At The Links- June 19, 2001

Designers Notes: Opened in 1923, this A.W. Tillinghast creation demands powerful, yet accurate golf. The fairways are narrow, the rough is deep and the greens are contoured. It is not only important to hit most of your tee shots long, but as straight as humanly possible. This club hosted the 1929, 1959, 1974, and 1984 U.S. Opens. The winners were R. T. Jones, Jr., Billy Casper, Jr., Hale Irwin, and Fuzzy Zoeller. The 1997 PGA Championship, won by Davis Love III, was played here as well.

Fab: Before I review this course I want to make one comment about PGA Golf and an improvement I hope they make in future releases. We need to have the grid color changed from yellow to white. That would resolve the only problem on playing this course and many others, the inability to clearly see the breaks.

Dave: Frank did his homework on this one, read the text file on it. This course is a gem. Try as we might we could find nothing to complain about. Well almost. Lol

The turf that Frank used on this course is some of the best I have seen. The rough has a texture that REALLY looks like rough. The fairways even have divot marks in them. HOW’D HE DO THAT! hehe

Be careful when playing this course, there are some hills and slopes that are very deceptive and can fool a player into some trouble.

This is a course of the top-notch variety. The only thing that I find to be troublesome on it is the use of the turf Frank used and that is only because it makes it almost impossible to read the greens using the grids so take your time and GOOD LUCK!

Designers Notes: Constructed on a portion of the original 966 acres granted to William Gunnell in 1730, Difficult Run Country Club nestles between the many branches of its namesake stream. Difficult Run in real life is one of the many streams tributary to the Potomac River and has probably a dozen small branches. This virtual course is nestled between a couple of these.f William is the probable ancestor of my own line of Fairfax Gunnell's, thus my interest in these particular land grants in and around the area where I grew up. The Gunnells migrated from England sometime in the late 1600s. Despite that the first three generations of Gunnell men were illiterate they were rewarded handsomely for their many years loyal service as indentured servants and retainers to the Lee family. The land granted to them by the Proprietary was not free---it had to be purchased by faithfully paying the quit rents. However, it was a better life with more opportunity than England. I doubt they ever imagined that golf would be played on their land (And most likely never will because of the many existing sub-divisions and shopping centers built on the Gunnell tracts. Some of the land does remain open. Who knows? Maybe there will be a course there someday---and there are several in the area).

A comparable course existing in real life would be Congressional Country Club in Maryland and perhaps Army-Navy Country Club in Arlington, Virginia.

Fab: I added the designer’s notes because I thought it an interesting piece of history, and a look back at the immigrants lives.

Difficult Run is not a real course rendition; I only wish that it were. It is a splendid virtual course that will be a challenge and a lot of fun for most to play.

The overall course design, layout and elevations are beautifully done. For the most part the greens are well thought out and constructed although a few “Pool Table” smooth greens should have been better constructed so as not to yield those straight in putts. There were also one or two greens that were an “upside down cereal bowl” with what I would call an unfair pin position.

I was not impressed with most of the bunkers which although had nice dirt lips were too flat for my liking. The bunkers that were sunk appeared to need a little extra smoothing to really make them shine. I also think the overall beauty of the course which used light colored textures would have been enhanced with a little more color. I believe Steve tried to do this with his areas of wildflowers but that didn’t work IMHO. They were too flat, showed little definition and unless it said wildflowers I would have mistaken for common waste areas.

Overall I liked this course, and will be keeping it on my hard drive for now. Nice job Steve.

Dave: Difficult Run has a lot of very interesting ideas going for it. I really liked the shapes of the bunkers, the fairways were fair with most of the trees well off to the sides, but don’t let that fool you, the weeds are tough out there. Trees aren’t needed…lol.

Approach shots to the greens are to be taken seriously as one slip and you’re in one of the many very intricately curved bunkers.

