There are issues however, mainly the 'steel grass' issue, so I'm trying to solve this without replanting the entire course.
I made 40 Monterey Cypresses for this course and Olympic Club from a photo-shoot there in 2012 while working the US Open at Olympic across the lake - one of the best views on the course is #14 tee, where you can see Olympic Club across the lake, which is started and coming next. The trees have working collisions, so I guess when I imported my 2Ds (grasses, bushes, plants, etc) I did something wrong, because the image creation process was exactly the same, completely baffled. Have tried deleting and remaking, replanting, resaving planting sets, etc about 10x, they still bounce back.
A quick fix is to make the areas just off the fwy as a droppable zone, but thats my last resort if I cant figure this out.
So, thats where I'm at, was hoping for a Halloween release, but thats not going to happen looks like. A HUGE thanks to Glenn Braden, Danny D, Adelaid, Collin, Linkster, and Sage, who provided a fantastic DEM for me, but I was too far into it to start over, however have referred to it many times to double check terrain, and to Andrew E for sending great pics during his round there this summer and some good insights on being there recently.
Course was created in 2010 with a 2' topo, I really enjoy taking the extra week to do this, you get a feeling of how the course moves up and down much better. Harding Park isn't a course that will blow you away really, it isnt even ranked in the top US 200, however the giant Monterey Cypress give a great feel, and the views around the course are great. Having brought that up, it has NO pano right now, the pano is created but proving to be extremely challenging as the surrounds go up and down - San Francisco has 1000 feet elevation just a few miles away! Harding Park is around 150, and the other direction is the ocean which you can barely see, so there you go, going to take alot of extra work and will add it later.
The greens are quite flat, if you keep the ball in the fwys, you can really go low.
Tees - Harding Park gets changed all the time, the 2005 American Express won by Tiger Woods over John Daly it was a par 70, the PGA played here in 2020 by Collin Morikawa it was a par 70, the 2009 Presidents Cup was a par 71, it plays normally for daily play at a par 72, so I chose a par 71. PGA tees are very back and make it long and tough at 7400 yds, Presidents Cup tees are middle at about 7100, normal member blues will be about 6700 yds.
Textures are all brand new created from photos by me w the exception of the main rough which is from the Curt Simms and his Wentworth course, the dark green matches Harding Parks rough perfectly.
I have a new 2D library that I plan to release that has been created from software designed specifically for creating vegetation, I plan on learning it, it looks daunting, the results are amazing! the license on these 2Ds is ambiguous, so I have some concern on releasing these, but they were created for video games, and I think they will be OK as long as no one simply copies them and charges for them again. Here is the software, check it out-https://www.vizpark.com/gallery/
every 2D from Harding Park is brand new except for benches, ball washers, trash cans, water, etc. I've included some samples.
When I created this course, it was just Harding Park owned by the city of SF, PGA Tour came in a purchased rights to it later, so I will keep it named just Harding Park for anyone wondering.
Greens are created from Stracka-line guide contoured exactly with topo lines to the 1", course like I said was created on 2' topo line accuracy from USGS site back in 2010. every large Mont Cypress was hand-planted according to Google Earth, took a long time.
enjoy the photos, hopefully I this issue figured soon and everyone can enjoy this great city golf course.
