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Worthington Memorial
by Rick Fairman
| Links Corner Course Database ID Number - 1012 |
Release Date |
CRZ Filesize |
Par |
Course Length |
| 2002-08-27 |
6,547,138 bytes |
72 |
7227 yards |
| Type |
Style |
CRZ Filename |
|
FICTIONAL |
WOODLAND |
Worthington Memorial.crz |
| Course ID |
Course Key |
| d2e78782ba0511d68f1300c0f06b6332 |
2f09b2187909019a83c139fac320fb21 |
|
LINKS CORNER REVIEW |
Reviewed by Mike Nifong
September 2002
Course type: Worthington Memorial is a fictional, mountain woodland course that makes use of the much-maligned Whistler pano, which actually seems to fit, although that is probably not a fortuitous event - for either the course or the pano.
Historical perspective: Released on August 27, 2002, Worthington Memorial is Rick's first course. I do not recall any fanfare upon that release, and it has apparently not made much of an impression since, having garnered a silver star rating (below 50%) from only three voters.
What is included: Expectations in this category are pretty low for any course with a 4.4MB file size, and here they are fully realized: a brief read-me, no cameo, and a rather curious splash screen (three Army Special Forces soldiers with weapons at the ready standing in front of an American flag - perhaps they expect terrorists will take up golf). Not surprisingly, there are no hole previews, and there are no crowds planted, although there are a few tournament objects that cannot be turned off.
Certainly I have seen worse, but what I see here is not very encouraging. Virtually the entire panoply of APCD errors is on display to some extent here: frequent mesh shadows, abrupt texture transitions, sharp edges, angular boundaries. you get the picture. #11 and #12 are situated too close to the plot edge, so some anomalous textures appear in the main view. And there is a large section of the right side fairway bunker near the green on #10 that was either left with no texture assigned or was the scene where some poor golfer met a violent end (most likely, I suspect, a suicide). In (semi-)fairness, I will point out that Rick notes in his read-me that he does not have much of a grasp on the concept of mapping; it seems to me, however, that such a fact should call for a request for assistance, or at least some beta testing, rather than the general release of a course in this condition.
The kindest thing I can say is that the artistry is fully commensurate with the technical quality. This is, quite frankly, not a very attractive course. Textures appear to be stock - and bland. The planting falls well short of mediocre, with its soldier alignments of cloned trees and its occasional (and superfluous) carpeting of flowers. The infrequent bodies of water have their edges finished in unconvincing fashion. The bunkers are awkwardly rendered, their edges usually in one of two styles - a straight drop in a blurred green texture marked 'sod,' or a beveled 45°-angle surround of rough - both of which form sharp-line boundaries with the surrounding textures. There are also such touches as the tee 'mesas' on #8 - how does the golfer get up there?
The overall impression is that far too little time was spent in giving this course any kind of visual identity. It is all stuff that you have seen before - and much too often.
To the extent that this course has a saving grace, it lies in this area. Unfortunately, that turns out to be rather faint praise. The golf course that lies beneath this undistinguished veneer is, for the most part, believable. It just never gets very interesting. There is no real element of risk/reward involved here. You simply hit your tee shot straight ahead (I used a fade only once), hoping that it lands in the fairway (some of which narrow in the landing area, and a couple of which are narrow throughout), but not really having to worry much about the bunkers. Then, from either the fairway or the rough, you pick the appropriate club to reach the green. The greens tend to be large, and the majority are relatively flat, but there are some exceptions. On #6 through #8, for example, you are treated, in order, to a saddle-shaped green that is tiered back to front and slopes rapidly away left and right, an undulating green where pins are often placed right on the break points of the slopes, and a bowl-shaped green with a ridge around it to fend off any shot that misses short, right, or left. Both of the par-5's on the front nine are reachable from the back tees; neither of the two on the back nine is reachable.
Overall, I found this course to play on the easy side in b/m/m/m conditions, but of about average difficulty in w/f/f/d conditions, where the trees can come into play on some of the less generous fairways. The computer foursome seemed to agree for the most part: under b/m/m/m conditions, they were a very average -30 (-5 to -11), hitting 83% of the fairways (78-85%) and 77% of the greens (72-83%); in w/f/f/d conditions, they were -16 (also about average), hitting 81% of the fairways (64-92%) and 62% of the greens (50-72%).
The bottom line: Like me, you have probably played courses a lot like this one before. Like me, you have probably also wondered how the designer could have thought such a course was ready to release. For me, there are simply too many visual errors to make this a contender even if the play were scintillating - which it is not. But if you are inclined to give it a try, at least the download goes pretty quickly.
Course Statistics :
Course statistics: Par 72; 5 sets of tees; 7227 yards from back tees; holes are not handicapped. |
This course is available as a FREE download.
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