Real courses

[yeltzman]

One other point I forgot to reply to - we actively cannot promote real courses as they infringe copyright.

I think that says it all you enjoy promoting fictional courses where i will defend real courses i think that's the end of my comments here like i said something for everybody to play i am sure i could find some bad fictional courses somewhere enjoyed the chat.

[b101]

Jan 5, 2023 9:42:41 GMT -5 yeltzman said:

One other point I forgot to reply to - we actively cannot promote real courses as they infringe copyright.

I think that says it all you enjoy promoting fictional courses where i will defend real courses i think that's the end of my comments here.

No, you’re not reading. As part of the Nextmakers programme, working with 2K, we are told we cannot promote real course replicas as they infringe on copyright. Nothing to do with enjoyment.

[BaconJunkie1]

Well this didn’t go the way I had hoped it would but I enjoy replicating courses and I really love to see them used and have been blessed several times for that happening here and thank those of you that made that happen!


Ben’s “Playable Greens” videos are great and to him, thank you. I’ve even promoted them on other sites trying to get other designers to quit being so penal in 2k23 so their courses are playable. I don’t like to alter/trick up courses by altering their tee shots or the greens unless it absolutely just has to be done to be playable. A current project Poppy Hills #2 (2022 routing) is a great example at 200+ off the tee it’s almost impossible to hold that green in 2k23 so yea, it has been worked on. I try to keep the courses that I do as close to what the real designer intended or what the LiDAR data says it is with some minor touch-ups to smooth out LiDAR abnormalities or other things that I know to be wrong or have changed using other sources. If the designer intended that shot to be wholly or partiality blind that’s the way I will publish it.


I get the part about promoting real courses and the Nextmakers part so I guess you all should delete the LiDAR forum sections here and any talk about doing them since that is promoting them too. I won’t name names but we all know other members on here, their LiDARs/RCRs have been used in the past multiple times.


I spend a stupid number of hours on the courses I do, at least 150+ hours on each and take pride in them and yes, lots of hours doesn’t always equate to being good. I get contacted by many people looking for help or commenting favorably on my work so I know I’m doing something right so I will continue to replicate for them, the masses away from here at TGC and the ones that do play here and also enjoy my courses for their fun. If they get used here okay, if not, that’s okay too. Some of you reading this may think the players that frequent Facebook, Reddit, etc … inferior to you from the comments I’ve seen and heard but we/I make up a large number of 2k23 players and they do enjoy playing real courses that I and others on here and other places make because they couldn’t play them in the real World and that satisfies me.

[b101]

Jan 5, 2023 11:34:28 GMT -5 BaconJunkie1 said:

Well this didn’t go the way I had hoped it would but I enjoy replicating courses and I really love to see them used and have been blessed several times for that happening here and thank those of you that made that happen!


Ben’s “Playable Greens” videos are great and to him, thank you. I’ve even promoted them on other sites trying to get other designers to quit being so penal in 2k23 so their courses are playable. I don’t like to alter/trick up courses by altering their tee shots or the greens unless it absolutely just has to be done to be playable. A current project Poppy Hills #2 (2022 routing) is a great example at 200+ off the tee it’s almost impossible to hold that green in 2k23 so yea, it has been worked on. I try to keep the courses that I do as close to what the real designer intended or what the LiDAR data says it is with some minor touch-ups to smooth out LiDAR abnormalities or other things that I know to be wrong or have changed using other sources. If the designer intended that shot to be wholly or partiality blind that’s the way I will publish it.


I get the part about promoting real courses and the Nextmakers part so I guess you all should delete the LiDAR forum sections here and any talk about doing them since that is promoting them too. I won’t name names but we all know other members on here, their LiDARs/RCRs have been used in the past multiple times.


I spend a stupid number of hours on the courses I do, at least 150+ hours on each and take pride in them and yes, lots of hours doesn’t always equate to being good. I get contacted by many people looking for help or commenting favorably on my work so I know I’m doing something right so I will continue to replicate for them, the masses away from here at TGC and the ones that do play here and also enjoy my courses for their fun. If they get used here okay, if not, that’s okay too. Some of you reading this may think the players that frequent Facebook, Reddit, etc … inferior to you from the comments I’ve seen and heard but we/I make up a large number of 2k23 players and they do enjoy playing real courses that I and others on here and other places make because they couldn’t play them in the real World and that satisfies me.

