How many have you played?

[sandwedge]

Hey all - been awhile since I have posted here. Just wondering how many courses that are currently available for download have you actually played? I have my A-list course favorites and some of my own designs on my hard drive currently. I think I have actually only played 18 holes on about 1/3 of the coures. Most of the time I download a course and "walk" 18 holes to decide whether or not I want to keep it. But then I never get to playing a round on it. I have played all the contest entry courses - wanted to vote. But beyond that I really have not played on as many as I could have. The reason I am posting this is because I really think that design contest courses get the most play. Interested to know what you guys think?

[Indy Anna Jones]

I have 172 courses dating back to 9/8 of last year when I started recording where Gary, Jack and I have played, plus another 25 or so from this "season" (I try to play my "practice round" with my pards) plus probably another 25-30 that I've played with AI or my husband.

It's hard to say what courses get the most play. "Back in the day" Copyright Club and Mygolfer both kept track of dl's (and dl attempts) so it was possible to get an idea of most popular downloads, but then how often they've actually been played is anyones' guess.

The joy of discovery is still a part of this game to us (my pards and I.) With 1600 courses available, and maybe another 10-12 a year, it's still pretty cool to play a few holes, realize you've never played it before and think, "wow, how did we miss this."

[Terry Grayson]

I believe over the years I have played every course uploaded... all 1600 sum odd.... Might have missed one or two along the way but I think Ive gotten to pretty much all of them...

Been some good ones over the years and some not so good ones...I have a few goose eggs in my uploads over the years too...ha ha

[SteveHorn]

I haven't any idea how many I've played but I bet its only around 250 to 300. Thats mainly because between season play and designing I don't play many practice rounds. I'll download an older course give it a quick walk through many times, keep it then won't accually play it for awhile. Thats why I like to change courses on some of the season events. There are still alot of courses I haven't given a full hard look at that deserve more play then I have time for.

[sandwedge]

I agree with you Indy - the joy of playing a gem you overlooked is pretty cool. I recently started thinking about this when I played my first real round on Hard Rock Island. I had a lot of fun and wondered why it took me so long to actually play a round there. I logged on here and saw the recent discussion about a new course design contest and thought that might be why - wanting to support the community meant giving those courses priority of playtime.

Wow Terry - you amaze me. Not only have you played more courses than I have but you have also put out some great courses on the design side of the fence! PGA2000 is a good way to stay out of trouble, huh

Steve - I like to play practice rounds as well - hadn't thought about that. I guess the number of courses I have toured is higher than the number I have played on.

[tincup]

I think I have played about 95% of all courses out there. The other 5% are so bad that they don't deserve the time.

Being involved in maintaining the server, I have at least walked through every course... if nothing else to get screen shots. But I will also say that many of the better courses, I have played many, many times over the roughly 10 years I have had this game.

Dar

[Stan Nehilla]

When Jim Denofrio (fabita) was alive, he and I went through all the courses to find the ones we considered A & B rated. There were 1500 + courses we played and it was fun. Sometimes we played long into the night. This was after we played with Terry and John Tousley. We wanted to make it easy to find the good courses. I wish I kept the list up-to-date.

[Indy Anna Jones]

Hmm, I strayed from the topic a bit... I'd say I've played probably 600 of the courses. That would include every course from 2003 to the present day, because we always dl the latest course(s) and play them the same day. Several courses we like so well they get replayed 2 or 3 times a year, and to be honest, I really like the courses Greg and/or I designed so they get played 3 or 4 times a year.

When I reinstalled this game 18 months ago or so, I dl'd every course available and "walked" through most of them; occasionally it was enough just to stand on the first tee and make my decision to keep or delete it. Stan calls these courses his "NG courses" (no good) but even some of them are fun to play once in a while. The worst are probably the ones built straight from the course wizard (which IMO can be a useful tool to layout your course then build the plot around it.) Most of these use the same tree at the same height throughout, flat greens, and wrinkled water and sand. Right now I have 685 courses installed; quite a few more were worthy of "keeper" status except their are so many similar courses, in the 2000-2002 era especially, that I only kept the ones I considered the best representation.

I want to add one more thing that I said to my pards and posted here while we were playing an "NG" course; even as bad as some of them are, I have the deepest respect for those early designers, a lot of them one-time designers, just for trying to contribute something "back in the day." Even the worst course took some thought and probably several hours of work just to learn how to use the designer and to make the effort to build a course. Kudos to every one of them.

[sandwedge]

OK, I am impressed! At my current pace of 30 designer courses a year, I will reach 1500 new courses played in the year 2060 and I will be . . . man, that's scary I wish we could all play online - I Know about the Kali thing but I like Windows 7 (yeah I know right?). I miss the days of the Tee Box and the Copyright Club and the Course Depot and playing on the WON server. If I played a few rounds with you guys, I might get to play more courses. I just played Pine Valley with my girls today for the first time. Got to 18 and hit a beautiful shot into the green - a real stinger that drew back and left me with a nine foot putt for the walk off win. Yeah, I missed it On to the playoffs where the computer takes us to that nice par 3 on the back nine with the shot over the lake. I wish it would have taken us back to 18 cause I bogied and lost Oh well, I have played 5, yeah that's right, 5 new courses this week - push before my girls head back to school. Fun

[Polslad]

I made me a vow to the moon and the stars, to download and play every course, heck, I even created a spreadsheet to record my findings, and got lost somewhere around the B & C's!
I now tend to play the course that are recommended by the season scedules, which are mostly real courses, but I do try to play all the new releases. It depends if I have a 'work in progress' or I'm just golfing!
Question, In my limited time I that I get to play PGA, do I want to emulate my hero's and play famous legendary courses, or take a chance and end up playing 'wizard' courses? Sorry, but who wants to play 'back of beyond' when you can tee it up at Augusta, Pebble Beach or St Andrews?
I do know that I must be missing out on a few gems though.

A boy named Sue!