Ultimate 18?

[Polslad]

I got the idea from Padre's post in the World Golf section of the board, and had a look at Golf Worlds best 18 holes in the world and thought, hang on, this would make a pretty good course.
So having shuffled them around a little bit to enable me to split the course into 3 zones, cliff top/oceanside, parkland, and links, I came up with the following rough plan for a layout.
Just pondering on libraries for the moment, and how best to do the ocean holes.

[SteveHorn]

David! Sounds good and good luck. Don't forget the creek on Muirfield Village #14. Also the green has plenty of slope going down towards the creek and the green is very long and narrow.

[Stan Nehilla]

Formidable project, David.
However, I'm sure the end result will be perfect.

[Pyecraft]

Something to please everyone in there David, but with that darned Amen corner arriving to test anyone's mettle a little earlier in your revision. Pebble as a fitting final hole doesn't change and shouldn't yet I suspect we'll all have our favourite hole somewhere. It's a tough project and a worthy challenge to your skills, has me pondering the difficulties you'll face setting out an overall course theme to best knit together such a variety of different styles -parkland,links etc.
I hope you begin a thread, engaging us in your progress.
Pye

[Polslad]

Well, there lie the decision points.
Do I keep to one or two libraries for the whole course, making the layout seem all part on one coures?
Do I try to recreate the look of each hole and end up with 18 seperate holes?
Or the one I am thinking is, build the course into 3 zones, cliff top/oceanside, normal parkland and a links section.
This I feel would be the best option, maybe allowing only for 3 changes of styles.
My first thoughts are to build the layout on 3 different 'islands', which will enable me to get the look of each zone right, especially the two diffferent types of seaside holes.
Another idea I'm thinking on at the moment would be for the road hole at St Andrews, is to replace the hotel and OB area on the right hand side of the hole with a water hazard, the hotel would look out of place in the middle of the plot, so I guess I have just answered my own question about recreating 18 holes as the look.
Does anyone care to offer library suggestions for the 3 zones?
Cliff Top/oceanside
Parkland
Links

[SteveHorn]

David! The only suggestion I can make is whatever libraries you choose make sure they have lots of objects in them. Three separate looks will lead to using more libraries then most courses so use large libraries to hopefully cut down the amount of libraries you end up using. There's many large libraries but one I like is The Legacy.

[Indy Anna Jones]

I'm a bit late on this. Someone did a "Mean 18" type of course a decade ago; sorry I can't recall the name of it, but I think it starts with a number. At any rate the largest beef was that it looked pretty much the same throughout. Of course that was in the days of dialup and limited memory, so you shouldn't have the problem.

I could see a transition from one to the other as possible. The routing would be the trickiest part besides making a believable transition from one type to the other. It sounds interesting and challenging though.

[Polslad]

Hi Indy,,
My intent is not to build a 18 hole seamless course where the holes run and blend into each other, but still look like the originals, I think that would be too 'gimicky'.
I am recreating the 18 individual holes, 13 with the Woodford Park/Cypress libs, and the links holes with a texture set yet to be decided, but won't be too far from the other holes.
It's just a chance to play the worlds top rated 18 holes on one layout.
I have been posting updates in another thread, 'Diary of a golf hole'.

[Polslad]

Aw you got me thinking now Judy!
Will a course with 18 'stand alone' holes still stand up?
I didn't set out to create a course where the holes interacted with each other, I set each hole apart to give me enough space to create each hole, and try not to run into the usual problems the architect throws up.
I also decided to use the same textures throughout the course (apart from the links holes) and not recreate 18 individual holes as they look now, but to present 1 course that allows you to play the holes as they are, yardage and hazard wise.
I think having 18 individual holes with 18 different looks wouldn't work.
I guess I need to think about how I will fill the 'dead' spaces between holes, the links side will be OK, I can build them closer together, it's the others that I need to fill, maybe some big lakes or a few rocky outcrops.
I just don't plan on planting massive amounts of trees as filler.
Best get the course finished before I worry about eye candy.

[Indy Anna Jones]

You know, I've never given a lot of thought to how many libes/objects the designer would hold until it forever shattered. I counted "most libes in a course" once and IIRC there were two courses that used around 16 libes each, but it could have been a few less... lol, I've slept since then. But then I have no idea how many objects were used within each libe; one could easily use as many objects from a couple of small libes as using one from a lot of them.

I have an old golf atlas from 1976. It has what was considered the greatest 18 at the time and I imagine most of them still qualify. They're: (actual hole #) 1. Royal St. George; 2. Scioto; 3. Durban CC; 4. Baltusrol; 5. Mid Ocean; 6. Royal Melbourne; 7. Cajuiles; 8. Pine Valley; 9. Muirfield; 10. Muirfield Village; 11. Country Club; 12. Augusta (where else?); 13. Harbour Town; 14. St. Andrews; 15. Oakmont; 16. Carnoustie; 17. Cypress Point; 18. Pebble Beach.

I wonder which ones you're using?