Wildcat Golf Club-The Lake Course-Houston Texas by Sage Vanni

[sagevanni]

I'll look into it again when I have time.......

My courses are never locked. If someone wants to open it in APCD, do validate/save and see what happens, I would be interested in the result. If the problem is solved from doing that, whoever did the fix can re-release the course.

Sage.....

[Danny D]

I'll look into it again when I have time.......

My courses are never locked. If someone wants to open it in APCD, do validate/save and see what happens, I would be interested in the result. If the problem is solved from doing that, whoever did the fix can re-release the course.

Sage.....

For those that may not already know, if the course was created with the "non-reg" hole option checked, then it cannot be fixed. Choosing that option is pretty much the first move you make when you begin a new course. Once started, it can't be undone.

Dan

[Danny D]

I'll look into it again when I have time.......

My courses are never locked. If someone wants to open it in APCD, do validate/save and see what happens, I would be interested in the result. If the problem is solved from doing that, whoever did the fix can re-release the course.

Sage.....

Here ya go Sage. This will clear things up. I took a quick look at it in the APCD and here's what I discovered...

vs.jpg (190.38 KiB) Viewed 6111 times

[sagevanni]

Hi Danny,

I called up several course I have done and when I call up the checklist they all have the checkbox ticked for validate and save. As for the yardage of 606 yards, I'm doing a real course with a hole 609 yards and it works just fine for now.

So I think it's a combination of bad programming in APCD.

By the way did you try validating and saving and opening the course to see if that fixed it...?????? If so, go ahead and re-release it.

Sage......

[Danny D]

Hi Danny,

I called up several course I have done and when I call up the checklist they all have the checkbox ticked for validate and save. As for the yardage of 606 yards, I'm doing a real course with a hole 609 yards and it works just fine for now.

So I think it's a combination of bad programming in APCD.

By the way did you try validating and saving and opening the course to see if that fixed it...?????? If so, go ahead and re-release it.

Sage......

I looked at the checklist and it showed as being val & savd. I did go ahead and V & S it while I had it open, but have no way of knowing if that fixed it or not.
I have never played the course or witnessed an invisible hole on it. I was just suggesting what is most likely the reason for the invisible holes.
A 445 yard par 3 is non-regulation with default game settings. I understand things can be stretched and moved around to fudge on the allowable regulation yardages, but doing so messes up the scorecard in some manner. I forgot how, but in the end it makes something show inaccurately.
I will open it in Links and assign an ANI to play by himself, and watch to see if any invisible holes appear.

Dan

[Danny D]

Hi Danny,
If so, go ahead and re-release it.

Sage......

Well, I watched 18 holes and I think I can accurately report that, I saw NO invisible holes...

That doesn't mean there are none. Odds are the OP was playing different pins than me. I am not going to re-release it, but If anyone want's the one I have for further testing, I'll be happy to send it to them. Just ask and I'll arrange to PM it to them. All I did was V&S it...

Cheers,

Dan

[sagevanni]

Hi Danny,

Thanks for taking the time to do this.

I did the same thing as you a few days ago and played it after a val and save and saw all holes. But as I said when I open it in APCD the textures are all messed up so that's why I asked if someone else would care to open val and save and re-release.

Sage......

[Adelade]

445-606 yards is within regulation for a par 5 though, and it looks like you had hole 2 selected in your screenshot Dan, that one is a par 5. I tried deleting a random hole on the course and to lay it out again, and APCD didnt allow it to be too short or too far, which should mean that the course does not have the box of death problem (I tested same thing with a course that did have the box of death ticked, upon re-opening it, deleting a hole and laying it out again, it allowed any hole range then). As Dan said, the course shows that it was Validated and Saved when first opening it, so that ought to mean that wasnt the problem either (I tested with a course that was edited, then saved without an V&S, re-opened, and then the course checklist shows that it needs V&S).

So what might be the problem? No clue, but Im not too surprised that neither the regulation box nor V&S appears to be the problem, because I have once encountered an invisible cup on a test round on an in-progress version of a course I was making myself, and I was so sure that I had properly validated and saved it. It only happened once during the round, and I had difficulty recreating the problem, so it may have been just that one pin or hole. I assumed some glitch with APCD had happened, perhaps related to the pin itself or the elevations of the green, or perhaps with the one V&S itself at the time the specific pin and/or green elevation in that spot should have "locked into place" so to speak. I theorized that, if I move all pins on the course half an inch or something, that ought to lock them in place anew with the next V&S, and hopefully that would solve the problem. Thats what I did, I cant be 100% sure that it fixed the issue, but I never encountered an invisible cup again on the course, so I bet (hope?) that it did.

I am not trying to suggest that should be done with this course, but it could be a possible fix, if someone cares enough to bother doing it. Just Validating & Saving an extra time might work alone if lucky. Dan said he encountered none after his V&S, which is a very good sign, but doesnt necessarily mean the problem is fully gone. With the lack-of-V&S problem, the occurrence of invisible pins tends to be directly related to whichever pins were moved since last planted or the last V&S, or wherever the green elevations were altered since pin planting or last V&S. With the 'box of death' problem, the invisible cups seem fully random and not related to specific pins, and in my experience tend to show up either zero or one or two times per round. But since neither of those two things seem to be the cause of the problem here, it could possibly be specific to certain pins. I have never played the course so I dont know how frequent the problem was.

It is also possible that a single instance with an invisible cup is just an extremely rare bug within Links, without there being any actual fault to the course. I did encounter it once on one of the earlier final releases of Wade Hampton too (probably the 2018 version), and I remember highly doubting that it was a lack of V&S or box of death there, since I had played several rounds on the same course version before without encountering it, and since no one else had reported such a problem with the course.

[pmgolf]

I have fixed an invisible hole while playing a tournament round! Change your aim enough to make the screen redraw (like to the left around 10 degrees or so), which will make the hole appear again. Then simply aim at the point you were going to use to accommodate the break of the putt. It's like you moved your feet and are using an open stance instead of having your feet squared up to the putt. The redraw is what fixes it, but where your aim is overrules the fact that your line isn't straight to the hole. It works every time I've used it.

Pete

[Jimbo]

Would it be possible to reclassify it as BETA?
That way any and all fixes could be examined (better known as "nit-picking")?