure you give the course more than one play because I enjoyed my round more after I gained some knowledge of it's design. Thanks for sharing another great course with us Dave.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mike Nifong's thoughts..
Historical perspective: This is the seventh course submitted by Dave Mackey to the Links Corner. His first two courses (Optimus Hills and Xanadu), which date from the infancy of the APCD, received only modest acclaim, but his third course (Jungle Utopia) got a little more notice. Then came his breakthrough with Columbia, which received quite a bit of favorable attention, although some proclaimed its lush appearance 'too green'. Then came Pine Valley and LakeWood, both of which bore the unmistakable Dave Mackey stamp. These last three courses, by the way, all received identical scores of 86 from the Links Corner reviewers, and all three are also rated at three stars in the user review section.
One consistent feature of Dave's courses is modest file size (Columbia is the largest at only 17.1Mb). At 10.6Mb, this new course falls squarely in the middle of his oeuvre and is well under half the size of the average APCD course. For many regulars at this site, and I count myself one of this number, any new course designed by Dave Mackey is an automatic download.
What is included: This course has the customary cameo and splash screen. Typical for Dave's designs (and not surprisingly given the file size), there is no read-me and there are no hole previews.
First impressions: Standing at the back tees in the elevated, question-mark shaped tee box, you look down a lush green fairway cut in a dogleg right through an evergreen forest, with a mountain peak dominating the distance. About 300 yards away, a small stream cuts across the fairway, just far enough out that you are not hesitant to use your driver. (If you are using the top cam, you will also notice that three large bunkers not visible in the main view guard the landing area. This is not the only hole that features such surprises, so, in the absence of hole previews, top cam use is recommended for the non-masochists.) Absolutely beautiful, and you cannot wait to get started.
What comes next: From the name of this course, you might assume that it will feature both water and elevation changes, and you would be right, although the water actually affects play on only a few holes. What you might not anticipate is how much variety has been engineered into it without compromising its coherence. To a great degree, this consistency is achieved by the uniformly excellent planting and under planting. Although the palette is economical (as you would expect from the file size), it is not anemic, and the textures are generally well chosen. I do have just the slightest quibble about the color of the rough, although it at least looks like rough, which is not always the case these days. Because of the care with which the planting is done, you will rarely notice the relatively small number of tree shapes employed, although there is one view on the 9th green where two pairs of 'twins' are obvious.
Those of you familiar with Dave Mackey's previous work will expect a polished appearance, and you will not be disappointed. The APCD work is almost universally exemplary (I noticed a small shadow at the left edge of the 11th tee box and another at the lip of a bunker on one hole - but only when I replayed the shot in reverse view), with only the slightest roughness occasionally appearing in the hypercritical dynamic cam view. Also carried over from earlier designs but not likely to be met with as much enthusiasm are the very modest lips on the fairway bunkers (a few of which lack them altogether) and the lack of stream side and pond side planting, although again it must be pointed out that some such compromises are inherent in the file size. Moreover, Dave at least gives us mud banks for the ponds and enough of a mud texture in the walls of the streams that they do not look painted on.
The course is uniformly beautiful to look at, in my opinion Dave's best work yet in that regard. The par 3 holes are especially picturesque.
And what about the play of this lovely course? In a word, it is superb. The landing areas of all the fairways are well protected, but not punitively narrow. Elevations also come into play as well, with lots of uphill, downhill and sidehill lies in the fairway, plus some places where your shot can roll off the fairway and into a hazard (forest) or bunker. What will be required is that you judge both the length and the placement of your shot accurately - sometimes too long or too short is worse than too far left or right. The greens are also very well guarded. Once you reach them, you will find that, while they are not flat, their slopes tend to be moderate and their undulations gentle - it is possible to hit some long putts.
With the exception of the 625 yard 15th, all of the par 5 holes are reachable in two, and if you make it you will have a good chance at an eagle and a virtual certainty of a birdie. Of course, you will have to hit a near-perfect tee shot to set it up, and you will have to take the riskier of two choices. On the 7th, for instance, which at 564 yards is reachable only because of a 20-yard drop in elevation, your second shot will be a choice of a lay up and a short iron to the green or a 270-yard 3W across water (doable because of elevation change and lie). And on the relatively short 520 yard 18th, if you elect to take the most direct route, you will need to really boom your tee shot (short will land you in a depressed area full of underbrush) and not miss to the right (where you will roll into a bunker from which the green will not be reachable). My kind of golf course!
I probably need to mention a couple of par 4's as well. The 11th is 505 yards. While that length will be anathema to some people, it plays a lot shorter due to the elevations: a driver hit 12/6 will net you 290-300 yards, leaning you a long iron to the green. Even more controversial is the 297 yard 17th. My first thought was, 'Great, a drivable par 4!' Then I noticed that there was no fairway. None. This is certainly something I have never seen before. And to complicate things even further the green is protected by a deep bunker front and a depressed brushy area that plays as a hazard on the other three sides. Talk about your risk reward, only here you have no choice - well, I guess you could lay up in the rough and hit a wedge over the front bunker, but who would do that? For the record, in four tries, I had an eagle, two birdies, and a bogie (darned hazard!).
The bottom line: Need you ask? I have already told you that I am a big fan of the designer, and this replaces Columbia as my favorite of his courses. I would recommend this course if the file size were four times as big. At 10.6Mb, you would be crazy not to get it. And I am going to break Dave's string of three straight 86's.
Course Info :
Splash Screen? Yes
Cameo Screen? Yes
Text file? Yes
Hole Previews? No
Course statistics: Par 72; 5 sets of tees; 7347 yards from back tees; holes not handicapped
|
This course is available as a FREE download.
|
|
Download course
|
Please support Links Corner
|
|
|
