Скачать или смотреть Links 2003 Redcastle Desert Golf Club

SCG - Redcastle Desert Golf Club is one of the more colorful courses Links has to offer. A shot makers type of course.
Playability 9/10
The exciting and innovative hole designs offer you a variety of options and styles of play (the 10th gave me three completely separate options off the tee), and the open fairways will be well-received by all types of swingers (if you'll excuse the phrase). As long as your hazard play is up to scratch, you'll have a riot here enjoying the views and solving some excellent golfing puzzles. The 18th is a real heart-stopper: a Par 5, with a genuine chance of making Eagle, and is worth waiting for because it turns so many rounds around.
Stacy Lewis and Ratief Goosen got off to a slippery start which gave Megan Khang and I just enough room to finish up on top. Real pretty golf course. One that should be in your collection for sure.

Redcastle Desert Golf Club
by Kyle Ostermann

LINKS CORNER REVIEW

Redcastle Desert Golf Club by Kyle Ostermann is a fantasy design set in a very stunning desert world.

As I mentioned this course is what I would call a fantasy desert course. Kyle has done a lot of things to make the course seem like a real or fictional course. He uses cart paths, and benches to this effect. Also restroom buildings are all well placed, but it is the layout of the holes that tell you are playing a fantasy design. This is by no means a bad thing, and there are a lot of very fun, and challenging holes. First example is the 4th hole, which is a 690 par 5. For this review I played the hole twice, once with no wind, and once in windy conditions. With no wind I hit two near perfect shots, and my third shot was still 145 yards out. I played again with windy conditions, and thank all the powers in the world the wind was at my back. Again with two good drives my third shot was still 84 yards out! I just found this to be a little to unrealistic for my tastes.

There are a lot of elevation changes, and Kyle's work in doing them is fantastic. Several of the Par 3's have a great view and great elevation drops to the holes. I found this fun to view and of course play. Each hole I felt was very well thought out and the water and very well done bunkers are placed well on most holes to catch wayward shots, in other words great risk/reward shots await you here.

The greens are nice and have good elevation work to them. I found they provided for a sound putting challenge if you weren't real close on your approach shots. This is a good course for clickers, and also one I would think PS players would like. The fairways are good sized, but not all of them. The big problem for PS players would be 4th hole because of the length, but after that there are 4 other Par 5's that are much shorter to make up for this one hole.

In summary I want to say this is a course I do recommended. Why? Because it such a fun course to play. The great risk/reward holes are a lot. The beautiful elevation work makes club selection fun. The 5 par 5's will give you a good chance of still shooting a low score despite how you do on the par 4's and par 3's. I look forward to Kyle's next design.

Reviewed by Roger Worsham
October 2001


CLIPNOTES

Description
Imaginary, desert course.

Concept 7/10
A desert course with added pizzazz would be the most apt way to describe Redcastle. As well as many of the more usual desert features, it brings an oasis heavily into play and features some outlandish and painstakingly impressive bunker design and positioning. The desert is very highly planted, which makes it not very desert-like at all! Hole designs, though, are impressive and distinct, and put Redcastle a cut above the rest.

Appearance 8/10
The dark green used for the grass textures doesn't sit happily with a desert location, in my opinion, and count against the course, as do a few bad extrusion marks. But the rest is impressive. The panorama is convincing, the rockwork a talking point of the course (although I would have liked it to come into play more) and the variety of planting is hugely impressive. For an aging course, this still looks pretty damn good.

Challenge 4/10
You'll undoubtedly flirt with the water at times, and the fairway bunkers are a constant menace. The desert surface has been made playable (and not too hard), but some of the greens are an utter nightmare, particularly with the Mod. It's just a bit too easy to wreck your round here.

Technical 7/10
I think the texture choices could be better inspired, and some extruded edges could use a tidy-up, but on the whole this course ticks all the right boxes. Elevations are mixed without being unrealistic, and the planting and panorama are beautiful. Redcastle has really used the most of the first generation of APCD.

Overall
Certainly a course that's worth owning. A lot of fun and an awful lot of replayability. It's not ultra-realistic, but it has the golfer's best interests at heart and that counts for a lot.



CLIPNOTES by Ben Bateson