PGA 2K year in review

[bryce]

With the year coming to a close, we can look back and say it was a very productive effort from us all. There have been 21 courses released in 2010, and I want to thank everyone who has contributed this year. Here are the courses from 2010, listed from most recent: (Thanks to Dar for the list with the dates)

1 The Old Course @ St. Andrews 2010 10/28/10 Polslad
2 Blake Valley GC 09/17/10 Craig Johnson
3 Sundance 09/17/10 Spencer Turner
4 Coronas Gold Course 2010 09/06/10 Steve Horn
5 TPC @ Southwind 2010 08/19/10 Dale Somerfelt
6 Leverette Mountain Resort GC 08/10/10 Indy Anna Jones
7 Mill Creek GC 08/04/10 Compilation of 18 designers
8 Hawthorne GC 07/02/10 Bryce
9 Wabash Valley GC 06/30/10 Indy Anna Jones
10 Clarkston CC 06/29/10 Adam Brandt
11 Jack Springs Golf Club 06/02/10 Craig Johnson
12 Big Break Xtreme 05/10/10 Bryce
13 TPC at Sawgrass 2010 05/09/10 Dale Somerfelt
14 Gleneagle 04/23/10 Adam Brandt
15 Killarney GC 04/01/10 Spencer Turner
16 Who Picked This Dog Track 02/21/10 The Magician
17 The Monument 02/20/10 Adam Brandt
18 Turnberry 02/18/10 Polslad and Dale Somerfelt
19 Aveley Island Resort Course 01/30/10 Craign Johnson
20 Cades Cove 01/24/10 Robert@
21 The Dunes @ Chesapeake Bay 01/05/10 Bill Glacken

21 courses that all have replay value (except for one of mine ), I'm just going to mention my top 5 courses for this year:
1 Cades Cove - Robert@
2 Turnberry - Polslad and Dale Somerfelt
3 Glen Eagle - Adam Brandt
4 The Old Course @ St Andrews - Polslad
5 Jack Springs GC - Craig Johnson

That's just my opinion, but I will say that I enjoyed every single course on the list, and all are still on my hard drive and all will stay there. It's been somewhat of a comeback year for PGA 2K, so here is to making 2011 even better!

[JaxDuffer]

My top 5 favorites from this year:
Cades Cove - just beautiful. HARD!
Who picked this dog track - Sorry, guilty pleasure. sometimes you just need a good laugh and a ridiculous course.
TPC - Sawgrass - I live by it, go there often and wanted a new version.
Old course @ St. Andrews - Just fun to play.
Gleneagle - Fun round and I typically shoot well on it.

[tincup]

While we do not get as many new courses as we did years ago, you can see from the statistics that the courses we do get are mostly very good ones. There was a noticable jump in overall quality of courses starting in 2006. This could be because the hard core designers who are still around, are among the best in the game.

In the early years, there weren't anywhere near the number of libraries to work with and knowledge about the secrets of the architect was in its infancy. The courses we see today are nearly photo-realistic. Personally, I would rather have fewer, very high quality courses than hundreds of junk courses.

Year …Courses …A-List …% A
1999 ….. 82 ….. 2 ….. 2.4%
2000 ….. 214 ….. 19 ….. 8.9%
2001 ….. 318 ….. 50 ….. 15.7%
2002 ….. 287 ….. 59 ….. 20.6%
2003 ….. 188 ….. 59 ….. 31.4%
2004 ….. 159 ….. 47 ….. 29.6%
2005 ….. 140 ….. 42 ….. 30.0%
2006 ….. 76 ….. 38 ….. 50.0%
2007 ….. 42 ….. 26 ….. 61.9%
2008 ….. 47 ….. 28 ….. 59.6%
2009 ….. 26 ….. 19 ….. 73.1%
2010 ….. 21 ….. 18 ….. 85.7%
Totals …1600 ….. 407 ….. 25.4%

Dar

[Polslad]

Gonna have to do some serious DLing over the holidays.
I reackon I've only played about half a dozen of these new releases.

[Craigus10]

There have been some great courses released this year, which I still have about half of them to play. I will get some time over the Christmas break. Really enjoyed the renditions of Turnberry and also St. Andrews. I do like a good links course. I'll have to play a couple of the other ones to leave some comments on.