Post by Deleted on Feb 7, 2019 10:57:02 GMT -5
Group C Results
1. Aristida Dunes Club 3-0-0
2. Shelter Island Club 0-1-2
3. The Ramparts at Harp Head 0-1-2
4. Hanging Lake Country Club 0-1-2
The Ramparts at Harp Head vs. Hanging Lake Country Club
JUDGE 1
The Ramparts at Harp Head is a beautiful fantasy style Links Course with some minor issues.
I thought the best part of this course was the greens. They aren't for everyone and some might think they do get away from the designer at times, but in my book they really adds a dimension to the course. They are bold and they are fun. It's not often anymore I feel that you find these adventurous greens that really defines a course. Never let anyone tell you your greens have "too many red slopes" or "unrealistic contours". As if to say it's something negative. It's how you execute and I found all your pins playable.
Some of the Tee shots were not to my liking. I have no issues with blind shots, but in my opinion you shouldn't hide hazards without reason. Some drives have landing areas that are pinched and can also add frustration more that it adds a welcomed challenge. I had problems with the wind to find a safe play and still reach the green in regulation on #7 for example. Favorite Hole #7
Hanging Lake Country Club is a course that has a lot of positive things going for it, but there are things to point out in nearly all departments.
One of the things I really like about this course is the playability in general. I wasn't bored once either and I felt that I often had a lot of options. It makes the course fun to play and a good fit for a CC-Tour event, should the schedulers deem it a good fit. Hopefully this aspect is something that the designer can continue to improve in future process and maybe tweak the difficulty level a notch to fit the upper tours.
There are things to work on though. There is a lot of inconsistencies in the design. The areas surrounding the course for one. I never looked up who the designer for this course is, but I would be very surprised if it isn't a fairly inexperienced one. Some of the biggest tell signs are the different planting styles around the tees throughout the course, some texture tear problems and a bit of a mixed bag in terms of bunker sculpting. It all adds up to a course that just don't give you that premium feel. I think it's important moving forward that the designer tries to find a style to use fairly early in a design to avoid having to revisit areas and risk these sorts of inconsistencies. Favorite Hole #4
Summary:
Interesting and very close match up between two very different courses. I give the edge to Hanging Lake as I feel it gave me the most enjoyment and it is the one of the two that I remember the most. I do this even if I feel Ramparts could be the better option for Tour.
Winner: Hanging Lake
JUDGE 2
Hanging Lake Notes:
Bunkers are large and blobby, sometimes overly deep. Planting seems missing in some areas/vantage points. The planting that does exist is very good. Excellent use of setting. Par 3s are very good. A challenging accuracy test. Most holes have a one-right-way to play, as far as i can tell. The 16th is the best designed hole...fairway choice with consequence. Signature skill: Par 3s. Signature Hole: 16
Ramparts at Harp Head:
Challenging, interesting greens. Wonderful use of undulating terrain. Good bunker placement. Fun to play. Lots of ways to attack the holes. Signature skill: Fairway bunkering, green sculpting. Signature Hole: 3
Winner: Ramparts at Harp Head Notes
Shelter Island Club vs. Aristida Dunes Club
JUDGE 1
NOTES TO BE SAID IN A VIDEO POSTED AFTER CONTEST IS OVER
Aristida Dunes Club Wins
JUDGE 2
Aristida:
Very hard to find faults with this course really. It'a a really good plot, that has a lot of great views off the tee and otherwise. Planting is very good and the course is fun. Not a TON in the way of memorable holes (though #4 and #18 DO stick out). Not the most original or replayable course in the world, but it's so very solid in every aspect.
Shelter Island:
A throwback course with a very fun bunker style that I thought was very close to perfect. The course itself featured a great array of holes and required many different shots, which I enjoyed, I did think the terrain sculpting could have been better though. It ended up being mostly visual, as the course was fun to play and the slopes were controlled...but the macro sculpting on some large bunker areas, I thought, was off. Sand and bunker islands were completely flat against each other, which I thought (especially because the game is not good at blending these textures) looked a bit odd...or perhaps "could have looked better" would be a better way to say it.
Winner: Aristida
You know that picture of spiderman pointing at other spiderman? That's this matchup. So similar, both very very good. Aristida just had a more refined execution that put it over the top.
The Ramparts at Harp Head vs. Shelter Island Club
JUDGE 1
Ramparts: Course grew on me as I went. Really liked the little extras around the course. Routing a bit off. Greeeens…gave a few extra e's cause they were huge. Also, didn't think the sculpting made sense on some of them.
