Post by metatropic on Apr 22, 2024 6:52:14 GMT -5
Tobacco Road (meta) is my adapted real course recreation of Mike Strantz’s extraordinary design in North Carolina.
This is a course which divides opinion, its fans praising it for fun, boldness and quirkiness; to its detractors it is gimmicky, full of ridiculous blind shots and ludicrous green shapes. If it was an item of clothing it would be this:
I’ve spent 4 weeks immersed in the LiDAR file and videos of this place, and I come out very much on the positive side. It is the most distilled form of Strantz’s artistry, a project where he had free rein to exercise his vision in a terrain brilliantly suited to golf and diggers (it’s an old sand quarry).
Strantz was a big admirer of Mackenzie and quoted him in interviews. A favourite quote:
‘It is an important thing in golf to make holes look much more difficult than they really are. People get more pleasure out of doing a hole which looks almost impossible and yet is not so difficult as it appears.’ It’s the philosophy of the rollercoaster; simulated danger to increase the fun.
This philosophy is at work from the outset on Tobacco Road. The opening tee shot plays through a seemingly impossible tight passage between two bunkered shoulders, and yet, provided you can carry 240yards or so, it’s actually harder to miss the fairway than hold it.
The second shot to this par 5 repeats the trick, with a narrow passage between more heavily bunkered shoulders, with no view of the green at all. Yet a shot played through this gap will more often than not find it’s way to the green thanks to generous slopes in the player’s favour.
If you bear this in mind, and the primacy of visual effect over everything else to Strantz (a fine art major before he was a golf architect), you will fully appreciate his genius, hit bolder shots and shoot low.
So what don’t people like about Tobacco Road?
This course breaks quite a few design “rules”.
Firstly, there are a lot of blind shots. You can’t really see the landing areas for either of the opening two shots, and that’s just the first hole.
The 7th, 15th and 16th tee shots are fully blind, and multiple approaches are at least semi-blind.
The blind 7th teeshot.
The blindness is typically supplemented by frightening looking hazards in front of the player; critics say this is a course that needs local knowledge. But having said that Strantz often counters the blindness with friendly slopes that will take the boldly played shot down to the holeside, making for some thrilling play.
The semiblind 18th teeshot played over a fearsome bunker.
Then there are the weirdly shaped greens; the 6th and 17th, both shortish par 3s, are the worst culprits. The 17th green is almost 90 yards wide, yet only 6 yards across at its narrowest.
Get badly out of position and you’ve got to chip on the green (or maybe even a full pitch….); or so the critics say. I’ve grown to really love these two holes. The shapes allow huge variation in the way these holes play based on tee and pin position.
The par 3 6th from the left hand tees.
And from the right, a completely different hole.
With that in mind I have added tee manipulation, with blue, black and green tees offering alternate angles into the par 3s and the driveable par 4s. I’ve also lengthened a few holes where it looks achievable as Tobacco Road is quite short. The gold tees offer the closest to IRL back tees I could manage, the white tees are the longest tee position on each hole.
Tee/Pin Pairing notes:
Gold tees: IRL back tees
White tees: New back tees
Black/Blue/Green: Manipulated. Pinset 3 plays best with green tees.
Other greens have less crazy shapes but insane slopes or huge ridges. The 2k23 putting/ice-skating engine renders these unplayable as they come, so I have softened these ridges a tad, whilst retaining the fun they add to putting. I honestly don’t think I’ve enjoyed long putts as much on any other course. There is certainly a crazy golf feel but again, when you pull off a shot, you feel like a genius, which was Strantz’s (and Mackenzie’s before him) whole idea.
Finally, there are the angles of the dog-legs. Strantz loves 90 degree or greater bends, particularly on par 5s, with two of these “button-hook” par 5s featured at Tobacco Road, the 4th and 11th.
The par 5 4th, with it's sharp angle left.
To me, these are just great holes, the 11th probably my favourite on the course; stick as close as you can to the inner side of the dog-leg if you dare, letting you play a short-iron or even a wedge in. It rewards boldness of line more than distance off the tee which is refreshing in the era of 350yard drives.
The stunning 11th hole.
