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Serpant Valley
by Bill Misener
| Links Corner Course Database ID Number - 562 |
Release Date |
CRZ Filesize |
Par |
Course Length |
| 2001-09-05 |
20,031,613 bytes |
72 |
7562 yards |
| Type |
Style |
CRZ Filename |
|
IMAGINARY |
PARKLAND |
Serpant Valley.crz |
| Course ID |
Course Key |
| aea6ee61a1f611d59c5b979dc471d645 |
db52b6548e6a0bb126c8c3bba29abe5c |
|
LINKS CORNER REVIEW |
Reviewed by Mike Nifong
Course type: This is a parkland-style course that features a lot of water. It is described by its designer as imaginary, but in my opinion would be more aptly considered fictional. Certainly nothing about it shows much imagination, at least in the sense that the term is usually applied to Links courses.
Historical perspective: In terms of prodigiousness of output, Bill Misener is, insofar as I am aware, rivalled only by Jassi Harding (and if that comparison strikes you as somewhat ominous, your concerns are not unfounded). He has submitted thirteen courses to the Links Corner (fourteen if you count both versions of Snodgrass), of which Serpant Valley is the tenth (eleventh), having been released on September 5, 2001. At 19.2MB, the file size of this course is smaller than that of all but three of Bill's previous courses, and is in the low-average range for all APCD courses. My only previous experience with any of his courses involved his fourth course, Elk Ridge, which I downloaded several months ago but did not keep; I do find it significant, however, that none of his courses has found a permanent home on my hard drive, where some 260 courses by other designers currently reside.
Of Bill's twelve other courses, ten have received official reviews from the Links Corner staff, with scores ranging from 25% to 77%; those more recently released have generally received the higher scores. Surprisingly few players have rated his courses in the user review section (about two dozen total, with four of the courses receiving no user reviews); with the exceptions of Snodgrass and Neptune's Playground, their enthusiasm has been quite restrained.
What is included: The cursory read-me file contains only a brief description of the course. Both the cameo and the splash screen contain pictures of (are you ready for this?) snakes, so I guess we cannot assume that the 'Serpant' in the course name refers to anything else. Curious about the spelling, I checked both my OED and my American Heritage, expecting to find that it was some obscure or obsolete variant of serpent. No such luck - it is simply misspelled. There are no hole previews.
First impressions: Other than the fact that the course name is spelled wrong? Well, the view from the first tee is not too bad, except for that none-too-attractive shelter that sits behind the forward tees (an unlikely location that actually hinders your view off the tee). In front of you, right where you would normally want to drive the ball, are a couple of big trees. There is plenty of space to the left, but then you will be heading toward a large fairway bunker. The right side is not an option because of the lake. The solution: fade the ball around those trees. If you do it right, you will be in the center of the fairway, 200 or so yards (across the lake) from the pin. You are under way.
What comes next: If you faded your ball a little too much, or if you missed your snap, perhaps you discovered that those trees you were trying to go around were of the concrete variety that plagued APCD designers around the time that the first version of Augusta National 2001 was released. But while those were cured by a replanting, no one bothered with these. You will find them throughout the course, often blocking the most direct path to your target. Of course, sometimes the bounce off those trees is quite favorable, but on the whole, I think most of us would rather not have them come into play.
For the most part, the course is rather open, with groups of trees rather than foresting, and generous fairways, some of which have a noticeably serpentine shape. Perhaps this is the reason for the course name, because with absolutely no under planting, and with no water's edge planting, I am not sure where any snake that wandered onto this course would hide. The trees tend to have overly straight bottom edges, a problem that extends to the foliage on some lower branches as well sometimes (on the left side of the 3rd fairway, for instance), making them look like they were thrust through horizontal slits in the grass.
The lake edges are not bad. Although there is no planting, there is at least a collar of rough and a mud bank, avoiding the 'flooded' look. The same treatment is given to the streams which are so prominently featured on the front nine, but they are much less successfully managed: in some places, the surface of the water seems to have a slope which matches the surrounding terrain. The biggest problem with the streams, however, is the sound. When you are on the fairway, the sound of running water (actually, it sounds more like the jets in a large hot tub) is very prominent. But when you arrive at the green, even if you are much closer to the same stream, the sound of water is either very faint or non-existent. Perhaps the water is just being quiet so that it will not disturb your putting, but however well mannered it is, the effect is unconvincing.
The bunkers are quite a bit below the current standard. They have no lips, but many of them do have do have sharp creases or obvious vertices. Some of the round ones near the greens, as a matter of fact, remind me of those cone shaped craters that ant lion larvae (or doodlebugs, as we used to call them) build to catch unwitting creatures who happen by. (The screen shot should give you an idea of what I am talking about. Maybe that is what happened to the snakes.) They were not very successful in attracting stray golf balls, incidentally. The greens tend to be large and relatively flat, so the bunkers around them are pretty easy to avoid; as a matter of fact, I never landed in one in any of my evaluation rounds that I did not aim for on purpose.
By the way, if you liked the look of that shelter on the first tee, you are in luck. There is one just like it on every hole except the 9th. Maybe the snakes use them. On the 9th, you get a different shelter. It is even less attractive.
There are lots of places on this course where the texture boundaries coincide exactly with drastic elevation changes; this occurs more frequently on the back nine, where more elevations are employed (see, e. g., the 14th green or the 15th tee area). This phenomenon is certainly not unique to this course, but, as is always the case, the effect is especially unrealistic.
At this point, I would like to be able to tell you that, whatever its cosmetic flaws, the course itself is a gem. I would like to, but I cannot. The truth is that the course is very average. Many of the holes will remind you of each other, but none of them are likely to make much of a lasting impression. If I had to pick a favorite, it would probably be the par-5 1st, concrete trees and all, because of the nice second shot across the lake. But while that green is easily reachable in two, I cannot really consider it much of a risk/reward hole because there is so little risk - just don't hit it short. This is not a difficult course to score on, despite some over-long par-4's that will have you shooting 3W's or 2I's just to reach the green. The fairways are pretty easy to hit, as are the greens, which are (as has been previously mentioned) also relatively flat. It is, however, a difficult course to get very excited about.
The bottom line: This is a decent course that, unfortunately for it, is being reviewed at a time when outstanding courses are being released every week. How this course would have stacked up in September is hard to say, because it does have some significant flaws, but here at the end of 2001, it is just not a contender. It also must be said that it really does not look like a tenth course, or even a third one. There are consequences inherent in a designer's decision to rush courses into the pipeline on the average of once a month. One of those consequences is the mediocrity (at best) of the product; another is the eventual indifference of the intended audience. This course is not, for me, a keeper.
Course Info :
Cameo Screen? Yes
Splash Screen? Yes
Text file? Yes
Hole Previews? No
19mb
Reviewed December 2001 |
This course is available as a FREE download.
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