Glenn, No one is attacking your course, please calm down. Im getting the impression you're not actually reading the posts where people try to explain or reason, but I will at least make one final attempt.
Disclaimer: I didnt want to enter all of these discussions. I thought we could just agree to disagree about our tastes in courses and move on like adults, without having to go into details in order for our opinions not to get criticized, but when I feel unjustly targetted by misconceptions and falsehoods, many of which I have strong evidence against, then I feel forced to defend myself before exiting this thread.
gene_golf wrote: ↑May 17th, 2022, 6:37 amI can definitely see where he would be put off by such a comment that someone hates the look of course
Wait, who said they hated anything about the course?
As for me, never did I say I had a problem with how things were, quite the opposite in fact. The same goes for Pete (pmgolf). I saw nothing that wasnt reasonably polite from anyone else either.
dko wrote: ↑May 17th, 2022, 5:21 amThe article also states that the stimp is going to be 11 or 12, so not exceedingly fast (MC/MC?).
gene_golf wrote: ↑May 17th, 2022, 6:37 amI can definitely see where he would be put off by such a comment that [...] real green elevations do not suit someone for their ever playing course as cannot use fc/fc setup and Glenn out and out gave forewarning that doing so would be stupid to think of ever playing course in that way.
No one said they needed or wanted to play this course on Fc/Fc, or even anything faster than Mc/Mc. I shouldnt assume to speak for Pete here, but the 10th green in regards to pins is at least beyond what I find enjoyable for Mc/Mc too. I have every right to decide for myself what I enjoy or not. You can indeed make an argument that speaking up about it is unnecessary in some situations, but as I will argue below, we had no reasonable way of knowing that this type of beta feedback was unwelcome here. Everywhere that I've been involved in Beta testing, the norm is that Beta versions which dont specify otherwise, always invite - even encourage - opinions. I delivered my opinion as politely as I could without lying. I very much welcome being taught how one could have phrased it better without repressing oneself.
dko wrote: ↑May 17th, 2022, 5:21 amGlenn puts a lot of time (and some money for Strakaline) into his courses to make them as real as possible. Criticism like the above has got to be galling.
gene_golf wrote: ↑May 17th, 2022, 6:37 amI was shocked that 2 long time posters were not aware of Glenn's expertise in crafting greens for his courses to have real life elevations and that is a part of replicating courses as well as can be done here in Links.
I have long been avoiding this subject, but the phrasing in those two comments have me unable to not defend myself, I apologize for my weakness. Please let me finish before you react:
Doing green charts purely with elevation lines for verts is still only an approximation, and does not 100% result in the real greens. The ground surface in Links/APCD does not go through every vert unless dealing with sharp edges (which wouldnt work for greens), the surface merely gets partially pulled towards the verts. The more dense the verts are around areas where the severity of elevation changes rapidly, the more accurate the results will be, but it will still always be at least somewhat of an approximation. In terms of putting, a difference in slope that may sound small can have a rather huge effect on how much putts will break. I could demonstrate this effect more clearly if anyone cared. Anyways, in general it can be thought of in a simplified way that slopes will become closer to the average slope of the nearby larger area, which, for greens with a character like the 10th at Southern Hills, tends to cause the flattest areas to become steeper in Links than the real thing, and the steepest parts to become flatter in Links than the real thing.
Secondly, Glenn Braden already told us that he makes the slopes on his greens on average 20% steeper than the charts show:
braden1308 wrote: ↑December 30th, 2021, 1:12 pm
Hi Danny, I use 10 digit on all of mine, give or take 1depending on how cranky the APCD is acting. You are going to have some mellow greens but I like your idea.
