Links Corner Forum

Here you go... can't remember for sure where I got this from so I can't give proper credit. It may have been from Daz's Offline Tour

COURSE SETTINGS STIMPMETER

SOFT / SLOW 5
SOFT (CH) / SLOW 5
SOFT (CH) / MEDIUM 5
SOFT / MEDIUM 5.5
MODERATE / SLOW 5.5
SOFT (CH) / FAST 5.5
MODERATE (CH) / SLOW 5.5
MODERATE (CH) / MEDIUM 6
SOFT / FAST 6.5
MODERATE / MEDIUM 6.5
FIRM / SLOW 6.5
SOFT / SLOW (CH) 6.5
MODERATE (CH) / FAST 6.5
FIRM (CH) / SLOW 6.5
MODERATE / FAST 7.5
FIRM / MEDIUM 7.5
SOFT / MEDIUM (CH) 7.5
FIRM (CH) / MEDIUM 7.5
SOFT (CH) / SLOW (CH) 8
FIRM / FAST 8.5
MODERATE / SLOW (CH) 8.5
FIRM (CH) / FAST 8.5
SOFT / FAST (CH) 9
FIRM / SLOW (CH) 9.5
MODERATE / MED (CH) 10
SOFT (CH) / MED (CH) 10
MOD(CH) / SLOW (CH) 10
FIRM / MEDIUM (CH) 11.5
MOD(CH) / MEDIUM (CH) 11.5
FIRM (CH) / SLOW (CH) 11.5
SOFT (CH) / FAST (CH) 12
MODERATE / FAST (CH) 13
FIRM / FAST (CH) 15.5
FIRM (CH) / MED(CH) 15.5
MOD(CH) / FAST (CH) 16.5
FIRM (CH) / FAST (CH) 18

(CH) = v1.07 MOD SETTING/SPEED
Thanks to TeeDawg and Wisernow for providing this info on the old forum.

Is this table the most accurate available?
I notice some discrepancy between the stimps in the table at the top and the colored one at the bottom.... How should one read the differences?

Both charts represent somebody's best guess at the stimp reading. That's the best I can tell you!

Pete

I remember wondering the same when I first saw the bottom one. Perhaps they actually built a stimp measuring tool in APCD or something? I have no clue. The values in blue might be relevant in some type of way, but the orange and yellow ones are obviously not correct (anymore), just look at the values for Mc/Sc for example, or compare F/S and F/F. Back when I first saw that, I just decided to ignore the whole chart

I recognize the Clicker chart... I played 2-click for 10 years. This is a RTS chart:
(M Fc chart based on user-created grid)*
yards are underlined, feet shown with '
putting distances at the top, chips/sand/pitches shown below.

Grid made in Excel:
Pete

Take a look at fc/fc setting that seems to have been already upgraded by orange 1.06 mod and not in blue 1.07 mod. Clicking at 1 dot supposedly over flat ground on green the putt is estimated to roll 9.3 feet and 2 dots 16 feet all adding up to estimated 14.9 stimpmeter reading. That is pretty fast touch using pro level where would click mouse twice immediately that would be tough for 2 click and even tougher for 3 click where still not be at anyway accurate my guessing. Up the playing level to champ setting and that would be even more absurd. Even if had a totally flat/straight putt the ball would probably hit back of cup or more likely roll over cup as if were not there at all. if slight slope would harshly lip out---that is if were to touch any edge of cup. Just think for instance if putt were somewhat downhill or severely downhill on an early course designed in Links. Recently I had seen where somebody mentioned in early days playing Links using softer/slower settings that players just like in real golf aimed for middle of cup not accounting for any break on short putts and rapped it in when they played where cup seemed to swallow putts coming towards it. Playing with extreme softer/slower conditions when not used to playing that way a player could certainly not have feel for playing looking at the other extreme play setup. The only consolation being ball might just stop on green instead of rolling off into fringe or fairway around green. I had seen the chart above where the f/c and f/c setting might actually be an 18 on stimpmeter. I am not certain as to why there are drastic differences in the results. I believe Adelade recently was doing a test to see what might be understandable, but then see here above where he admits to being confused. Imagine what Andrew Jones by his links extender program might have set greens at Augusta to be. That was not indicated, but for greens set up using his utility program could have been stimpmeter in the 20's. Once I signed on to play Augusta and was given warning before playing round then to expect unexpected results if wanted to play with suggested course settings.