A couple of items would have made this an excellent course though in my opinion. The bunkers although very well thought out were still a bit rough and could have used more smoothing on the edges and many of them seemed to be completely flat once you landed in them… which I seemed to have done with a great deal of accuracy. The only other item that would have made this course more enjoyable was more eye candy. I like the occasional view of well placed flower beds, which seemed to be lacking. Steve did use some fences I found to be very well placed and natural looking, great job there. Having said that, eye candy aside, (personal preference of mine) this is a course that is challenging and fun to play.

Harbour Town Golf Links By Smak2000

Fab: Harbour Town Gold Links is a very interesting course. It is well designed, fun to play and good to look at. Dave and I opened up on the first hole and heard something different for PGA, dogs barking…quite a pleasant surprise and change of pace or so I thought. After playing three holes the song “Who Let The Dogs Out” came to mind….lol. After the first four or five holes I began to think that everyone had dogs because that is all I heard and it got to be a little annoying. However both the dogs and my playing pard Dave finally shut up after the first five holes and I could finally settle in for a quiet and relaxing day of golf…..lol.

This course requires that you do a little bit of thinking in order to score well, although it is an easy course to have a very good round. There were only two places where I saw anything that affected the playability of this course and that was the greens on 9 and 13. On 9 I had a short 5’ putt which showed almost no break (at most right edge) set up my shot, putted and thought to myself another birdie. Well I was wrong halfway to the cup the ball decided it wanted to go somewhere else and took a hard right turn. On a putt that read a 2 break it actually turned out to be a 9 to get it into the cup. A little more smoothing to get rid of that spike was needed. I also think that the green on 13 with the pin up front was a bad design. Either the small front portion should have less of a slope of been larger, or maybe not having a pin located there would suffice.

Other then those two items the course was very fair and fun to play. Dave may not think so, he was horrible last night, but then he usually is….lol. Oh and speaking of Dave, if you should happen to see him, don’t say anything about his crumpled golf cart, he’s a little touchy about it, seems as though there is a large tree growing in the middle of the cart path on the 13^th and Dave wasn’t looking, and well I guess you can figure it out from there……lol.

This is a very well crafted course, very smooth looking with lots of people living on the course and they all have dogs. Very interesting sounds there SMAK! Although they got on my nerves after a bit. Thought they were after me!

Well as I said the course was VERY well designed and as Fab has mentioned, I only noticed the spike in the green and believe me its there.. we hit it over and over…lol before Fab got it in the hole..lol. Now my nemesis of a hole was the 13^th , BIG bunker down deep with sheer walls and a pin location up front that was impossible to hit.. played a bit of ping pong trying to get it there so I hit it to the back of the green and found myself having to putt around a corner to the pin with that wall and the bunker in the way.. Nice idea for a green but not practical.

Actually the whole course was great but watch out.. It will lure you in to complacency and then you hit the 13^th and 14^th holes and they will eat you up.. well they did me anyway!

I did enjoy my time at Harbour Town though at least that’s what Fab told me when I came to at the Hospital after hitting that tree growing out of the middle of the path! But my head still hurts and I now have to pay for a cart!

Fab: Kaulani Bay Resort as far as I can tell is not a real course rendition, though it could be. I used to live in Hawaii, and Steve has definitely caught the flavor of the area with this beautiful course. The only thing lacking that would have made this look better would have been a different panorama, one with steep Hawaiian cliffs as the islands are noted for. The panorama used was close, but not quite the mountains typical to Hawaii.

The choice of texture, course layout and design were all very well done. I especially liked the idea of using the two clubhouses back to back making for a more splendid overall clubhouse.

The only misses that I saw on this course were in two areas. One was the lack of well defined bunker lips of the dirt type of construction. The bunkers appeared too flat for me. The other if this was to be a true Hawaiian style course would have been a little thicker tropical vegetation. The type of trees used just didn’t seem to fit the locale IMHO.