Shelter: Really felt like the course was made on a specific property of land. Great routing, greens size sculpting. Loved the overall look.
Shelter Island Club wins.
JUDGE 2
Harp head:
Looks very good and polished. And plays great. Good in all areas. Didnt look who the designers were at all (with exception of greenbrier as i knew that was joe). So well done very accomplished in game play and doing the basics well. No real issues across the board and good routing. Maybe just few more eye catchers like lone houses and little villages in the distance would make this trip more immersive. Great job.
Shelter island:
Nice looking course with multiple ways to play alot of the holes. Some funky bunker sculpting but definitely one id play again.
Good effort although not overly difficult. More attention to scuplting greens would make this a trickier prospect. Good solid track
Ramparts at Harp Head wins.
Hanging Lake Country Club vs. Aristida Dunes Club
JUDGE 1
Aristida Dunes:
Really clean course that fits its environment. Looks good, plays good, hard to find much wrong with it. Nice clean routing, good variety of holes, flows nicely, paths from green to next tee.
Lots of options for the player right from the first tee, driver-pitch or layup-full wedge?
8 is a cool short par 4. 18 is a great finishing par 5, reachable in 2, but the shallow green makes a birdie less than a given if you mess up your second shot.
Hanging Lake Country Club:
Some good looks off the tee here. I love the hole 3 island. I wish the back bunker wasn't in the shadow so that you could see it better. Hole 4 is a cool hole with lots of options, but lowering the left side hills so that you could catch a glimpse of the green, greenside bunkers, and creek would add to the visual. Hole 13, you have a pond and some rock work that you can't even see from the tee. Again, tweaking that sculpting a little bit totally changes the look of the hole.
Several holes are like that. A few sculpting adjustments can turn an average looking tee shot into a great looking tee shot. Some of the sculpting is a little rough, particularly around tee boxes. On many holes, there's no good way a player could get from the tee to the fairway (6, 7, and 8 for example). Granted, that doesn't affect playing a video game, but for a contest course that stuff matters, and it makes the course look much more realistic and immersive.
The routing for 8-9-10 and 16-17-18 is pretty rough. Nice waterfall on 16. When you have a feature like that, try to incorporate it into multiple holes. Nice course, but not as clean and polished as the competition. I could see it on tour as a CC event.
Aristida Dunes wins the matchup.
JUDGE 2
Aristida dunes:
Great crisp looking track. Plays great. Definitely returning soon. Some great views and easy on the eye
Hanging lake.
Enjoyable track and pleasing to the eye. Texture pack and lighting need work. Splines average and lots of single shape bunkers and some funky sculpting. Still nice looking track which plays pretty good to boot.
Aristida takes this round for me.
The Ramparts at Harp Head vs. Aristida Dunes Club
JUDGE 1
Aristida Dunes:
There isn’t much to say other than WOW! Absolutely incredible course! There is a little hitch in the routing between 5-6. Other than that, there isn’t much to pick out as negatives!
The Ramparts at Harp Head:
Very solid links-style course. I think the choice of soft fairways and moderate greens hurt playability a bit. The routing is a mess. Some questionable hole designs and green complexes, with a couple greens being too big. Overall, a very enjoyable course to play!
Winner: Aristida Dunes
JUDGE 2
Ramparts At Harp Head -
A very nice highlands-style course. The wide fairways are clearly the feature here - the question is do they offer both a challenge and strategy at the same time, and for the most part, they absolutely do. They are laid into the sides of hills, and undulating enough that you have to be careful about both the landing and run of the ball to make sure you remain in the fairway.
The greens are also very undulating - the only thing I would say is I found the hole locations quite easy on my run through, mostly because they tended to be in either flat areas, or in bowls where missed shots would funnel toward them quite aggressively. I think there may be some good options for tough pins that I didn't play though, as the greens are quite large and have a lot of tiers and flatter areas where pins could be placed.
Aesthetically, the course looks nice - the only thing I would say is that a little more separation of "hole and unmaintained area" would help the look. It's a common thing, but having a clear definition between the rough and unmaintained areas (where all the objects generally are), makes the course look a bit better, but the course is very well sculpted and quite nice.
Aristida Dunes Club -
Just a fantastic layout and effort in the creation of this one. A very natural layout, and the best example of "playable vs. unmaintained" hole definition I've seen so far. Lots of great object work here, to make the outer edges look scrubby and dirty, while making the interiors well-sculpted and clean. The holes are very interesting to play, and course has a nice flow to it.
