TPC at The Woodlands (2003)
by Alan Price & David Russell

Links Corner Course Database ID Number - 1295 Release Date CRZ Filesize Par Course Length 2003-06-15  65,109,956  bytes 72  7032 yards Type Style CRZ Filename REAL  WOODLAND  TPCWoodlands2003.crz  Course ID Course Key     COURSE SCREENSHOTS LINKS CORNER REVIEW Reviewed by Joe Turner `Loner' July 2003 A portion of his read-me: The Tournament Players Course at the Woodlands is located 25 miles north of downtown Houston in Southeast Texas, and is cut from a dense forest of Oak and Pine trees. Originally the course was designed by Bruce Devlin and Bob Von Hagge, but was transformed into a TPC venue course in 1984 when tee locations, bunkers, and length as well as mounds for spectators were added. On the PGA Tour schedule it played host to the Shell Houston Open for seventeen years, held every spring with past winners including Vijay Singh, Freddie Couples, David Duval, Payne Stewart and Hal Sutton. A really strong feature of the course are the many small lakes which provide some great challenges as hazards around the greens. The 17th and 18th holes are rated among the 18 toughest holes in Texas. Within the Links game, the course was brought to life by Alan Price in March 2001. He made a fabulous job of recreating this venue with great accuracy, and it has remained a very popular place to play ever since within the Links community. Whilst I admit to being a little uncomfortable with the whole idea of updating someone else's course, I begun doing so for my own use, but as things progressed I really felt it was worth updating the whole experience to Links 2003 for everyone's benefit. I have however been selective in my changes, only amending the course in areas that have progressed since the original apcd was packaged with the game, and not changing the lay-out or style of the original. This is a remake of the 2001 course with the new textures now available with the 1.5 APCD. The tee boxes, the mowed fairways without a first cut, the deep, rich rough and the patterned greens with a fringe all benefited from the new textures. Combined with a beautiful assortment of trees, reflective water and very nicely constructed bunkers made this a beautiful course to see. He had at many tee areas flower beds, some holding the signs and other objects, yes nicely coordinated indeed. The fairways are very nice sized and if you wish, and I did, you can overswing a little for that extra rush and not be severely penalized as long as you hit the bottom snap. The fairway bunkers seem to be placed where they do the least harm.so enjoy and run up your driving statistics. The greens however are a different story, they are running toward the small size and many or either oddly shaped or elongated and quite well guarded by bunkers or water hazards. The front nine seems to be a little more difficult in the fact that the water hazards were closer and more numerous around the greens leaving little chance for error. We finish off on hole # 18 with huge crowds, a leaderboard, TV tower and other objects making for a spectacular looking concluding hole to this course. The changes in elevations, although mostly minor will keep you on your toes adjusting the trajectory of your clubs, handed to you by an excellent caddie. The 3 pars were fun and the 5 pars, well, hole # 1 was a very good eagle hole, hole # 6, not an eagle but a good chance at a birdie, hole # 13 is a possible eagle even though it's and island hole and finish off with hole # 15 another very good chance at an eagle. The greens had a slight slope and I would say if you lumped them together they were leaning toward medium in difficulty not to the easy side. The minor slopes in the fairways are always something to watch for and this course although not overly sloped had it share of adjusting for my approach shots. This course is a classic and when I heard that David was going to redo it I was anxious to see if the result would be as good as Pebble Beach Classic. I was delighted and disappointed with the overall results. As eye candy the course is beautiful as an apcd course it had quite a few sharp edges on the tee boxes and the fairways. Since the fairways didn't have a first cut the meeting of the rough with the them should have looked 'cleaner', it too had some sharp edges, no seam blending, probably. A few of the tee boxes were minus their markers and I notice one that was out of place, this is the job of the beta tester but none were mentioned in the read-me. Enough of the minor errors, the course is beautiful to look at and plays like a dream, he did a wonderful job with the recreation and even though it's a healthy down load I wholeheartedly recommend it and know that it too will become a staple of your h/d collection, thank you David for the improved course. Reviewer Note I am a player not a designer and therefore rate a course as a player for other players. Summary : Included: read-me, cameo, splash, hole previews, signs and numbers, ball washers, cart path, crowds, custom flags, sounds, buildings, assorted objects, tournament objects and a jpg. of the course by David B. Lewis of http://www.artistsgolf.com. Not Included: custom tees or a recorded round. Statistical Information: par 72, 7032y, 3 sets of tee markers, 4-3 pars, 10-4 pars, 4-5 pars. This course is available as a FREE download. Download course Please support Links Corner