The Royal Dornoch Championship Course design for Links
This begins
in two times. First, a little software, named MacGolf hooked me on the very
first MacIntosh I used. From then, I tried franticly any new Golf software that
came out on Mac or PC. The real thrill was when it came to software making the
design of courses possible. The first for me was Jack Nicklaus S.E. and I
really enjoyed the ability to share the creations of this little community. At
this time, a course file weighted about 200Ko (!!!) and it was so fun…
Second is,
as I am a real golf hacker but true lover, I bought a book on the golf courses
around the world. In this book, one picture was fascinating me, a view of a
golf course laying its fairways down a steep slope full of gorse and a
So it came
obvious that I had to design this course for the PC golfer’s community, and
before that for my own satisfaction. At the time of JNSE a course was already
designed, I can’t remember the designer’s name. When JNSE turned into Jack
Nicklaus 5 then 6, I decided to give it a run and found a skilled and motivated
co-designer with Mr. Göran MENTZER. This was a single hole oriented design
software, that means that we had to design hole by hole without any link
between the holes, no full landscape (and on each hole we had to simulate the
surrounding holes with the most shameful processes). This kind of design is
comfortable with a tree lined course where holes are well separated, but very
difficult with such an open course than Dornoch. At this time, we had rather
few references of the real course and we worked with the little pictures that
we had and some other data about the routing. For that moment, the result was
not that bad, but we had a lot of parts of the course where no information was
available, and we had to invent the things we didn’t find, mostly based on the
written course descriptions that we had. Looking back, it was rather accurate,
and some of our assumptions were quite right.
The came
the Links 2001, and 2003 series, where a full landscape routing was available
and I immediately considered the design of Royal Dornoch. But I put a condition
that I walk the true course before I start the design. Unfortunately, life made
this trip not possible (I still want to make it now), and I decided to go for
it in 2008. I got in contact with the course staff to see if it was possible to
make this design and if they could be of some help for me. The answers were kindly
positive but, then again, life delayed the process, and I waited one more year
to get again in contact with people a the Royal Dornoch Club.
With their
authorization and encouragement, I started the design in Summer 2009 and we are
now in Spring 2001. Quite two years of design! It’s just a hobby, so it’s far
from two full years of design, and there were some long pauses due to some
weariness or when I felt blocked by a specific problem. Though, I spent several
hundreds of hours on this course, more than I ever spent on other courses, even
real ones. Fantasy courses are far easier to design as when it comes to a
difficulty you can erase the cause and start on another way. It’s very
different for real courses where you have to stick the most to reality. The
other big real course design I achieved is Bethpage Black, but there was far
less constraints than for Dornoch and it was easier to hide the nasty stuff
with some well placed trees.
Dornoch is
very special in the fact that it is a wide open course, certainly one of the
more open that you can see in the world. When you are on the 18h
tee, a full rotation make you see almost each hole except the 8th
hidden behind its great slope. No way to cheat, but it is a tremendous
challenge to take benefit of the full landscape design of Links2003. It sure
was pushed to its limits, as the distances a too long for the game engine. In
fact the game does not show anymore terrain at more than
Unfortunately,
I was unable to cheat on another sight at the 10th tee. There, you
have a long view running along the 11th hole, over the 5th
hole and 4th green to the Earl’s Cross manor, and further the Earl’s
Cross wood. I tried a lot of thing there, such as very big objects, special
terrain and so on, but did not succeed to make the Earl’s Cross wood show when
on the 10th hole. So, you will have to imagine that there is some
mysterious mist around this place that makes it invisible from that point. The
wood begins to show at the beginning of the 10th green and is well
visible and the end of this green.
Otherwise
the design was long also because I wanted to be accurate about the elevations.
Unfortunately, I didn’t had the help of satellite elevation data to work on
that course and I had to build terrain elevation changes with the only help of
the photos that I gathered all raound the internet and that the Club’s staff
kindly sent to me.
Once again,
Dornoch is a special course as it goes down and up all long the routing, and
that the holes are blessed (or cursed?) by magnificent mounds and hollows. Be
sure that I did not figure each of them on that design, I tried to be as truth
as possible on parts where the balls have some chances to land. On other parts
I surely take some liberty with the real landscape and built something
credible, but not truth. I take the example of the 12th, where the
first part of the fairway and the rough around seems like a meadow infested by
moles. No Links gamer will have ever a chance to play from there, so I mounded
the place but really far less than the real one, just to have a decent look
form the tee, no more.
One more
word about elevation to speak of the greens: there again I had no other data
than the photos and greens descriptions. So, I tried to do my best to make
greens that are mostly like the real ones. Form some tester’s advices ‘who have
played the course for real), there no major mistakes. But be aware that some of
the slopes are not accurate. It’s appoint that I consider to improve in a
future release of this course when I have walk myself on the course or have get
some very specific photos or videos of the greens.
(Here, I make a claim to every one which could
play the real course and get this data for me. A warm thanks in advance!)
Another big
challenge with this course is that it begins very next to the town of
To finish a
course, planting is also a crucial thing to care about. There, I was not too
worried by trees, but I still had to find credible ones for the pines behind
the 11th tee. Otherwise, I choose to plant the gorse in a semi-bloom
state with most of the bushes in bloom, but not all of them to keep a nice
look. By the way, on some special moment, all the gorse is in bloom and the
places then are pure gold yellow! About the grasses, I decided to make them
rather high, that’s does not happen often on that well maintained course. But
it was the easiest way to have a grass that show well; more little objects
would have not show form far and make some distant places look unplanted and
odd.
Some last
word about the textures. I tried to stick to the pictures I have from the
course and to have a nice gradient between the fairways and greens to the rough
and weeds. I used 1024x1024 textures customized from existent ones. This makes
the course only playable with Links 1.7 Mod. I try to improve the look of the
mounds by using a dry fairway textures, making large seams with the standard
fairway. As the game engine do not build some coarse shadows, which permit to
enhance the look of the mounds all along the fairways.
Last, I
want to say a word on a little feature that I pout on this course. You can see
at your left on the first tee, a little dog waiting to follow you for the
round. You will see it on every hole, sometimes crouching and a little hidden
but always a faithful companion. This dog was my companion for 13 years and
passed away in last December, this design is dedicated to her.
Her name
was”Ortie” (Nettle, Urtica) and she
was semi-Scottish as and accidental result of the meeting of a Lhassa-Apso and
a West Highland white terrier. I say “she”, as I never understood the English
who say “she” for their boats and “it” for their animals ;o). To comfort me, a
new little four-legged companion has joined the family, this time full Scottish
(almost for the race), a female Westie named “Fléole” (Timothy, Phleum
pratense)…
You can be
sure that such a long design could be commented for pages and pages, but enough
comments and I just hope that you will enjoy a unique experience while playing
this course, as the golfers do on the real course. If it gives you the will to
head for
Keep your
head on the ball, keep your ball on the fairway and always keep a fair way in
your heart!
Dominique
BOIS