Welcome to the "Links PGA Tour" where we simulate the conditions of the PGA Tour. **We select the green speed and Pin positions with the courses we have in the data base, to give you the feel of playing along side the Pro's. ** All holes are played from the back tees.
Gentlemen,
When I started building courses I always had comments regarding badly located pins. Luckily for me I had Pete(pmgolf) and Adelade to help me understand what I was doing wrong.
Based on the words of wisdom from them, I went through the pins on Aronimink, here are the results:
unplayable .jpg (45.42 KiB) Viewed 108 times
I must add that I have not tested each one in play except for pin 0 on hole 13 where I had the ball return to my feet 6 times even though I hit the ball to within inches of the hole.
Ian Wells wrote: ↑May 13th, 2026, 6:44 am
Gentlemen,
When I started building courses I always had comments regarding badly located pins. Luckily for me I had Pete(pmgolf) and Adelade to help me understand what I was doing wrong.
Based on the words of wisdom from them, I went through the pins on Aronimink, here are the results:
unplayable .jpg
I must add that I have not tested each one in play except for pin 0 on hole 13 where I had the ball return to my feet 6 times even though I hit the ball to within inches of the hole.
Good luck to all who tee-up.
Ian
This is the unfortunate thing about Links is that, as a golfer, I have no control over this. We can ID it. We can not like it. I can complain about it. But I can not change it. I can deal with it, try and make the best of it or not play it at all. I'll choose to stay on the positive side of this and make the best of the situation. Maybe I need to be more creative but stay in the light. Don't succumb to darkness. Don't forget, this is the designer that created our Open course this year
Birkdale Simplified by John Brooks https://linkscorner.org/courses/course.php?crz=2306
FYI - Such as The Masters, the PGA of America controls the pin sheets, when and where they are released. I will post the pin placements ASAP but they may not be tonight. If it gets too late, I'll do them first thing in the morning
While many of the more recent designs may be based on a DEM that gives accurate greens, not all courses are using these and many may not also use the tools that in the past have given fairly accurate greens. Some designers have also basically tricked up their courses to make them more challenging using the standard Links settings (pre 1.06).
When faced with such courses the use of Challenging settings, especially the faster/harder settings may not be possible or fair, in which case the only viable solution may be to dial back the settings used to make the greens playable in Links. Trying to match Stimp meter settings in Links may simply not be workable with such courses.
As far as I am aware there is no definitive list of which courses play well with challenging settings and which do not, and if they do what is the upper limit for courses that may not have been designed to work with these settings.