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Foothills Golf Club
by Bill Misener
| Links Corner Course Database ID Number - 105 |
Release Date |
CRZ Filesize |
Par |
Course Length |
| 2001-01-21 |
30,080,786 bytes |
72 |
7279 yards |
| Type |
Style |
CRZ Filename |
|
FICTIONAL |
MOUNTAIN |
Foothills Golf Club.crz |
| Course ID |
Course Key |
| 6b309d40ef2a11d49c5bc1f757cb3373 |
ddc7869ef030c3f5d7565dd0ffc03a2f |
|
LINKS CORNER REVIEW |
Reviewed by Joe Turner 'Loner'
'F' in my book stands for fiction or fantasy; there is no doubt about his being a fantasy course. It starts off with an attractive mixture of tee, mowed fairways, roughs and greens colors all in the shadow of that mountain that we all love to hate, whistler. The mixture of trees seems to be very nice, as does the dark mulch used for undergrowth. The overly narrow fairways with their undulations, bumps and slopes combined with, at times, huge variations in elevation are not to easy to stay on after you hit them. I should be clearer, often you are playing blind and have to hope to hit them after changing clubs, using draws and fades off the tees. Quite often after you hit he fairway your ball will roll into the rough because of the fairways being narrow and not flat.
So what do we have here, narrow fairways that do not hold the ball, in some instances, elevations that are very good, caddies that aren't always accurate, greens that in the early part of the course are very easy and then become harder and finally become ridiculous. Bill has 13 courses to his record, 15 if you want to count version 2's. A wealth of experience and probably all of our reviewers acting as beta testers after the courses are out. A beta tester would have caught and changed many of the faults on this course. This course is a beautiful looking one and should have been completely playable instead of partially so. Many of the buildings and bridges are oversized and the green on #18 hole is beyond description in its slopes and slants. He has so much talent and you can see the imagination he possess why not have it tested before release and have a winner instead of just another forgettable course.
# 6 hole, par 3, 158y with 24y elevation, a novelty and interesting hole. I used a 5 iron two clicks up in trajectory and landed 7.5ft from the cup, a nice birdie hole because of the flat green.
# 7 hole, par 5, 582y, with a 24ft elevation, long, narrow, try to keep to the left for a clear second shot. Because of the dry brush dividing the course at 235y and the slight drop I used a 3 iron to advance 217y and had 94y with 18ft elevation to the pin. I had to overshoot the pin because anything that landed in front of it rolled back down the green. 14ft behind the green seemed to hold the ball. Now the problem was to putt into a hole sitting on the side of a hill without rolling down 12-16ft past the cup. No way, so now I had to putt back up a hill and if I couldn't sink it, it would roll back down. This is called a lesson in futility. I hope your hole placement is better than this one, I use easy placement.
# 16 hole, par 4, 318y with a 54ft drop, an over swing with my driver put me on the green, 308y, and 33.6ft from the cup. If you don't over swing you should lay up with a 3w or 2 iron because the green is elevated and you will bounce off and roll back down the fairway. Now up the angled slope for a 2 putt par.
As I said before this is a fantasy course if it were a fiction course it would be worth 0%. It is beautiful to look at and not too much fun to play unless you are a fan of this type of course. If you don't like fantasy don't download it, if you are you'll probable like it very much. Its just conjecture on my part but I feel bill just likes to build courses and more power to him for that. I would like to see talent put to a better use but who am I to tell him how to enjoy his hobby. Maybe one of these days we'll see a winner from him but for now this isn't it.
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Thoughts from Ian Downs
Foothills is very aptly named, for the obvious reasons in the image above. But be very reserved when deciding if the course is playable.
Nothing can be more exhilarating to see your ball fly off sweetly from the tee to find the fairway either dead upon landing or to see the ball spin off in various directions....or can it? Foothills has those features in abundance. Not only are the fairways hilly, elevated and hard to hit, they also make your ball guaranteed to give a tough lie for your next shot. This course is not easy. Without being able to comment too well upon hole layouts for reasons mentioned after, there are some that offer a chance to score. The 18th is an example of risk and reward with a small island fairway allowing a shot to the green on this par 5. To phrase this badly.. this is a rock n' roll course.
Okay, if that read like you might fancy this course, please read on. The errors in this course through APCD design are far too numerous for me to mention. Every fairway, rough, fringe, bunker, cartpath and probably more has poor edges, bulges, twists, bad mesh, need I go on? The elevations are possibly too much too, as you will see the ball roll many times into trouble, when you think you're safe. Every extrusion has no terrain on the face, and this features in most bunkers and the odd extruded green too. Indeed, the 13th green has been extruded above the surrounding fringe/fairway! On the 2nd and 15th holes, there is missing terrain in some of the bunkers. The asphalt path is twisted on the 2nd and 5th. There are too many hard edges around bunkers, inside bunkers, around and inside fairways to count. And also the stream across the 16th fairway has no sides, with the fairway being lower than the water too. How does that water stay there?
This course does make me believe how important it is to get people to play-test before releasing. I would also point out that alot more needs learning before continuing designing with the methods already known.
Course Info :
Cameo Screen? Yes
Splash Screen? Yes
Panorama Used? ?
Text file? Yes
Hole Previews? No
26mb
Reviewed Feb 2002 |
This course is available as a FREE download.
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