I found my round was very enjoyable - the only thing about it (which is a common thing) is that the hole locations and greens tended to be too subtle and easy. The only reason this was an issue was because there was plenty of natural undulation in the fairways and the rest of the course, and the greens actually seemed unnaturally flat compared to the rest. However, it was the only drawback to a well-designed layout that was fun to play from start to finish.
Lighting and aesthetics were also very well done, and I could tell a great deal of time was put into making sure the holes looked great from the angles you tended to play from.
Another tough match up of two great courses, but...
Winner: Aristida Dunes
Hanging Lake Country Club vs. Shelter Island Club
JUDGE 1
Hanging Lake: Positives: Really nicely planted (inc rocks). 8/9/10th holes are a great stretch of holes, and loved 15/16 too. Bunkering is really nice throughout - strategically located. Nice variety and strategy in the holes. Negatives: Every hole is really isolated - never saw other holes. The 'outer' sculpting is harsh / lumpy / not natural / stretched. Some of the tees weren't flat. Not sure how you get from 10 fairway to green - it’s a heck of a trek through the ravine!
Shelter Island: Positives: Loved what he did with the waste bunkers, shape wise - incredible detail on flyovers and the overhead map. Planting as a whole looked beautiful.
Negatives: Didn't like some of the sculpting on those waste bunkers - and also didn't like the 'up close' planting in some of the waste areas - plants half in and half out didn't seem right
The so-so: It was a 'nice' 'safe' course design - but nothing grabbed me at all about any specific hole and made me go 'wow.'
Winner: Hanging Lake
JUDGE 2
Hanging Lake Country Club:
The golfer is in Alberta, Canada, or Wyoming, or perhaps Montana. Panoramic vistas, mountain views, clear lakes reflecting all of it – it is hard to find any position on this course that is not aesthetically gorgeous. Each hole has been framed with the view in mind, from every position from tee to green. Sight-lines are all thought out, throughout the course. A minimalist planting approach around tees and greens works well here, letting the “natural” elements speak for themselves. Rockwork has been added here and there, but it looks natural, fitting in with the rugged mountainous theme. Only in certain areas has planting been done extensively - such as the slope facing the teebox beyond the water on #5, or the gully beyond the teeboxes on #6 or #8 - to good effect. Green sculpting is excellent, and challenging without being “tricky,” requiring precise approaches. Likewise fairway sculpting and bunkering, showing an excellent grasp of the tools and design. Some routings are forced, with few options, which limits variety and interest, but there are also plenty of holes with multiple options (such as #16), so for the most part play can be varied depending on the variety of conditions, making replayability a positive. Some greens are unnecessarily raised, putting them out of reach of the Pro Clubs, or in some cases even Master Clubs, if the wind is against the player on the approach, on some of the longer par 4’s (such as #10) but these are more than countered by long-ish par 5’s that are quite scoreable due to greens that are downhill on the approaches, if the player plans his club and roll accordingly. Very rarely is fairway bunkering redundant (like on #14), usually used sparingly or strategically for errant shots, or even absent altogether (#18) if not required. Likewise, green bunkering is very strategically-placed, and the greens themselves are quite challenging if the golfer fails to plan approaches well. All in all this is a memorable course with lots of memorable holes that should challenge novices and experts alike, depending on conditions and pins.
Shelter Island Club:
A gorgeous links setting, possibly Long Island or Cape Cod. The style of heavy, scattered dunes is a cohesive theme carried throughout the entire course, and executed in painstaking detail, with wild scrub brush and vegetation interspersed in and among them, giving the course a wild and very natural, and very linksy, look. The designer is an artist with the design tools, and choice of textures and lighting lends to the feeling of really golfing on a wind-swept heath. The open layout of the well-contoured fairways offer endless variety of play, with wind dictating club selection. Each hole is unique in routing and variety and challenge, with a number that could easily be signatures. Greens are well-sculpted; not as rolly-polly as a true links course, but accessible to golfers of more skill levels, and quite challenging if approaches are not well-thought-out. Nothing is out of place on this course – yet it feels like the architect “found” each hole and made minor adjustments to the natural terrain to accommodate each one. An extremely unusual and unique golf course that can be played again and again, with new appreciation of the strategic layout and aesthetic beauty being found every time.
Winner: Shelter Island Club