Links Corner Forum

Kevin Fraser kindly gave me permission to update this course of his from 2001, he agreed with the main changes I proposed, and also said I could do whatever I think works. Most of the credit for this new version goes to him, my contribution is minor compared to the work he put into making the original. Thank you for letting me do this, I've enjoyed working with it :)

It is a real course in Canada by the Niagara River. Full release (v2.00) has been uploaded to Links Corner. Will post again when it is available for download. [Edit: Course available here - https://linkscorner.org/courses/course.php?crz=2542] New compared to the beta version is a change to the buildings' wall texture and a minor elevation adjustment to a certain area on 15th.

My goal has primarily been to make the greens playable with "challenging" conditions, but also to give the course a bit of a visual facelift and add some features that weren't around back then. I like the original work, so despite having freedom, I wanted to change as little as possible while still achieving my goals. A full list of changes can be found further below.

I know this course might not be everyone's cup of tea, it's not a particularly challenging layout and I'm sure many people will score a lot of eagles on the five gentle par 5s, but some tricky greens and tough par 3s still keep the scores from getting too low. Honestly somehow I find myself rarely scoring that well after all, so I like the layout in the end. I think Kevin Fraser said it really well in the original Readme: "I can stand on the tee, look at the hole and figure "no problem" - but somehow, a problem always seems to happen."

To anyone playing the course - please do let me know what you think about any aspects of the course (while keeping in mind that it's a rendering of a course that exists in real life). All feedback is welcome, especially the constructive type.

Space for course notes at the download page is tight, so I really wanted to emphasize the acknowledgements/thank you section here instead. (They can be found in the Readme too):

Acknowledgements - while all edits beyond the 2001 version within APCD are fully made by me, there are still many who contributed greatly in one way or another. I'd like to give a big thank you to:
-Various designers who generously gave me permission to use textures or objects from their course/s or other sources, some through private contact and others publicly:
Textures: Lez Marwick, Tim Boche, Dan DeShaney, Links Corner public downloads (including the AusPack)
Alpha textures: McCoist, Lez Warwick, Thomas Wagner, Stewart Parker, Paul Seaman (through Links Corner public download)
2D Objects: Tim Boche, McCoist, Thomas Wagner, Links Corner public downloads (Daniel, AusPack, Colin Jones), Lez Marwick, Derrick Summers, Stewart Parker, Dan DeShaney.
(Note that ALL those textures and 2d objects (and some of the alpha textures) found on this course are versions I have since edited to suit my course.)
-Beta testers TexAgs, Still Linksing (aka ....), gator, Captain Nemo and Jimbo, all giving much more great and useful feedback than I could ask for.
-Paul Seaman's APCD text guide.
-Dan DeShaney's 3D tutorial.
As always, I'd like to give an EXTRA big thank you to:
-Lez Warwick, whose Youtube videos have been absolutely invaluable!
-The Links community as a whole. For keeping the game alive, for members kindly continuing to share knowledge, resources and interest in innumerous separate helpful instances. It is impossible to mention everyone, you know who you are. If Links Corner hadn't been around I wouldn't even have been able to get Links working 2 years ago when I returned... Thank you everyone who has ever played Links or designed any course for it, thereby contributing to me getting to finish this enjoyable course project. Extra thank you to those still being active to this day and anyone reading this.
Last but not least, I have to thank Kevin Fraser once again for designing this course in 2001 to begin with, for letting me update it, and for letting me do so very freely.

Some screenshots:

Certain other excerpts from the Readme:

Some things to note:
-The course may look a bit bare without underplanting, but that's because the real course simply doesn't have any.
-If lucky one can actually glimpse even the actual water of the Niagara River if playing with the dynamic cam in a couple spots.
-I know the pano isn't great... I hope it's at least acceptable as I burnt out on making/editing it. It's fairly authentic if nothing else.
-The Clubhouse area buildings I added aren't at all super accurate, they're just meant to look decently close to the real thing from a distance when playing normally.
-The course may look best with shadows turned off and not too clear skies, although I personally play with shadows on and any type of skies.
-There may be slight volume oddities with sounds playing lower than they are supposed to at random occasions, there just doesn't seem to exist a full solution...
-I can guarantee that all textures within this course are free for anyone to re-use. I have made sure to only use ones that I was certain came from courses (or other sources) whose designers are ok with them being shared to anyone. I have of course made personal edits to all of them and encourage others to do the same for individual looks. Giving credit to the original designers is the least one can do, it should be obvious where they are from if looking at the filenames and comparing with the more detailed acknowledgements section.