I’ve learnt a lot about Strantz and design in general from this course. For my NT course I am not trying to replicate Tobacco Road, far from it, but it’s influence will be everywhere, hopefully with the excesses muted into something better suited to this video game. My 17th green on my NT course is currently only 70 yards wide…
Enjoy your rollercoaster ride! Some more pics…
This is a course which divides opinion, its fans praising it for fun, boldness and quirkiness; to its detractors it is gimmicky, full of ridiculous blind shots and ludicrous green shapes. If it was an item of clothing it would be this:
I’ve spent 4 weeks immersed in the LiDAR file and videos of this place, and I come out very much on the positive side. It is the most distilled form of Strantz’s artistry, a project where he had free rein to exercise his vision in a terrain brilliantly suited to golf and diggers (it’s an old sand quarry).
Strantz was a big admirer of Mackenzie and quoted him in interviews. A favourite quote:
‘It is an important thing in golf to make holes look much more difficult than they really are. People get more pleasure out of doing a hole which looks almost impossible and yet is not so difficult as it appears.’ It’s the philosophy of the rollercoaster; simulated danger to increase the fun.
This philosophy is at work from the outset on Tobacco Road. The opening tee shot plays through a seemingly impossible tight passage between two bunkered shoulders, and yet, provided you can carry 240yards or so, it’s actually harder to miss the fairway than hold it.
The second shot to this par 5 repeats the trick, with a narrow passage between more heavily bunkered shoulders, with no view of the green at all. Yet a shot played through this gap will more often than not find it’s way to the green thanks to generous slopes in the player’s favour.
If you bear this in mind, and the primacy of visual effect over everything else to Strantz (a fine art major before he was a golf architect), you will fully appreciate his genius, hit bolder shots and shoot low.
So what don’t people like about Tobacco Road?
This course breaks quite a few design “rules”.
Firstly, there are a lot of blind shots. You can’t really see the landing areas for either of the opening two shots, and that’s just the first hole.
The 7th, 15th and 16th tee shots are fully blind, and multiple approaches are at least semi-blind.
The blind 7th teeshot.
The blindness is typically supplemented by frightening looking hazards in front of the player; critics say this is a course that needs local knowledge. But having said that Strantz often counters the blindness with friendly slopes that will take the boldly played shot down to the holeside, making for some thrilling play.
The semiblind 18th teeshot played over a fearsome bunker.
Then there are the weirdly shaped greens; the 6th and 17th, both shortish par 3s, are the worst culprits. The 17th green is almost 90 yards wide, yet only 6 yards across at its narrowest.
Get badly out of position and you’ve got to chip on the green (or maybe even a full pitch….); or so the critics say. I’ve grown to really love these two holes. The shapes allow huge variation in the way these holes play based on tee and pin position.
The par 3 6th from the left hand tees.
And from the right, a completely different hole.
With that in mind I have added tee manipulation, with blue, black and green tees offering alternate angles into the par 3s and the driveable par 4s. I’ve also lengthened a few holes where it looks achievable as Tobacco Road is quite short. The gold tees offer the closest to IRL back tees I could manage, the white tees are the longest tee position on each hole.
Tee/Pin Pairing notes:
Gold tees: IRL back tees
White tees: New back tees
Black/Blue/Green: Manipulated. Pinset 3 plays best with green tees.
Other greens have less crazy shapes but insane slopes or huge ridges. The 2k23 putting/ice-skating engine renders these unplayable as they come, so I have softened these ridges a tad, whilst retaining the fun they add to putting. I honestly don’t think I’ve enjoyed long putts as much on any other course. There is certainly a crazy golf feel but again, when you pull off a shot, you feel like a genius, which was Strantz’s (and Mackenzie’s before him) whole idea.
Finally, there are the angles of the dog-legs. Strantz loves 90 degree or greater bends, particularly on par 5s, with two of these “button-hook” par 5s featured at Tobacco Road, the 4th and 11th.
The par 5 4th, with it's sharp angle left.
To me, these are just great holes, the 11th probably my favourite on the course; stick as close as you can to the inner side of the dog-leg if you dare, letting you play a short-iron or even a wedge in. It rewards boldness of line more than distance off the tee which is refreshing in the era of 350yard drives.
The stunning 11th hole.
I’ve learnt a lot about Strantz and design in general from this course. For my NT course I am not trying to replicate Tobacco Road, far from it, but it’s influence will be everywhere, hopefully with the excesses muted into something better suited to this video game. My 17th green on my NT course is currently only 70 yards wide…
Enjoy your rollercoaster ride! Some more pics…