Coeur d'Alene Golf Course

[Danny D]

Let the trees grow taller to force players to choose a layup club.

I had given that some thought Fiver, but you can still draw a shot around the trees and reach the green easily.

Thanks for your input though.

Dan

[Duck Hook]

Here is my 2 cents worth.
Why go to all this trouble to make something out to be something which it clearly is not ???????

[Adelade]

Here is my 2 cents worth.
Why go to all this trouble to make something out to be something which it clearly is not ???????

If it makes a group of people very happy, isnt that a pretty good reason?

[Duglis]

I just want to say how happy I am that this course came out! Dan, great work! I am humbled by your years of dedication to this project. Thanks so much again!

[fiver]

If the course is going to be changed, it now becomes a fictional course, Name change should be at the top of the list for confusion purposes. I love this site. Been playing since the beginning.

[Pete]

Lengthen a few holes maybe, but don't change the course

[Duck Hook]

Here is my 2 cents worth.
Why go to all this trouble to make something out to be something which it clearly is not ???????

If it makes a group of people very happy, isnt that a pretty good reason?

Heey mate....sure, it's not a problem. If that is what the majority wants, fine. I don't have to play it.
For me personally, the course is what it is. And a damn fine one at that...

[Danny D]

Hi guys...

I feel like I should make myself clear on the tournament edition of CDL. I've made some of these comments before but will repeat myself in case some of you missed the originals.

I've been pretty adamant about replicating the resort version to as close as I reasonably could. There are some that think it's too easy in it's original form. I have always understood that. My purpose in replicating it was because if it's uniqueness and beauty. I see that many of the golf sims out there have their own versions of Coeur d'Alene. Now there is a version of it available for Links.

Along the way I offered up the idea of a tourney version just to see if there would be enough interest to make it happen. As it turned out there is some interest. Now I'm attempting to get some input on how much change would be acceptable. Adjusting some greens is the first change to be made. Pete will be using it in his tour, and he asked if he could plant the pins, so I made him the new TE greenskeeper. Thanks Pete!

And then hole 17 became a point of interest because if it's length. There have been suggestions made by some, and I offered up some ideas as to what length I might go in the revision. Note I didn't say this is what I want to do. Only that I would go as far as something like this if the players choose to accept that much modification. That is what we are debating. How the hole finally gets changed will be their idea. I'll just do the work.

The TE is being offered up so a small group of tournament players can have some fun with it. I'm not necessarily asking for players opinions of how they feel "personally" about making any changes. The changes to the TE and the reason for the changes will be thoroughly explained on the download page and the course docs. Everyone will understand why it was created and what changes have been made. The players can decide if they want to download the "fantasy" tournament edition or the original "resort" version.

At this point I'm not trying to decide whether or not to create it. That's already been decided. All I'm doing now is putting together a list of the changes. If you prefer the original, it's there for download and it emulates the existing original "resort" course. If you want to use it for a tournament, another edition will be available with the revisions made to it that are chosen by the interested tournament group.

Adding on to, or making more than one edition of a course is really nothing new for me. When I was learning the APCD, my first task was to replicate my hometown 9 hole course. When I finally completed it, I decided to make it an 18 hole course by using the surrounding farmland to add 9 more "fantasy" holes. So I have 2 editions. The original course, and a fantasy 18 hole edition.

Next I created my own "fantasy" course named "Northern Lakes". A wooded mountain course with a few lakes on it. When it was completed I made a "tournament" edition of it too. Over a years worth of work on Northern Lakes, and I don't recall receiving a single comment on it. Even though I thought it was a pretty decent course, it must have been a real dud to the Links community. Heck, I would have been happy to even have gotten some complaints or dislikes about where I went wrong.

Most of us welcome input, good or bad. That's how we improve and learn...

Dan

[gene_golf]

Somehow seem to remember 2 other quality real courses Danny put out, Wakonda and Kansas City. Only issue have with design out now of Couer d'Alene the Links golfer's set playing abilities allow for going straight to green over trees at hole #17 and not really need to play a right to left drive at all to get around the trees. The trees may be taller in real life and many average real players hit lower shots in order for their shots to travel 250 yards where would certainly hit trees and not be capable to pull off a right to left shot to get around them consistently as Links golfer can accomplish. By visuals on internet have seen that Danny has done a very realistic rendition of way course looks. As for hole #14 playing to 218 yards my guess is that since course was designed to play as a fun resort course---then course management seldom sets hole #14 to play all the way back. Most average golfers probably would wind up in water playing hole at that length and probably do as well playing hole at shorter distance being 170 yards. By moving ball back to practice green and using it as tee to play hole at 218 yards, also setting up strong wind that blew directly against me---my Links golfer needed a 4 wood to reach that island green.

[Adelade]

Seems like the conversation has stagnated a bit, I would be interested to know if there are any more people than pmgolf and me who actually look forward to the tournament version a lot, enough to care about the details of it.

As for 17th specifically, there are many options indeed, and Im not saying Im opposed to ways other than my favourite. I would still have preferred to hear more about how others think about various types of changes before I make up my own mind, but since the conversation so far didnt bring very much and quickly seemed to die a bit, I figured I may as well already present my current favourite way, as a suggestion, along with a drawn picture for visualization.

Suggestion:

I already posted my reasoning, but I will summarize the main points again.

I dont like the par 3 option that much, since it would either become too brutal of a hole to feel at home on the course, or else become easier to score a set number of strokes on than the resort version. I personally like the longer par 4 option more, but still not as much as my suggestion below, since a longer par 4 would completely change the character of the hole to be pretty much unrecognizable.

My suggestion has 3 parts.

1. A new tee being made between the cart path and border fence, adding about 18 yards to the hole. A tree would probably have to be cut down to make room for it. This will probably make the 3W fall a bit short in many situations, at least to pins on the back half, thus forcing the player to at least consider the Driver or 2W.

2. The addition of a water hazard, like Dan came up with. I think it would suit the hole excellently, adding a risk-reward element to an otherwise fairly risk-free tee shot. A tee shot on a par 4 into a green really ought to come with some form of risk. My favourite spot for a pond would be to the right of the green, going along most of the right side to extend far enough back that there is a slight risk of ending up in it even if landing on the green but too far and too much to the right. The cart path and road might be squeezed a little bit, but I think there should be just enough room. Moving the road perhaps a couple yards wouldn’t be so bad either, if necessary.

3. Reducing the size of the back section of the bunker to make room for the green being moved maybe 15-20 yards backwards and, because of the angle, slightly to the left. The pond would be moved along with it. This would basically force the Driver or 2W to be used in order to reach the green, and the shot would get tougher to pull off beyond the raw length as well, since the bunker will end up guarding the green a little bit more. Perhaps a draw (fade, if left-handed) would even become necessary. The tree behind the green would possibly need to be removed or moved, or there might still be enough room for it to remain there, not sure.

The hole would still be easy and remain a driveable par 4. It would still be recognizable, just much spicier and much less of a pushover. Neither of these changes feel like they would be unlikely to happen in real life, if a relatively big tournament was to be hosted. Moving a tree of that size might be, I suppose, but not removing it. I think I’m still personally in favour of slightly moving it a little further back, in order to keep it for the appearance to stay similar while preventing the tree from affecting gameplay, but either way should work, if you ask me.

CDL 17 sA1.jpg (499.33 KiB) Viewed 6918 times

If adding a water hazard is “too much”, I would still like the other two changes I mentioned, but I think the water hazard would add a LOT to the hole in a good way.