Glad you found the videos useful - it'll take a while before we all get used to the changes (hell, it's taken me nine months and I'm still not there...), but they will generally be good and help courses play better.

Just wanted to clarify the point in bold as I'm not sure, but either it's a bit overdramatic/misunderstanding in response. We in the programme cannot promote them - Yeltz specifically asked about Nextmakers (i.e. people 2K have picked to help promote their game and give feedback). Like I say, I think it's one where 2K/HB are kinda happy to turn a blind eye, but they are clear with us that we cannot promote them. I don't really think they care what general users do as long as it's nothing stupid (e.g. tagging the Masters account) or if the courses themselves get in contact to say they don't want it on the game.

As for the last paragraph, I've never stepped foot on Reddit/Facebook design/playing groups and have zero plans to do so. Any comments I make are purely in regards to the Tours and my own views from having a leading role in reviewing and designer tutorials.

[mctrees02]

There are a few things I've read here which might be getting confused:

2K/HB - the company who makes and markets the game
2k Nextmakers - members of the game's community who contribute to and/or promote the game in various ways. Some of them (such as b101 ) have designed official courses in the game. Others are twitch streamers who don't build courses. They focus on promoting the game through playing and community interaction.
TGCTours - This website we are on now. TGCTours has no affiliation to 2K, HB, and/or the Nextmakers program.

There are members of the 2k Nextmakers program who are also an integral part of the TGCT community. Their Nextmakers contract prohibits them from publicly promoting RCR/LiDAR courses in any way.

All that is to say that while BaconJunkie1 , yeltzman , and mctrees02 are free to go on twitter, twitch, TMZ and Good Morning America to sing the praises of why everybody in the world needs should buy this game so they can play an RCR of Cypress Point, Sunningdale, Royal Melbourne, or their local muni...unfortunately b101 , Canuck and anybody else who has signed a Nextmaker contract would be in violation of their contract if they were to do the same thing.

[BaconJunkie1]

Thanks for clearing that up B101 and McTrees, I was guilty as charged on lumping things into 1 pile, my bad.

[b101]

Jan 5, 2023 12:59:02 GMT -5 BaconJunkie1 said:

Thanks for clearing that up B101 and McTrees, I was guilty as charged on lumping things into 1 pile, my bad.

All good. The Nextmaker thing is hard to explain - we're not exactly employees, mouthpieces for 2K or customers. Little bit of all of the above really with far less access or responsibility than most people here seem to think!

[BaconJunkie1]

BTW This has been a great talk, very enlightening to me and if any of you designers ever get a chance to work with a someone that designs good courses or sets the courses used, take it and I openly would take the opportunities again in the future to work with anyone and in fact, I have a session set for tomorrow. I can speak from experience from working with Frans and McTrees on Discord while sharing screens, it's made me better, things like pin locations and greens that needed some love to work on the True-Sim Tour and from McTrees, my own ignorance about some things (LOL), planting and most recently currently restoring greens and fairways on Forsgate that is so stupidly simple and yet I didn't see it and I could go on and on. Chats with Paddy, Tyson, Jeffrey Schley (who keeps me inline on Facecrack LOL) and countless others, thank you!

Having said that, people are willing to help when asked but they have lives too, their time is limited just like yours and mine so value HIGHLY what is given to you freely.

[randysruns]

Jan 5, 2023 12:47:32 GMT -5 mctrees02 said:

There are a few things I've read here which might be getting confused:

2K/HB - the company who makes and markets the game
2k Nextmakers - members of the game's community who contribute to and/or promote the game in various ways. Some of them (such as b101 ) have designed official courses in the game. Others are twitch streamers who don't build courses. They focus on promoting the game through playing and community interaction.
TGCTours - This website we are on now. TGCTours has no affiliation to 2K, HB, and/or the Nextmakers program.

There are members of the 2k Nextmakers program who are also an integral part of the TGCT community. Their Nextmakers contract prohibits them from publicly promoting RCR/LiDAR courses in any way.