I was confused at the stimp numbers in the second chart in this thread (the one with yellow orange and blue fields), not the first chart nor the stimp numbers I arrived at in my own test.

If before I had doubts, now I am officially confused.
I recall another table (I seem to recall from Adelade) that compared actual stimps ( I suppose determined by his own experiment) vs. a listed stimps (from the table above?).
There he was showing that for instance:
...............
Mc/Mc = F/Mc = F/Sc = 10 vs. 11.5 listed.
M/Fc = 11.3 vs. 13 listed.
F/Fc = 13.5 vs. 15.5 listed
...............
I am aware of those numbers for they are the settings I usually employ for my games with M/Fc being the most typical. Although on pre-challenging conditions courses, sometimes, those do not play well at all.

As an RTS player, I would not have the slightest clue as to how to create an experiment of my own. I can only go with visual impressions and compare what I see in the game, on TV, or in real life on golf courses. And my impression is that M/Fc plays more like an 11.3 (according to Adelade's table) than a 13. This purely based on personal perceptions. Still, every now and then, there is theodd hole where balls seem to have an internal engine and move at their own pace!

I have no idea what kind of stimp is in effect on La Joyas course when using pre-set conditions. If Fc/Fc were 15.7 or 18, whatever, the stimp on that course must be a 25 or higher as the ball moves at speeds I have never seen in my life anywhere.

Yes I experimented on my own, comparing videos of stimp being measured in real life to my own tests on flat greens in Links. By using trial and error until my putt in Links travelled the exact same distance as in the real videos, and measuring the time the ball stayed in motion on the green surface in both instances, I felt like I was able to get fairly accurate results, especially since all the 3 comparisons I made were consistent with eachother. And yes what I called "listed stimp" back then was the exact numbers taken from the first chart in this thread.

I dont see any great mystery here, I recommend just ignoring the second chart. The first chart is useful for comparing different settings to eachother, but if you want to compare them to real life, just keep in mind that those numbers seem overstated by about 15%. The only mystery I see is how they arrived at the stimp numbers in the second chart, but it doesnt matter to me in any way, Im just curious for no real reason.

I just posted a thread in the designer forum asking how fast fairways and fringes tend to roll in real life compared to greens (see here: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1669 )

I wanted to explain here a bit more of what Im doing with that and why. Many parts of it serve as a natural continuation of this here topic, and doesnt directly have anything to do with my question in that thread, so Im posting it here instead. As always, Im not forcing anyone to read unless they find it interesting...

The reason Im finally delving deeper into custom texture settings, is mainly because I wanted to see if I could achieve a custom green speed to fill the unfortunately large gap in between M/Fc and the next fastest one, which should fill that 12 stimp range that the PGA Tour is said to often or mostly play at. As a secondary reason, while Im already at it, I figure I may as well see if I can make the fairways play a bit firmer and faster than they otherwise tend to do in Links (which IMO seems to be much too slow compared to most real-life scenarios).

I have accomplished what I wanted with the greens already. My goal was originally to make a setting right in the middle between M/Fc and F/Fc. First, I wanted to 100% confirm that the stimps for M/Fc and F/Fc I had in mind were fully correct, because I suspected they might not be. Before now I've never cared to find out exact numbers for all settings. If you ask me, putting is more fun when going with your "gut feeling" instead of math and decimals or charts or whatever. I've never pursued the stimp numbers for the sake of using them when I play, but moreso in a quest of trying to better choose and experience real-life-like conditions in Links. So up until now, for stimps I've been going with the list I made for myself 1.5 year ago, which was based on a combination of -

1. My own ball travel time tests (which I described here, and my stimp list from back then can be seen a couple posts down: viewtopic.php?p=10605#p10605 ) and
2. The assumption that, though the traditional list (the one from the first post in this thread) was found to be inaccurate, I at least thought all values on it were equally inaccurate and consistent relative to eachother.

Basically, I tested 3 or 4 settings myself, noticed that the numbers for those on the traditional list were equally inaccurate, and therefore assumed my values for the rest of the settings by using the same factor.

