Updating Black Valley No.2

[MasterMontgomery]

This was the first course that Karen an i did. It was over 20 years
ago.I had even forgot about it, then i took a look an wished i had not.
It was terrible at best. So it was loaded in to the APCD an i saw things
that were unreal.There were verts 40 an 50 feet above other ones. Sand
traps standing on edge an on an on. So i thought i would leave the hole
lay out the sane, but tidy it up.I must say it has been interesting an relaxing.
There have some things which had to be redone. Some traps, tees, planting
etc. I an about half done an churning along. Its going to be named
Black Valley No.2 2023. I hope that is an appropriate way to do it.
Any ideas or comments would be great. This gives me a little break
from hitting dot 6.Also i have no idea where No.2 came from. If there
was a No.1 i would not want to see it.

thanks
Douglas Montgomery

[MrT]

I never played this course in full (I only came back to Links about 2 years ago and there are hundreds of courses) hence it is fair to say that I know basically nothing about it. However you asked for some comments and suggestions and thus I can provide a few which are a consequence of how I play this game. I only took a few minutes to try a few holes.

1) I notice that your course was done for Links 2001. Since then, challenging conditions were added. Will you keep the game to run from Links 2001 onwards or make it specific for Links 2003T? Considering the time we live in, my suggestion would be to take advantage of the most recent enhancements in the game (even if they date back many years now)

2) I get that your course if fictional, but I would invite you to design the greens so that they allow the course to be played even in the most challenging conditions (i.e. be reasonable with slopes and do not adopt untenable pin placements, mostly). I must say that I am not fond at all of greens where one almost need a driver to putt because balls move so slowly that they feel like they are rolling on molasses.

3) if you could, make hitting from the rough fairly penalizing. In general I find that hitting from roughs in Links is mostly not a big deal, but in real life there is rough and there is rough. At some courses, roughs make you feel like "ok, let's go home!"

Of course, you could make it HD, give it great panoramas, etc. but ultimately players like me are mostly looking for as much realism as possible and love to play the game as close as possible to PGA's championship speeds.

I planned from the start to stay away from APCD for I know myself well enough after 50+ years with myself. If I were ever to get into it, I would probably not be satisfied until I have reproduced even the divots on the fairways and would drive myself nuts in the process. So I can appreciate that creating a course is not small feat. However, since you seem willing to put the hours and the work into making it as good as possible, those are my suggestions/wish list.

[pmgolf]

Nice to see you over here at this site, Doug!

I haven't played this course (or most of the other 2001 courses), but the thing I've noticed is that they all have severe pins on the greens, favoring using pre-1.07 conditions. It would help a lot if you could add 4 to 6 pins to each green that are more reasonable. And I'm sure you already know this, but many people will jump in and help if you run into a problem. Good luck!

Pete