Royal st Georges update

[sagevanni]

Nice to hear from you John...!!!!

Sage.....

[Adelade]

Yes good to see you back John Been playing any famous courses?

Interestingly, it looks like on the weather forecast that this Open will be played with almost the opposite wind direction compared to the usual prevailing one.

Course available at https://linkscorner.org/courses/course.php?crz=2666 by the way.

[Pete]

Thanks for the efforts guys, looking good

[brooks2345]

Just watched the first round, then played another round on Adelade's Course and it's tricky! Last time I played there was just after Ben Curtis won in 2003. All I can remember was the Himalaya Bunker on Hole 4 (you could park a couple of double-decker buses in there!), some of the bunkers with ladders, the Princes Clubhouse on 13/14, and the fact that we had to treat the deep rough as a lake! Love the Pano and other changes Adelade.

Cheers

John Brooks

[gene_golf]

It has been since 2011 that Darren Clarke won last here at Royal St. Georges. Being a senior now it was a long while from 1949 until 1981 that I ever saw The Open played here at this venue, Royal St George's 15 times as of this year (1894, 1899, 1904, 1911, 1922, 1928, 1934, 1938, 1949, 1981, 1985, 1993, 2003, 2011 and 2021).
Then again in 2019 there were several years since The Open had been played at Royal Portrush only played twice there. (1951 and 2019).
Also was quite a few years that went by for Hoylake or Royal Liverpool to host The Open for another time having now done so a dozen times, (1897, 1902, 1907, 1913, 1924, 1930, 1936, 1947, 1956, 1967, 2006 and 2014).
Another factoid Turnberry has not hosted The Open all that much, only 4 times and from source seen will not do so again until 2027, but that might be pushed back a year since as believe saw article before virus pushed tournaments back a year (1977, 1986, 1994 and 2009). This course done here in Links by Stewart Parker will need to have especially hole #9 changed from a par 4 to a par 3, but there are a few years for him to do so.
Future sites by Wikipedia show venues being.
Year Edition Course Last hosted
2022 150th Old Course at St Andrews July 2015
2023 151st Royal Liverpool Golf Club July 2014
2024 152nd Royal Troon Golf Club July 2016

[Weeler]

Adelade: I just played a full round on your newly updated Beta v 0.91 of Royal St. George's, and it is an outstanding job ! The choice of textures and the color palette couldn't be better (IMHO). The only other marker post I think isn't all that necessary would be the one on hole #5. And, actually
the one on hole #4 seems several feet to the right to me. My tee shot launched at what seemed like 20+ ft. left of the post, and it landed smack in the middle of the fairway, with little wind. I switched out a few skies as I played, and found some nearly perfect ones , to me, for the site. If you have them, try them. If you don't , you may want them because they are absolutely great with Links style courses. They are:

Carnoustie, Acrilixsky 22, and Danielsky 23. ( I'm sure many others are fine as well, but these make you feel like you're there ! )

Once again, Adelade, very nicely done just in time for The Open !

[Adelade]

Could anyone please help with one final beta test of my latest changes before I upload the final this upcoming weekend? Normally I wouldnt bother this extra test but I have done a complete replanting, with more areas for planted grasses, plus the grasses are showing up from further away now... so an extra test to make certain it runs fine not only for me but for others as well feels appropriate. (Any users with somewhat low-end systems would be extra appreciated). Opinions on the new grasses and tree planting are welcome as well of course, I tried to make the grasses pretty much like v0.91 but they're probably a little different, and the trees (left of 18th and behind 4th) look different now since I used my own planting set for convenience, they're perhaps a little greener than I would like but I think its fine.