All that is to say that while BaconJunkie1 , yeltzman , and mctrees02 are free to go on twitter, twitch, TMZ and Good Morning America to sing the praises of why everybody in the world needs should buy this game so they can play an RCR of Cypress Point, Sunningdale, Royal Melbourne, or their local muni...unfortunately b101 , Canuck and anybody else who has signed a Nextmaker contract would be in violation of their contract if they were to do the same thing.

Thanks for this clarification. If I'm understanding correctly, the Nextmakers can't promote an RCR, but TGC Tours can. So how is not being able to promote RCRs the reasoning (or part of the reasoning) for not using more of them on tours other than TST? After all, we have an RCR on the CC Tours next week. I guess I'm just confused why the marketing of RCRs is a heavily used argument/reason for not using more of them on tours.

[sroel908]

Jan 6, 2023 10:03:15 GMT -5 randysruns said:

Jan 5, 2023 12:47:32 GMT -5 mctrees02 said:

There are a few things I've read here which might be getting confused:

2K/HB - the company who makes and markets the game
2k Nextmakers - members of the game's community who contribute to and/or promote the game in various ways. Some of them (such as b101 ) have designed official courses in the game. Others are twitch streamers who don't build courses. They focus on promoting the game through playing and community interaction.
TGCTours - This website we are on now. TGCTours has no affiliation to 2K, HB, and/or the Nextmakers program.

There are members of the 2k Nextmakers program who are also an integral part of the TGCT community. Their Nextmakers contract prohibits them from publicly promoting RCR/LiDAR courses in any way.

All that is to say that while BaconJunkie1 , yeltzman , and mctrees02 are free to go on twitter, twitch, TMZ and Good Morning America to sing the praises of why everybody in the world needs should buy this game so they can play an RCR of Cypress Point, Sunningdale, Royal Melbourne, or their local muni...unfortunately b101 , Canuck and anybody else who has signed a Nextmaker contract would be in violation of their contract if they were to do the same thing.

Thanks for this clarification. If I'm understanding correctly, the Nextmakers can't promote an RCR, but TGC Tours can. So how is not being able to promote RCRs the reasoning (or part of the reasoning) for not using more of them on tours other than TST? After all, we have an RCR on the CC Tours next week. I guess I'm just confused why the marketing of RCRs is a heavily used argument/reason for not using more of them on tours.

I think the more relevant reason as to why TGCT does not use real courses more often comes down to the functional/technical side of it, as b101 mentioned before.

Many real course recreations don't work well on the main tours. Some do, which is why a few get used throughout the year on various flights. But there aren't enough of the RCRs that play well enough on this game that are worth being placed into the schedules with any kind of regularity. For TST, it's a different ball game due to the fact that many aids and things are turned off, making these shorter, less challenging RCRs fit that tour better.

I don't really think the marketing side of it has a ton to do with RCRs not being used on the main tours as often - it's maybe a small factor (like if the course is one that's been dinged before for copyright issues, etc.), but it's not going to keep a really good, well crafted RCR from getting on tour (like you said, there's a really good one on CC next week). It has much more to do with how they play.

[catcherman22]

I’d also like to add in that we have 6 tours to schedule for… one of which exclusively uses RCRs and we try not to double dip courses selected (use on more than one tour). We will use RCRs, but it’s not a requirement one way or the other. I’ve scheduled them in the past, and happy to do it again… provided it’s either a well known port or a well done new one. Feel free to tag me in a course thread for a newer rcr that would play well on tour.

[trailducker]

Jan 6, 2023 10:03:15 GMT -5 randysruns said:

Jan 5, 2023 12:47:32 GMT -5 mctrees02 said:

There are a few things I've read here which might be getting confused:

2K/HB - the company who makes and markets the game
2k Nextmakers - members of the game's community who contribute to and/or promote the game in various ways. Some of them (such as b101 ) have designed official courses in the game. Others are twitch streamers who don't build courses. They focus on promoting the game through playing and community interaction.
TGCTours - This website we are on now. TGCTours has no affiliation to 2K, HB, and/or the Nextmakers program.

There are members of the 2k Nextmakers program who are also an integral part of the TGCT community. Their Nextmakers contract prohibits them from publicly promoting RCR/LiDAR courses in any way.

