NGLA and Coeur d'Alene

[Big Sexy JC]

I never used these two courses in my PGA Tour replay because they aren't actually PGA Tour courses. So, I was excited to use them in my new career simulation because it's fake and I can pretty much make it up as I go. Unfortunately, they are both going to be one season and done because of issues with them with the AI players.

On NGLA, all 64 players crashed on the 12th hole. Luckily I was able to "continue" through it with restarts, etc., but it was pretty time consuming and a lot of work to fight through it. On Coeur d'Alene, there were over 20 golfers that shot over 30 on the signature 14th hole and another 10 that shot over 10 on that hole. I have a process to trim those strokes down, but obviously will skew the results. I wasn't watching so I'm not sure what caused the high scores but I can test and report back.

I really want to use these two courses as I think they are classic courses, but was curious if future fixes were possible? I do think with NGLA that it's something with the reflection on the water, but I'm too new to course design to know for sure.

Glenn and Dan, I'm definitely not complaining about the courses. They are works of art. I was just so looking forward to making them part of my new replay and am disappointed that I won't be able to. If either of you have any ideas let me know.

I forgot to mention that these issues occurred on 4 different Win7 configs so I don't think it's hardware related.

[Big Sexy JC]

I was just able to watch the next round of AI golfers on the 14th at Coeur d'Alene and I see what's happening now. Any golfer that hits in the water, instead of re-hitting from the tee, takes a drop right on the edge of the bank. There is a lip there so they change camera angles and hit towards the pier. Then inexplicably hits the ball in the middle of the lake and then repeats this idiocy until they eventually get back to the most forward tee box where they then hit towards the green. The golfer I watched do this took a 15 on the hole.

I think on this hole the best solution would be to force a re-hit from the tee, but I don't think that's an option in APCD. Unfortunately, in this case it's a combo of APCD limitations and poor AI golfer AI. It just really sucks because this course is bad ass otherwise.

[braden1308]

If you could give me some idea of what is happening during the crashes on NGLA #12, it would be a big help. I played that a number of times before release, and it has been out for a while and this is the first I am hearing of any issues.

[Big Sexy JC]

Glenn,

If you could give me some idea of what is happening during the crashes on NGLA #12, it would be a big help. I played that a number of times before release, and it has been out for a while and this is the first I am hearing of any issues.

Yep. I was afraid of that. Everything is great on hole 12 until they get to the green. I play 8 AI players at a time. As they all start to putt, the game crashes to the desktop with a WINERR and then an option to cancel, continue or exit. I can hit Continue and then the game and round load back up and the golfer proceeds to putt. Then the next golfer putts and the same thing happens. It happened with all 64 golfers so all 8 rounds of all 4 different PCs. On one of the PCs, I was never able to get it to continue so I copied the LASTGAME.SAV file and put it on my Windows 10 laptop and finished the round there without any issues.

I've completed that course and have moved on with the schedule, but I"ll try to get screenshots. I wanted to get them when it happened, but since they are on Windows 7 I didn't have my convenient SS app installed. There's basically nothing on these machines except Links.

[Adelade]

Doublecheck that you have the latest version of the course, I think some issues with one hole near water (probably 12th?) were fixed during beta or so.

[Big Sexy JC]

Thanks Adelade

I thought the same thing so I checked and the version I have fixed a similar issue on hole 15, but the readme didn't say anything about hole 12. The version I'm having issues with is the most recent version.

[Ian Wells]

I think this is more to do with the computer player than the course design.
With a human player, if your ball goes into the water they have they have the option of moving the drop zone backwards to an area that is playable.
I assume the computer player is not programmed to do this.

Ian

[Big Sexy JC]

Ian,

I 100% agree with you on that with Coeur d'Alene after watching a group play the 14th hole. Complete idiot AI golfers are ruining a really cool course. It's happened on a number of courses during my PGA Tour replay (Bay Hill, TPC Southwind and PGA West at La Quinta just to name a few). I don't think that's the issue with NGLA though. Something on that 12th green is causing a crash. The irony though is that it doesn't happen with my Windows 10 laptop. Usually Windows 7 is stable and Windows 10/11 is crashing.

If I have to replace NGLA, anyone have any suggestions for my Northeast Region? Below are the ones I currently plan on using.


Course Name
TPC Boston
Pine Valley Golf Club
Baltusrol PGA
Liberty National
Ridgewood Country Club
Plainfield Country Club
Engineers Country Club
National Golf Links of America
Winged Foot West
Bethpage Black
Shinnecock Hills

[pmgolf]

Shinnecock Hills shouldn't be overlooked. It's done by Robert Miller - one of our best designers!

Pete

[Adelade]

Oh did someone mention course suggestions? Well you've already got the courses i consider essential on your list, except for Oakmont (the Scott Lewin "Beta" version). I also think Westchester and TPC River Highlands are worth considering. I would also say Oak Hill East (the latest beta) but the issue with the rough playing as fairway makes it awkward to use.