Features included:
-1024 x 1024 textures.
-Full Seam Blending.
-Custom colour editing of all textures and objects.
-Hole Previews.
-Hole Handicaps (same as 2001 version).
-18 pins and 5 tees per hole.
-Custom 3D Clubhouse area buildings (albeit very simple).
-Crowds, but no tournament objects.
-Custom flags (2001), splash screen (2001), logo (2001) and pano (new).
-Custom local sounds, both old and new.

Full list of changes compared to the 2001 version:
-All Textures changed, although I tried to make new ones having the same overall look as the old ones.
-Added Hole Previews (from the graphics in the Course Guide document Kevin Fraser attached in the original download)
-Completely remade the Niagara river with its gorge for a more authentic experience of them, although I saved a certain old part in a corner of the course because I liked it.
-Adjusted greenslopes on all greens (some only very subtly) to make the course enjoyable on "challenging" green speeds. The original was made to feel realistic with the pre-mod settings and Kevin Fraser agreed with making these changes. I made sure to change as little as I felt necessary. To achieve realistic greens I was sometimes forced to choose between makeovers of surrounding terrain or else shaping greens into at least slight tiers. Since I felt like changing as little as possible I mostly chose the latter.
-Some sharp elevations besides greens were smoothed out / made more realistic, mostly tinyscale details but also for example the rise before 5th green.
-Pins replanted and increased to 18 per hole. Every single one is deliberately placed and scrutinized, with none placed on more than 3-4% tilt. However, many greens are quite tricky so a lot of pins are close to steeper slopes.
-Added Panorama. I know it isn't the best looking... I thought I used good quality source material but it still came out blurry... After I had spent so much time on it I couldn't bring myself to start over so it will have to suffice. It is at least fairly authentic.
-Fully replanted 2D to make for less clones, the course becoming a bit greener with a bit more summer-like feeling as a result due to my planting set. There may still be some clones here and there that I haven't caught but should be much less now. On many holes I planted trees a bit closer to the fairways where it looked like the real course has tighter tree corridors. I was going to do underplanting too but then I realized the course in real life doesn't have any of that.
-Added basic forms of the road and clubhouse area buildings. I didn't originally plan to, so they're nothing special nor super authentic, just "serviceable" - better than my initial plan of having nothing or stock 3d at least.
-Added crowds.
-Bunkerlips were restructured to better fit my seamblending habits.
-Added full SeamBlending.
-Added sounds for the Niagara river. I battled a LOT of sound problems trying to achieve this and some are apparently not even possible to fully solve. In the end I think I was able to achieve something that so far has sounded acceptable on my end in my full test rounds, and beta testers didn't notice anything odd, so it's probably either only noticeable if actually trying to listen for it or else merely on my end only. But to me there still seems to be some slightly odd volume variations from shot to shot in an inconsistent/random fashion. I notice the same issue in several other courses, it's just much more noticeable at Whirlpool because of how the nature of the course and the character of the sound issue match up. In the process of trying to solve some of the sound issues, some old sounds were moved a bit.
-Increased wind direction variance to (almost) max, since even on that setting wind direction doesn't vary all that much in Links, and I can't see that the area in question have super prevailing winds.

Much looking forward to playing it, thank you for the update

Nice job, some tight fairways on some holes but very playable, congrats

Course available at https://linkscorner.org/courses/course.php?crz=2542

This is a very playable course. If you are addicted to birdies then Pro will give you your fix. But (imo) the course shows itself best when played as Champ or Elite. On Champ/Elite you'll likely see the plenty of rough, but there is plenty of room to recover. I played challenging mod/med conditions and the greens are a good, fair challenge. Thanks Adelade!

Awesome, I remember enjoying this course when it first came out! Thank you for your work on the updates!

I really enjoyed playing this course (I never did have the 2001 version). It feels like you're playing a real course, and I'm not sure of the reason. Maybe the fairways being of a bit more generous width (and not having deep grass waiting for you an inch off the fairway :p ). As you mentioned, the par-5's are definitely gettable, but the par-3's sort of even things out, I don't think any were under 200 yards. And there is plenty of sand if your shot goes astray. I liked the sudden elevation changes on some of the fairways, something I'd like to see more of. Over-all, a course I'll play again, for the simple reason sometimes you need a course where you can just grip it and rip it, but still has some challenge to it. I'm surprised no one has ever made a course with six of each par-3, -4, and -5. I did that with Mean 18 in what seems like a previous lifetime; I liked having the five par-5's on this course.

Hi Kevin:
I've found some issues on my review. You might want to make this a "Beta" until you have a chance to evaluate.
Jim

BTW, as we discussed it's really not that close to the real Whirlpool!

You have a PM. There are some issues...