Here is the Download link to v0.92 (if you try it please let me know here or in PM or over email whether you experienced any slow loading times or crashes. Thoughts on other aspects aside from the planting are naturally fine too.)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/2778dtj03wyht ... h.CRZ?dl=0

-feel free to skip the rest of this message-


Other changes since 0.91 (just in case anyone is curious):
-Green contours changed a little bit on most holes, sometimes to match subtle breaks seen in the real Open and other times because some green areas in 0.91 turned out a little flatter than I had intended, in my haste to make it available before the Open. Most notably, 5th green had its characteristics significantly intensified, and 8th and 9th were modified locally to allow for one new pin position seen in the real open each.
-Pins added for 18 on each hole, some previous pins here and there were subtly moved, and a rare couple ones moved longer distances.
-Pin difficulty settings added.
-By the way here are the 2021 Open pin positions (a couple ones on day 2 Im not 100% sure about):
Day 1: 14 14 6 6 16 15 0 12 1 10 0 4 16 10 9 0 5 0
Day 2: 13 0 2 11 12 1 15 10 2 7 2 6 2 3 2 1 12 1
Day 3: 0 2 9 10 9 5 1 8 3 6 17 1 5 4 12 11 7 14
Day 4: 3 3 4 5 2 2 3 15 17 13 3 3 1 0 5 3 1 3
-Bunkers in the middle of fairways had their rings of rough turned into fairway, to make them swallow golf balls a little more easily like in real life, "Bjorn's bunker" on 16th turned into one of these as well.
-New back teebox on 13th, wayyy to the rightside, with a significantly different angle. Pretty sure the pros played from it all days, at least the first two.
-Moved rightside fairway bunker on 7th, that teeshot should be more authentic (and challenging) now.
-Changed some elevations here and there to better match views from certain tees and fairways with those seen in the Open.
-Removed more of the aiming poles that didnt seem necessary. There were a couple ones I was on the fence about leaving as they were... but decided to remove in the end, since the teeshots werent fully blind, and because there was no good way to position the poles so that they showed the correct line from all tees. The only ones remaining are on 4th, 7th and 8th.
-Made the "jaggy" beach blend in better with grass and panorama.
-New splash screen
-Out of Bounds moved a little bit in a couple spots.
-(As mentioned, complete replanting.)

Been thoroughly enjoying watching the Open and playing along on v0.91 on pmgolf's LSPN World Tour I gotta say - nothing else makes you learn how to play a linksland course - and to love linksland golf - as much as spending a few intensive days studying and trying to recreate green contours for an Open course!! I actually used to not really see the charm at all in linksland golf or courses, but slowly and steadily I've gotten to a point where I feel like Im starting to really love the style Wish I had watched Portrush last Open, judging by how highly people speak of it.

P.S. appreciate it Weeler and I love the sky recommendations (even though I tend to be too lazy to bother selecting specific ones)

[doclawler]

Adelade, you have a PM.

[gene_golf]

Would accurate greens for this course, that is another topic here up for discussion if done be playable in Links?

[doclawler]

I think the key to remember for links style courses is that the green speeds are almost always significantly slower than American championship courses. I don't think an 'accurate' version of RSG would be playable at F(c)/F(c) conditions, but that's an unrealistic setup for this type of course. With realistic green speeds, I would think the Links version of the game would be just as playable as the real life course. I usually play M(c)/M(c) for the links courses. If I play with no wind, the courses are easy easy, but crank the wind up and they're quite a challenge. That's the beauty of the links style of golf though, the change of the courses in different wind conditions. Which brings up 2 points:

1. For RSG in particular, I think Adelade has done a great job capturing the feel of this course. The greens may not be 100% accurate, but they're pretty close given the info that's available. I think that's about all any of us can ask for a computer game, and I've thoroughly enjoyed many many rounds on the 0.91 version.
2. For links style courses in general, I especially enjoy the courses that are unlocked and available to open in APCD. I have minimal APCD skills, but I can at least open the course, change wind direction to match actual conditions at the course, save and go play a round as close as possible to what's happening in real life. Or, I can set it up to play in whatever wind I want to, just to see what the course plays like under those conditions. It's amazing what a 180 degree change in wind direction can do, and changing wind direction is realistic for seaside courses, unlike some American courses with a pretty consistent prevailaing wind. Sometimes it seems like a 100% completely different course. There are some well recreated links courses (Carnoustie and Dornoch come to mind) that suffer in my opinion because I can't tweak wind direction. It seems like Links is pretty limited on what wind directions it throws up no matter what settings the course designer chooses for wind direction.