Post by Deleted on Nov 14, 2018 17:08:46 GMT -5
Devon Quarry Country Club, a course that has somewhat of an odd history within the The Golf Club franchise, is getting a total renovation so that it can serve as the site of future TGC Tours events while providing a much higher-quality design and playing experience.
The origin of the course actually dates back to TGC1, when it was called Forgedale Springs Golf Club, where it was my second course design published, and although it was an improvement over my debut attempt with Overfield C.C., it still exemplified the work of a designer early in his learning curve with the software, particularly when it comes to fairway shaping and bunker sculpting. However, when TGC2 came out, I ported it over so that it would still be in the library as I worked on course number three. Unfortunately, as many of us learned, some of the pars of the holes were changed, and all of the sudden Forgedale Springs Golf Club was a par 69. Since this needed to be rectified, but because the name of the course was now taken in the database, I fixed the pars, renamed the course Devon Quarry Country Club, and republished.
I wish that were the end of the story, but alas, it's not. Players quickly found out in TGC2 that the penalty for being in the rough was dramatic, and so the design of the extremely narrow fairways, tight landing areas with bunkers on both sides, and the huge OB canyons on holes 8 and 14 no longer played as they were intended, and if anything, one could argue that hole 8 was made unrealistically difficult because if you hit it in the rough off the tee, you really couldn't hit the ball over the canyon on the second shot at all. Therefore, yet another change needed to be made to the course to make it enjoyable for the community, and so fairways were widened, some bunkers were removed, the OB on holes 8 and 14 were eliminated, and additional fairway landing spots were added to those holes. This is when the course became known as Devon Quarry Country Club (Tour), and it was used at some points by the TGCT schedulers during season 4.
Oh, but it gets better... when HB Studios reached out to me to inquire about using Devon Quarry Country Club and The Club at Ravenswood as official courses in their TGC2019 game, I said that it was fine but I would prefer that they use the (Tour) version of DQCC, which they agreed to do. Unfortunately, that didn't happen, and the version they used was the original Devon Quarry Country Club, which as I stated above was designed in TGC1 and had unfair OB on holes 8 and 14, and thus the "best" version of the course (and the most appropriate one for the tempo swing and devastating lies in the rough) was not the version used by HB in the new game. Ugh! So essentially, the Devon Quarry Country Club that is on the official HB courses list in TGC2019, is actually nothing more than Forgedale Springs Golf Club from TGC1. People asked me if I was upset and if I was going to redo the course, and I had said 'no' for many months, but I've decided that I am no longer happy having this course, especially in the form that it's in and being a design I made when I was a novice, being representative of the work I can do in my course library. I actually think it's the one that sticks out the most as the worst of the bunch, even though it has over 58,000 plays now in TGC2019 (mostly thanks to the PGA career mode).
And that's what brings us to this point, a new WIP thread dedicated to a course that's almost 20 months old in its original form. When I play Devon Quarry Country Club now, I actually hate it, because I see SO many mistakes I made as a new course designer. Even my third course, The Club at Ravenswood, blows this one away in quality, and hopefully all of the courses after as well, and so it's time to wipe DQCC off the map (yea, it will still be in the game unfortunately)!
This thread will be dedicated to the progress I make as I totally resurface, resculpt, and replant the course, which will change themes to the Delta environment and be called the Lakes @ Devon Quarry. Thanks for following along, I hope you like the new version when it comes out!
The origin of the course actually dates back to TGC1, when it was called Forgedale Springs Golf Club, where it was my second course design published, and although it was an improvement over my debut attempt with Overfield C.C., it still exemplified the work of a designer early in his learning curve with the software, particularly when it comes to fairway shaping and bunker sculpting. However, when TGC2 came out, I ported it over so that it would still be in the library as I worked on course number three. Unfortunately, as many of us learned, some of the pars of the holes were changed, and all of the sudden Forgedale Springs Golf Club was a par 69. Since this needed to be rectified, but because the name of the course was now taken in the database, I fixed the pars, renamed the course Devon Quarry Country Club, and republished.
I wish that were the end of the story, but alas, it's not. Players quickly found out in TGC2 that the penalty for being in the rough was dramatic, and so the design of the extremely narrow fairways, tight landing areas with bunkers on both sides, and the huge OB canyons on holes 8 and 14 no longer played as they were intended, and if anything, one could argue that hole 8 was made unrealistically difficult because if you hit it in the rough off the tee, you really couldn't hit the ball over the canyon on the second shot at all. Therefore, yet another change needed to be made to the course to make it enjoyable for the community, and so fairways were widened, some bunkers were removed, the OB on holes 8 and 14 were eliminated, and additional fairway landing spots were added to those holes. This is when the course became known as Devon Quarry Country Club (Tour), and it was used at some points by the TGCT schedulers during season 4.
Oh, but it gets better... when HB Studios reached out to me to inquire about using Devon Quarry Country Club and The Club at Ravenswood as official courses in their TGC2019 game, I said that it was fine but I would prefer that they use the (Tour) version of DQCC, which they agreed to do. Unfortunately, that didn't happen, and the version they used was the original Devon Quarry Country Club, which as I stated above was designed in TGC1 and had unfair OB on holes 8 and 14, and thus the "best" version of the course (and the most appropriate one for the tempo swing and devastating lies in the rough) was not the version used by HB in the new game. Ugh! So essentially, the Devon Quarry Country Club that is on the official HB courses list in TGC2019, is actually nothing more than Forgedale Springs Golf Club from TGC1. People asked me if I was upset and if I was going to redo the course, and I had said 'no' for many months, but I've decided that I am no longer happy having this course, especially in the form that it's in and being a design I made when I was a novice, being representative of the work I can do in my course library. I actually think it's the one that sticks out the most as the worst of the bunch, even though it has over 58,000 plays now in TGC2019 (mostly thanks to the PGA career mode).
And that's what brings us to this point, a new WIP thread dedicated to a course that's almost 20 months old in its original form. When I play Devon Quarry Country Club now, I actually hate it, because I see SO many mistakes I made as a new course designer. Even my third course, The Club at Ravenswood, blows this one away in quality, and hopefully all of the courses after as well, and so it's time to wipe DQCC off the map (yea, it will still be in the game unfortunately)!
This thread will be dedicated to the progress I make as I totally resurface, resculpt, and replant the course, which will change themes to the Delta environment and be called the Lakes @ Devon Quarry. Thanks for following along, I hope you like the new version when it comes out!