Coeur d'Alene Tournament Edition by Dan DeShaney

[sgilmore467]

Please remove the "juniper bushes."
They act like a brick wall.
They look terrible.
Removing them will "save the course."

Sorry, just being honest.
The course, itself, was fun to play. Good job.

[Danny D]

Please remove the "juniper bushes."
They act like a brick wall.
They look terrible.
Removing them will "save the course."

Sorry, just being honest.
The course, itself, was fun to play. Good job.

Thank you. Glad you had fun playing it.
Perhaps you can recommend a better bush to use instead?

Something I found in an online search.
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What does a common juniper look like?

Identifying Common Juniper

Because of its size, it is considered a small tree or shrub, thriving in cool, temperate areas. Common junipers have spiny needle-like leaves that grow in whorls. The leaves are sharp-pointed and glossy green with a broad white band on the upper side.Dec 12, 2022

juniper.jpg (411.51 KiB) Viewed 3432 times

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"considered a small tree or shrub"

I would imagine if you hit a golf ball into them, it should bounce out. I took that into consideration when I decided to use that texture. I think you would be a lot more upset if the ball got stuck inside a planted bush and was unplayable. At least if you bounce out, it might not cost you any strokes, depending on where it bounced. And we designers don't really have control over random bounces if you were to hit your shot into one of them. I experimented with many many different bushes and textures to find something that resembled the real thing, but unfortunately that was the best I could find that even came close to working.

Unfortunately, if you hit a ball into one, then I would argue that you lost control of the shot. I'm sorry but I refuse to take the blame for your bad shots.

"save the course" from WHAT?

[Adelade]

Just played a round on the finished tournament edition for the first "official" time - I liked it even more than I thought I would. Wow, I had slightly forgotten how amazing this course is, and critically for me - now it is no longer a pushover! I actually only scored 1 under par, with mild conditions and what I think of as around medium difficulty pins. Sure, I just barely missed a lot of putts and hit one OB on the scary 14th, but still, it feels like the course should offer a bit of challenge to anyone, probably less so on Pro+Classic which I know most people play on, but perhaps even then. Thank you so much Dan for making the course in the first place and also for accommodating this tournament edition, and thanks pmgolf and everyone who brought up ideas in the old forum thread of the course. I really love this one.

Since its been a while since I posted it, I'll link to my post on the old thread for the course where I explained a little bit more about my perspective on the making of the Tournament edition - why it was made, why it was made in this particular way, and summarizing the main layout changes:
viewtopic.php?p=15606#p15606

[Danny D]

Just played a round on the finished tournament edition for the first "official" time - I liked it even more than I thought I would. Wow, I had slightly forgotten how amazing this course is, and critically for me - now it is no longer a pushover!

Thanks for the nice comments Adelade. Very much appreciated.

I knew there would be a few players that would not like the junipers, but if they are not APCD designers, they don't fully understand the challenge in creating something to use that would work with our limited APCD options. I personally wasn't overwhelmed with the method and texture I used either, but how does one re-create "sculpted" bushes that flow smoothly along the edges of cartpaths and tee boxes etc.?

The problem I faced was, trying to plant 2D bushes that didn't stick out in jagged looking messes along the edges of the cartpaths and tee boxes. For those not familiar with the APCD, I'll try to explain.

When you plant a 2D bush, it's like a flat picture of a bush that rotates to always faces you no matter where you are standing. For example, around the tee boxes that are encircled with the junipers, on the real course they are sculpted, or trimmed, like hedges. If I planted 2D bushes around them, and you viewed them from standing at a tee, the bushes in front of you would be facing you like flat pictures. However, as you looked at the rest as they went around to a side view, the bushes will be rotated toward you also, but the sides of the pictures would be separated and sticking out in jagged edges and would no longer appear sculpted. I tried multiple sizes of the 2D juniper bushes, but to make them appear anywhere even CLOSE to sculpted, they had to be very narrow. When they were narrow, it took a lot more of them to fully fill in the areas that those junipers had to cover. When I got up to an acre of coverage, the APCD couldn't render that many bushes, and it began locking up. Has anyone actually paid attention to how much of that course is covered in junipers? Even if I made the 2D bushes wider, the jagged edges stuck out even further, and it looked horrible and it still took so many plantings that the APCD couldn't deal with it without locking up. I experimented with every idea I could think of, and finally decided that the only possible way I was going to get close to them looking sculpted without the jagged edges was to create a texture and shape it into what looked like sculpted hedges, or bushes.

So rather than give up on the course, I improvised the best I could to get something that was close to the real thing, or as close as I can get with the APCD software. I will challenge the best designers to come up with something else that will look better, and actually work, with the ungodly amount of junipers that cover that course. As I mentioned earlier, I'm not thrilled with doing it that way, but I thought the course was simply too beautiful and unique to trash it without a try.

I hope that makes sense to the non-designers that think I just did a lousy job trying to replicate sculpted junipers. I know It's a one-of-a-kind texture and look, but if you concentrate on the rest of the course and not the bushes, I think you will still enjoy the game and the overall beauty of a very unique golf course that features the only course in the world with a "floating green".

With that I'll leave you with this little poem.

Know how to conquer a bush my friend, it only takes a minute. Do this and all your woes will end, don't put your golf ball in it.

Dan

[sagevanni]

Congrats on the tourney addition..............Way to go...!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sage.......

[Danny D]

Congrats on the tourney addition..............Way to go...!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sage.......

Thank you sir...