What was the first course you ever downloaded?

[sandwedge]

I remember the first time I got online and saw the list of courses available for download for this game. I was amazed that such a little known game was already piling up downloads for user created courses. The first course I ever downloaded was Shortee's "18 all the way". I must admit that I did not like it's look but was amused by its objective nonetheless. I kept it and slowly added some more. I think I got to about 60 courses back then and stopped. Lost them all until I found all of you guys again. Now I have them all back along with every other course that has been made for the game and am still enjoying the wonderful feeling of anticipation and fun playing a round on someone's course for the very first time. So what's your story? First one and what did you think of it on your first go round?

[ADC]

I know I joined the day Polsad released St. Andrews Old in 2010. I think I shot an 81. I'd had the game for 10 years and never known it was still alive. I like it.

[J.J.]

Still got all my original downloads on CD. Going by the 'Date Modified' column in the folder it appears my first download was St Andrews Old Course by KF Baker on 14th October 2000

Those were the days. Using dial up internet on a 56k modem which meant a 30 Meg course could take 3 or 4 hours to download. To complicate matters my ISP limited download time to 2 hours so I had to use Gozilla's download accelerator which let me resume downloads from where they left off. So much hard work for each and every course

[sandwedge]

So far we got 2 real course downloads and 1 fantasy download. The thing about those long download times was anticipation over what you were going to get being intensified

[bryce]

I bought the Titanium Edition around April of 2001, and was thrilled that I could play online with others. The first time I got online to play, I met a guy named Aaron. Some of you may remember Aaron as Rattlesnake Designs. He wanted to play a course that I didn't have and I simply assumed he had a different edition. We ended up playing a few rounds at Pete Dye and he spoke of 100 courses available. He then sent me a link to his own course, Rattlesnake Point on the Copyright Club website. That was my first download, and is still one of my favorite oldies to date.

Great topic!

Doron

[SteveHorn]

WOW great question ? I really don't remember but I would'nt be suprised if it was St. Andrews. Bought the Colectors Edition cheap back in early fall 2003.

[Polslad]

God, I remember the 3 hour+ download times.
First one for me would be the very first Augusta, the one prior to the 2001 release.
I think I recall at the time I wasn't impressed.
How things have improved since then.

Nice that my St Andrews gets a mention also.
Quite proud of that one, a true labour of love.

[sandwedge]

4 real and 2 fantasy.

I loved Tobacco Road by Aaron - still play it quite a lot.

David, add me to the list of those who appreciate the job you did on St. Andrews - feel like I am there when I play it.

Playing a new course alone is okay but definitely trying out a course with a few others online sounds like even more fun - I think I have downloaded more courses just simply because I have others to play rounds with on a regular basis - my girls of course and then one of my friends who actually introduced us to the game many years ago. I never have played online but I guess I am thinking it makes a difference in the number of courses you download?

[BrianZ111]

I remember downloading courses from WONSWAP which I think was Sierra's official site that you could upload and download courses from. The first course I remember downloading was for PGA 1999, Arrowhead by Ken McHale. That was a pretty nice course at the time, it would be fun to load it up again and see if it still holds up. I remember being excited after that because there were a lot of courses there but later disappointed because the next few didn't hold up so well. I'm not sure what the first PGA 2000 course was I downloaded, if the modified dates on my zip files are right they are Augusta, St. Andrews, TPC Sawgrass all within a few days.

And to the download speeds, I remember the phone line having to be tied up for 2-3 hours just to download a course so it wasn't something you wanted to do very often. I remember having to ask my parents if I could go online because it would tie up the phone (I was 15 or 16 at the time). I wanted to play online from the beginning in 1998 with FPS: Golf but the phone line problem prevented from doing it until sometime in mid 2000. I don't know why I could after that, I guess we didn't care anymore. It was so much fun playing online with people from around the world. That was when I created my nickname BrianZ111 because BrianZ was already taken on WON so I added ones to it. I've had the same nickname the entire time I've been online everywhere for 13 years now.

[bryce]

I loved Tobacco Road by Aaron - still play it quite a lot.

If you put the greens on 'very dry', you will get the actual affect that I did putting there in real life! I'm guessing that Tobacco Road was pre-Ghost It and DEM, but the greens were really close to what I saw in person. Aaron also did The American Club, which is one of my favorite oldies as well.