The course although not too difficult is a challenging course with some very difficult doglegs to follow and hit with accuracy

Dave: Kaulani Bay Resort, after a long flight to somewhere in the south pacific Fab and I finally arrived at the resort checked into our hotel and grabbed our bags. As we tee’d up at the first hole I drew a deep breath, savoring the taste of salt air, the sound of the surf crashing on the shore ringing in my ears, I drew back and hit the ball..

This course is very well thought out. The fairways are of a good width and easy to hit, providing you look before you swing. Some of the holes are deceptive, so don’t just rip one off. And that is what makes a fun course, YOU HAVE TO LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP! There are holes that go around a bay or two that look like you might just be able to take a short cut.. don’t ! lol

I did however find a couple of things that were distracting to myself, although not enough to warrant my NOT advocating one to try this course out. The first was that although Steve did a fine job of smoothing the bunkers down into themselves I did miss that little bit of a lip that makes a bunker complete to me. The second, was a couple of greens that were a bit too steep for my liking. But like I said before, those were not enough to deter me and I really enjoyed this course. Steve you did a great job on smoothing throughout the whole course and the holes were a good challenge. Keep up the good work! I know I will be playing at the resort again.

Fab: Apache Pass is a very interesting course that is well constructed and well thought out. Oh it may not have the polish of some of the better course designers, but it is a very well done course. It is not by any means an easy course to play…..ask my pard Dave….he spent most of the night in the sand, lucky thing a cat didn’t come by and cover him up….lmao.

There are a lot of bunkers on this course, most are well sunken bunkers, some around the greens are what I call subterranean…..lol. Don’t go long over the greens or you will find out what I mean, its fun getting out of a bunker but hard to place well when you can’t see the green because its above your head. Although from in there I didn’t have to look at my bro Dave, so it was a fair trade…lol. On one hole we counted twelve bunkers and for us that’s no easy task, its hard to take off my shoes when sitting at my puter and I ran out of fingers.

This is definitely a thinking mans course, no “Grip & Rip” here. This course is not long, as a matter of fact it has some very short holes on it, but you don’t just grab your driver and crack one…you can but you’ll find yourself in some deep *@#% ! This course requires you to look at the shot and decide where and how you are going to place your tee shot, get it right and this course is easy to score on, get it wrong and you’’ play like Dave…lol.

It’s a shame BadBody wasn’t here for this course he would have loved all the flowers and the water. He would have fainted if he saw hole #11, that’s BB’s type of hole for sure.

This course isn’t perfect, in fact it has its share of flaws. A few of the greens are questionable in my mind for the amount of slope, on very dry conditions they would be impossible. If you want a challenge, a course where you have to think on every shot, then by all means download this course.

Dave: Apache Pass a course with a mission! That mission seemed to be to get me to see every bunker on every hole. lol

Actually this is just the kind of course that BadBody would LOVE! And frankly I had a great time on this course. Its not the easiest course out there, in fact it can become frustrating. But Fab and I had a blast playing this course. So neither of us were really concentrating on maintaining our scores. I think, played again and with some thought while playing, it would be possible to stay out of those bunkers.

The course is well done technically with great grass cuts and well defined bunkers. Lots of flowers and eye candy. In short it’s very pleasing to the eye. The eleventh hole has to be Brad’s signature hole, this hole is a par 3, but with teeing off to a small area jutting off the side of a cliff with nothing but water to land in except for the green it could be tough. But it got an OOOH out of me when it came up.

The course may have a few areas which need some improvement but to be frank, it grabbed me from the opening shot to the last and I really didn’t notice the imperfections. I liked this course and I believe the man I am replacing would have loved it. If you are looking for a fun course to play on, THIS is it. Download it and try it out. Think I will be keeping this one on in my library for a while.

*Excellent – A Definite Keeper*	*Nice Course Worthy of Keeping*
*Nice try - With a little more work could be a keeper*	*Don’t waste your time downloading*

Winged Foot West Course By Frank Roorda

Harbour Town Golf Links By Smak2000