All that is to say that while BaconJunkie1 , yeltzman , and mctrees02 are free to go on twitter, twitch, TMZ and Good Morning America to sing the praises of why everybody in the world needs should buy this game so they can play an RCR of Cypress Point, Sunningdale, Royal Melbourne, or their local muni...unfortunately b101 , Canuck and anybody else who has signed a Nextmaker contract would be in violation of their contract if they were to do the same thing.

Thanks for this clarification. If I'm understanding correctly, the Nextmakers can't promote an RCR, but TGC Tours can. So how is not being able to promote RCRs the reasoning (or part of the reasoning) for not using more of them on tours other than TST? After all, we have an RCR on the CC Tours next week. I guess I'm just confused why the marketing of RCRs is a heavily used argument/reason for not using more of them on tours.

It was used because Yeltzman brought up asking why more streamers (a lot being NextMakers) don’t play RCRs on their streams. If you look it was multiple comments before b101 brought this up and he was specifically responding to Yeltzman’s question. It wasn’t being used as an argument for scheduling RCRs it was informing why they aren’t being played on streams by NextMakers.

[BaconJunkie1]

Not to be argumentative but I have a hard time wrapping my head around the "Some RCRs don't work well on the tours" thing, I get the "Some" part but some of us strive to do really good work* but how can a RCR/LiDAR 7200 yard par 72 course with good green speeds and fair pin locations be so different than a fictional one with the same 7200 yard par 72 with good green speeds and fair pin locations?  

I spent the morning working with Frans pinning Poppy and part of Seminole, those 2 are pinned really well and playable. We used a middle green speed of 9.2/164' and 20 firmness since that's what I want to publish at from playtesting so you have options on speed to make them play harder or easier. We set the fairway waypoints to 325 so we knew what club was being used on approach, set pins and play tested as needed to make sure the locs worked using the advice in Ben's videos giving the ball a place to land and roll but stay on the green if hit well ... Anyways, I just hope you all take a look. I think your players might would welcome playing on a well done replicated course.

*I admit that some of my 2k21 ports didn't get the attention they needed when porting them to 2k23 and wish I knew then what I know now on how the ball reacts, so that's on me and will do much better going forward. 

[b101]

Jan 6, 2023 12:12:39 GMT -5 BaconJunkie1 said:

Not to be argumentative but I have a hard time wrapping my head around the "Some RCRs don't work well on the tours" thing, I get the "Some" part but some of us strive to do really good work* but how can a RCR/LiDAR 7200 yard par 72 course with good green speeds and fair pin locations be so different than a fictional one with the same 7200 yard par 72 with good green speeds and fair pin locations?  

I spent the morning working with Frans pinning Poppy and part of Seminole, those 2 are pinned really well and playable. We used a middle green speed of 9.2/164' and 20 firmness since that's what I want to publish at from playtesting so you have options on speed to make them play harder or easier. We set the fairway waypoints to 325 so we knew what club was being used on approach, set pins and play tested as needed to make sure the locs worked using the advice in Ben's videos giving the ball a place to land and roll but stay on the green if hit well ... Anyways, I just hope you all take a look. I think your players might would welcome playing on a well done replicated course.

*I admit that some of my 2k21 ports didn't get the attention they needed when porting them to 2k23 and wish I knew then what I know now on how the ball reacts, so that's on me and will do much better going forward. 

Because usually the hazards are placed predicated on a real life golfer who has a much bigger disperson than a pixel golfer. It's not about yardage; it's about yardage relative to hole design.

Consider how you play a 400 yard hole in real life vs a 400 yard hole on the game. There's your answer, basically.

[nevadaballin]

Jan 5, 2023 9:45:23 GMT -5 b101 said:

Jan 5, 2023 9:42:41 GMT -5 yeltzman said:

I think that says it all you enjoy promoting fictional courses where i will defend real courses i think that's the end of my comments here.

No, you’re not reading. As part of the Nextmakers programme, working with 2K, we are told we cannot promote real course replicas as they infringe on copyright. Nothing to do with enjoyment.

We could use the Official RCR courses in the game like Sawgrass, Torrey Pines and East Lake and others though, they are part of the shipped game. Correct?

I would like to see us get on those courses like Sawgrass when it's the week of The Player's Championship just to be connected a bit with the real world.