But since then I've realized more and more that the traditional list was not even consistent with itself, some settings' listed stimp are further off their effective stimp than others. So thats why I wanted to make extra sure this time. At first I was only going to test the settings I was most interested in, but I ended up going "ah whatever, I'll just test them all"... As such, I have a new table of stimps that I will be using for myself, not saying anyone needs to accept it, but I will share it in case anyone is interested. I personally feel rather confident about it:


I arrived at those numbers by first assuming that Mc/Mc is stimp 10.0 (based on my ball travel time tests from back then, which Im thinking should be reliable enough), and then using Easy Swing type on a 100% flat green surface until I found a specific distance for the aim marker (which determines power on Easy Swing) that both could be easily and accurately replicated, and gave a putt length that could be quickly translated to stimps for several putts on different green settings. In my case, 5.05 meters aim, 10.0 meters putt length for Mc/Mc. I know stimps are measured in feet, but since I only needed relative distances this time, the metric system was preferable since it gives more accurate readings by Links itself up until 10.0 meters. I used a special texture and planar scaling to measure more exact distances when it came to the faster settings, where the ball rolled further than 9.9m. The resulting margin of error should be less than 0.5% for the fastest settings and below 1% for all except a couple of the very slowest settings.

I should also point out, however, that my starting point of Mc/Mc being 10.0 - from my previous tests - has an additional margin of error as well, which is much harder to define, but personally I believe it's likely around 2% or less, because I measured the times very carefully, even using frame counting software (lol) and verifying with 3 different real-life videos which all gave very similar results.


One of the big takeaways I made based on these new tests, was that, unlike how the traditional stimp table lists them, Mc/Fc actually rolls slightly slower than F/Fc, rather than the other way around. I have barely ever used Mc/Fc thus far, F/Fc is the only speed above M/Fc that I've truly been using. I always felt like F/Fc is extremely fast, and since the traiditional table misled me to think Mc/Fc was even faster, I've never had the desire to use it. Therefore, my goal changed to making my custom speed right in between M/Fc and Mc/Fc instead of between M/Fc and F/Fc. In other words, I aimed for 12.4 stimp.

I first tried using the APCD mod (sometimes called the 3D clone tool), but it didnt seem to work, the value just reverts to default by itself for some reason. Perhaps Im missing something there. No problem though, because using Links Extender 2.5 instead worked. I had already determined that the default Roll Friction value for green textures (0.10538) equals M/M, so I calculated what value I ought to need in case it scales linearly, saved it and tested it, which got me very close - 0.44% away from where I wanted. Only had to change it one more time that tiny bit, then it came out to exactly 12.4 , so it does indeed seem linear (just keep in mind the friction value is inverted to speed - higher friction means lower speed). At the same time I also tested a custom value to try immitate M/Fc, just to make sure things were consistent, and arrived at 0.04777 . In case anyone wants to try something similar, its not difficult if you have a stimp in mind relative to my "true stimp" table above that you want to achieve. You just take 0.53977 (the value that would result in stimp 1.0) divided by the stimp you want, then you have the "Roll Friction" number you need in Links Extender.



I've had this idea for a while, that I want to put that custom gap value around stimp 12 into all courses I make, and in case I turn out to like it as much as I suspect I will, maybe go back and do the same for my previous courses as well... even though I hate the idea of having to re-release them and thereby inevitably cause course compatibility confusion for some people. For a while I was also excited to maybe accomplish a custom wind setting as well, until I realized there is no such selection to be made in Links

But I still want to do a custom fairway speed (which seems doable), and fairway firmness too if I can (which will probably be trickier, but probably possible)... and Im hoping some of you might help me decide how fast I should make them.

I did already test the default "stimps" for fairways and fringes in Links by the way (fairways and fringes play the exact same in Links, assuming there are no custom texture properties). Well, I didnt determine actual stimp numbers, but I determined that:
1. They only depend on the firmness setting. For example, on M/S and M/Fc, fairways roll with the exact same speed...
2. Firmness M and Mc result in the same fairway roll speeds. Firmness F and Fc result in basically the same fairway roll speeds. S and Sc have a noticeable difference though, with S being slowest.
3. This means that, on the default settings, the difference between fairway and green roll speeds vary wildly. The extremes are on the one hand F/S and Fc/S , where fairways only roll about 10-20% slower than greens, whereas on the other hand, Sc/Fc or S/Fc have fairways rolling 300-400% slower than greens.

[Reason for edit: re-uploaded the image that had been broken.]