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Castle Stuart Golf Links 2015
by Robert Moor Note: This course contains 1024x1024 textures and can only be played in version 1.07 or later of Links 2003
| Links Corner Course Database ID Number - 2244 |
Release Date |
CRZ Filesize |
Par |
Course Length |
| 2015-11-16 |
105,898,821 bytes |
72 |
7195 yards |
| Type |
Style |
CRZ Filename |
|
REAL |
LINKS |
Castle Stuart Golf Links 2015.crz |
| Course ID |
Course Key |
| 346868718dd946d597afa969a7c0e040 |
4f84c02d8b7202e7dcad8ae667f08f8b |
| COURSE NOTES |
Castle Stuart, a championship links course overlooking the Moray firth, is the newest offering in the Scottish Highlands joining other distinguished courses in the Black Isles, notably Royal Dornoch, Nairn, Brora and Tain. It was built on an "Old Sea Cliff" adjacent to the Moray Fith, just outside of Inverness, Scotland.
With rumple, partially re vetted, and natural bunker styling, gorse and heather prevalent throughout, it is easy to see why Darren Clarke and Phil Mickelson call this a fun course to play.
Designers Mark Parsinen and Gil Hanse's creation emphasizes play-ability, recover-ability, intrigue and visual drama, as showcased in the course's "infinity edges" with many holes having a backdrop of just the Moray Firth and the Black Isles in the distance. Adding to the appeal of the course is having local landmarks like Stuart Castle, completed in 1625 and seen behind the fourth hole, the Chanonry lighthouse, the Kessock Bridge, and Fort George.
1024X1024 textures were used to re-create this course so Links version 1.07 Add-On will need to have been downloaded to run this course. It totals about 102MB, has 56 3D-objects, 1,460,765 2D-objects, 1853 mappings, and 133 custom textures.
Tees, Pins and Wind
There are five sets of tees.
I have the back tees set at the yardages used when the Scottish Open was last held here to the middle of the green.
The 1st and 10th tees have middle (alternate) tees also set at the tournament yardages.
The 1st tee (middle) was used at the tournament. It has a harder angle with the fairway.
The 10th tee (back) also is the harder angle. Either one can be used.
The par 5 12th hole has middle tees set at 528 yds (used at the 2011 & 2012 Scottish Opens).
The back tee is set at 599 yds (2013 Scottish Open).
I have 18 pins for each hole, the first four are from each day of the Scottish Open in 2013. 0-Thurs pin placement, 1-Fri, 2-Sat, 3-Sun.
Depending on the wind, all 4 placements can be tricky. The 2 or 3 pins that may border on unfair I've tried to smooth, alter slightly or make easier.
Hole #2 Left-side Middle (0-Thurs placement I think) actually plays that way in the tournament.
Same with hole #15 Front-Left (1-Fri) and hole #5 Mid-Right. What angle you approach these and just about all of the pins and how good of an approach shot is hit will dictate some of these putts.
The 13th & 14th holes have mounding and rumple, your angle to the green is important depending on the wind conditions.
The short par-4 3rd and par-3 4th are as close as I could get the greens to how they actually play in real life.
The 9th green doesn't slope as much in the front as in Real Life. Would be very unfair to put the green that way. All of the greens at this course were hard to design with the APCD. I hope I've done them a little bit of justice with this design.
There is a prevailing wind off the Moray Firth, so I set the wind direction at 43% variance from 108 degrees, (West/Southwest) at 18 mph with 35% variance. The course plays harder with varying wind direction and pretty tough with Windy. Otherwise, it's pretty easy to score 6-under par.
Green Hardness Firm (Challenging) and Green Speed Fast work pretty well.
I want to credit Paul Seaman for the fairway texture which I believe he made for Stewart Parker's Turnberry Alisa course.
Many thanks to those who gave suggestions for the course after it first came out. I think the course is much more presentable now (esp the fwy and ocean).
Panorama
The panorama used doesn't present very well with Ominous or Overcast skies set. I use skies with a little bit of blue showing.
I set Out of Bounds for the Moray Firth and also for the Gorse lining some of the holes. Some of the sand adjacent to the Firth also is out of play (seam-blends with Ocean).
I apologize I did not use Tournament Objects or Fans. I felt I had too many instability issues with APCD. I know with the limitations of my computer (off the shelf HP), the high vert count and many elevations, size of the plot and the use of quite a few 3D structures, my chances of pulling it off were slim. I've had crashes w/ APCD and textures where I had to go back to my basic plot and elevations before when I thought I was almost done with final plantings. For this reason
I also left out a cool pathway leading to the 13th tee from the 12th green, that rises over 85 feet through the gorse. It even had a soda-pop machine halfway up. I saw it but lost it in the crash. In many ways, some previous versions I had saved but were unrecoverable were more accurate than this version, however this one plays well, is planted, has all the features I felt were necessary to be included in a final version and it's fun to play. I hope you find that to be the case too.
My apologies again, I know crowds and Tournament Objects are a big feature in Links. I hope you enjoy the course.
Robert Moor |
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