Glenn
(To clarify, the "correct" number for making greens as accurate as possible is eight-and-a-third digits per inch. And 10 divided by 8.33333... is 1.2 ) (For full context, this quote was taken from this thread, in response to this post by Dan:
viewtopic.php?p=12802#p12802)
Now let me be very clear - I have always been fine with Glenn Braden (or anyone else) making their greens like this. I never claimed nor thought that it is reasonable to demand or expect anything particular about how anyone makes their greens. I care very little if greens dont become fully accurate, I sure like it when all greens have at least one pin that is fair and realistic for pro play simulation, but I will always be content to let each designer decide for themselves. All I claim is the right to choose for myself which courses I enjoy or dont enjoy, and the right to openly say so when I have no reasonable way of knowing that someone doesnt welcome opinions about their courses.
braden1308 wrote: ↑May 17th, 2022, 12:43 pm
I asked you people to be constructive on your comments with the betas but NO, you have to attack it. Screw all of you,
Firstly, when have you ever asked this of us? It is always possible that I might have missed something, but since I have always kind of reflected upon and wondered about why you never gave any information about what type of feedback youre looking for (or any information about your beta releases at all, really), and therefore been on the lookout for it, I highly doubt you can point to anywhere that you did ask anything like this to us all.
Either way, if I had known that you wanted constructive criticism only, and that you personally dont seem to qualify the things that's been said in this thread as constructive enough, I can assure you that I would have been happy to provide more clear suggestions, and Im sure we all could have adapted to that, if you had let us know. The problem is that highly constructive criticism where one suggests more clearly what could be done, can also easily be taken as an attempt of telling someone what to do, or as if people hint that you might need to be told exactly how to do something. Take these examples:
Adelade wrote: ↑May 16th, 2022, 5:04 pm[...] the lack of updated hole previews makes it troublesome for me to enjoy this course
ChuckH wrote: ↑May 16th, 2022, 10:24 pm[The deep rough]'s just too severe for me.
dko wrote: ↑May 17th, 2022, 5:21 amthe hole handicaps apparently didn't make it to the beta except for holes 1 and 2.
Maximus420 wrote: ↑May 17th, 2022, 2:56 amthe fairway bunker on #15 seems too close to the tees and doesn't come into play on tee shots as it appears to on the PGA Championship website.
(Keep in mind that those quotes were taken slightly out of context from comments which were all much more positive overall.)
Are you saying that you would have preferred them to have spelled out how to amend those concerns in APCD? Somehow I doubt you would have liked that better. But as I said, if this is indeed how you feel, Im sure we all would be happy to adapt to each one's best ability. We had no reasonable way of knowing this, so please stop blaming us. At least I thought all those were self-explanatory enough in their constructivity, they clearly hint that added or edited hole previews, changed deep rough property, added hole handicaps and a moved bunker are things that you could do if you wanted these people happier. Or, if you didnt want to, you could have not done those things. No one hinted that you had to. Anyone is free to agree or disagree with these opinions or "suggestions" (if Im allowed to call them that), but a disagreement in that sense is not a valid argument for calling them non-constructive.
The reason why I brought up the greenslopes in the first place was in fact not mainly as a point of feedback, but rather a heads-up to the other people who value fair pins and realistic green speeds. Usually, something that might take away from one's enjoyment during a round, can often feel like less of an issue if knowing about it beforehand, rather than having an unpleasant surprise in the middle of a round.
If someone is very sensitive to criticism and doesnt want to change that about oneself, that should be respected IMO, just give people a reasonable chance to know about it before anything like this happens. However, to everyone, I caution against culture shifts towards where nothing but flattery will feel appreciated for feedback, we've already lost several memebers of the community, in large part because of things like that. I'd be absolutely fine with sitting back and not providing any opinionated feedback to certain designers when I know they dont want it, but if more and more people start doing that, dont be surprised if it leads to that designer's courses being less and less popular, simply because they dont even find out what people want. Anyone is free to not care about other people's opinions, but since this thread resulted in such strong emotions because of things that people "didnt like", I think it clearly demonstrates that someone did indeed care whether we enjoyed their courses or not. For what its worth, at least I think that is a very positive force.