TPC Twin Cities

[sagevanni]

Thanks Ron...............

Sage......

[braden1308]

Yes, thanks Ron

[Jimbo]

The road texture was great. Fellow Linksters, I'd recommend playing the 18th hole in practise mose-that way you can fully appreciate the clubhouse!
It's a long way from both the first tee and the 18th green, but "worth the trip"!

[Captain Nemo]

What can you do in "Practice Mode" that would allow you to get a look at stuff you wouldn't normally see? Despite playing Links for many many years I have never even tried practice mode.

[gene_golf]

What can you do in "Practice Mode" that would allow you to get a look at stuff you wouldn't normally see? Despite playing Links for many many years I have never even tried practice mode.

Just hover over ball, grab it like you are moving to side of tee in order to get a better angle---say not having to hit straight into a large tree set very close to tee that might hit into unless create a better more open shot to fairway or green. In practice mode can take ball off tee backwards, sideways or forward and once in new position can rotate around by setting aim out of normal view a time or two and accepting new aim view after rotation done---this allows you to look at views to side of holes. Moving the ball is possible in regular play only on tee with limits where practice mode allows anytime and ever so far wish to go. Rotating view is possible in both regular and practice modes.

To me such as seeing where someone in regular play mode, rotated sideways to see house to side of fairway after a drive where looked like part of it was off ground and gripe in post about it when Wade Hampton was being done---those posters are way too particular in their viewpoints for something only on the periphery of course site and not within normal viewing while playing the course. To add to near total realism of course---the course designer would need to spend an enormous amount of time to achieve anywhere near that level of realism getting so many pictures and designing so many houses. I can understand Glenn Braden's initial response, so you don't like my houses---then consider them gone. Thankfully Glenn Braden reconsidered and substituted a few other houses as Weeler mentioned in his post following up after his first post that seemed to irk Glenn Braden.

[Jimbo]

In case anybody thought that I was being sarcastic, rest assured that I wasn't. The first tee at Minnesota is nowhere near the clubhouse and it can't be seen. The only place to get a good view is from the 18th green and it's still too far away to truly appreciate the work that the guys put into it!
I made a similar comment when I sent them my nitpick. They also used some of my tips (which I appreciated) but that clubhouse is a winner. The fact that the houses may not be in the line of sight when playing a regular round doesn't mean that they aren't there-they are-and these guys "go the extra mile (1.6 KM) to ensure that it's done (as do the other designers-these are the little things that qualify as "nitpicks").
I know that playability is the key but the APCD gives the opportunity to make an "urban" course look truly "urban" (including the pricey real estate that tends to surround it)...and I think that I speak for all Linksters when I say "bien-fait"!
...a little bilingualism never hurts...

[gene_golf]

In my previous post mentioned criticism of house to side of fairway at Wade Hampton a couple of years back. All in all there was only a small area on left side of house not looking like might have been connected to ground. There were trees in between fairway where golfer was and the house, so mostly obscured house as house was not naked alone in the woods. Danny D went on afterwards to suggest how house might be anchored to ground, but some houses are held up partially by pylons and if house were at beach (and realize Wade Hampton is in mountains of NC certainly) many houses in several beachfront towns are held up totally on pylons just to be safe from storm surge possibility. Just to mention here construction of houses to where do need not having solid foundations all the way underneath them in every case regardless of which locale they are built at.

Wade Hampton Golf Club
Post by dgrobo2000 » Sat Jul 04, 2020 7:59 pm
Hi, I have recently been enjoying a few rounds at Wade Hampton Golf Club. Although it is a spectacular design of a great course, there is a problem with the houses on the right side of the 13th hole. The houses are floating and sticking out of the trees.

Re: Wade Hampton Golf Club
Post by Titus » Sun Jul 05, 2020 5:51 am
Hello,
I love forest courses, very varied and looks great.
Tree house ?

wade hampton.jpg (872.28 KiB) Viewed 5043 times

[Captain Nemo]

What can you do in "Practice Mode" that would allow you to get a look at stuff you wouldn't normally see? Despite playing Links for many many years I have never even tried practice mode.

Just hover over ball, etc

Thanks for the info gene_golf.

In reference to house placement. i enjoy playing Links2003 courses with houses. but I consider the presented "floaters" a minor issue. However, if I stumbled on one that was floating high enough to interfere with Aliens trying to land their spacecraft, then I might bring it to the designers attention.

[Adelade]

Had a chance to check it out and play a full round yesterday. To be honest, I didnt expect anything great from the layout itself, since TPC courses often feel a little robotic / uninspired (with several notable exceptions), but I ended up quite liking it. It is quite flat, sure, but I've personally never minded that much, as long as the courses arent boring in other aspects. I think the combination of long yardages, wide fairways, big greens and plenty water hazards highly in play - while the first three definitely arent my traditional favourite traits - I think they all go together really well into a pretty fun package. It feels slightly unique in fact, not a lot of courses play like this one in Links. I wouldnt want all courses to be like that, but I love it as a change of pace.

As for the APCD craftsmanship - IMO this is definitely you guys' finest work, I didnt see any errors or even anything I particularly disliked (very rare for me). The planting is really well done, the textures and especially the colours go great together. I didnt have any issues whatsoever in finding my initial round of custom pins, so I assume that a good amount of effort went into them - something I am always extremely grateful for!

I have one "problem", which isnt really a problem in this case, because the 2D grasses barely ever come into play on this course, but I still want to bring it up for any future courses' sake:

Two of the 2D grass objects are those which I pointed out a while back as having faulty alpha channels. From brief testing, it seems to me that these ones on TPC Twin Cities still have the same problem. It seems impossible to hit through the objects without the ball being slowed down (even if shooting through a gap between the visual grass straws, or slightly above/beside them). See this post: viewtopic.php?p=12888#p12888

I highly recommend fixing their alpha channels (or simply using different grass objects), because it brings an unfair element into the game where players have no visual cues to predict this harsh behavior of the grasses. Its not a big deal, but on a course where the grasses come into play more, it might be. I think I saw the same grasses on TPC Southwind. To clarify, I like the grasses visually, but their physics are not right.

Thanks for the wonderful course! Makes it difficult to not be excited for any future courses you guys might be coming out with.

[braden1308]

Thanks Adalade,

I completely missed the post where you referenced the grasses. I know exactly which two you are talking about, I will refrain from using them going forward. I set my dampening between 50 - 60% on those fescue type grasses and recently had that issue on a course that will be released as a beta when Andy gets back, so I replaced them with different grasses.