Augusta National 2005
Course description
The original goal of Bobby Jones and Alister Mackenzie was to create a strategic test of golf that would bring pleasure to all who played it. It was designed to be a course that would pose a challenge for its bogey-shooting membership, yet be an appropriate venue for a tournament featuring the very best players in the world.
“I can play in graveyards, on gravel roads, anywhere but this place. When I drive through the gate to this place, I just get psyched out.” – Lee Trevino.
Now available for Links 2005, the course re-created in all it's glory, is a pleasure to look at but a monster to play.
The apcd version of Augusta National, played with the “mod” at the appropriate settings, captures the real-life difficulty and challenge of North America’s most famous course. The “mod” was designed specifically to re-create the dynamics of play at Augusta National. Set playing conditions at moderate firmness and fast speed. The wind is one of your playing partners on Augusta, so make sure your settings are set for at least “breezy”.
Remember that Augusta National is no “grip it and rip it”, “just aim for the pin” kind of course. Not in real life and not in its PC incarnation either. Those greens are undulating, contoured, mounded, and fast. They’re bent grass, cut down to an eighth of an inch for the Masters. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself sharing with Sam Snead or Seve Ballesteros the sight of one of your chips or putts making a u-turn 40 feet away and coming back to your feet. This, after all, is Augusta!
The first incarnation of the course was released back in 2001 by Andrew Jones and although very well received at the time, there were areas where the course could have been better as Andrew was the first to admit. With a new determination Andrew set about creating a new more accurate version based on high resolution aerial photographs to capture the exact layout of the course.
Wisely, rather take on the mamoth task of creating the course on his own he asked for help, most of the 3D objects around the course have been made by Anders Besserman, from scoreboards to various buildings, clubhouse, TV towers, they are all in there as they are on the real course. I concentrated on the elevations, and building on the basic work that Andrew had in place, the course started to take shape. I also created a new set of textures for this course based upon real photographs of the Augusta grass. They don't have mow lines because Augusta doesnt have mow lines!Swopping the file back and forth amongst the people involved with creating the course, caused it's fair share of problems, time after time I did some planting around Amen Corner only to lose it for one reason or another. Eventually in frustration we asked Wayne Hewitt (Tall Pines Estate) to help plant the course and he took to the job full tilt creating 90% of the plantings on the course. What a fantastic job he did! Not only that but based on beta feedback from the many testers, Wayne, Andrew and myself continued to tweak the elevations and planting until we were satisfied we had the course as accurate as we could manage.
Included in this course are a list of course originals, the most important of which is the variable texture properties. The rough at Augusta is not rough it is light rough. Andrew created a new texture "Light Rough" was created using a modified APCD to achieve this. In addition a modified sand texture was used to ensure the ball rolls down the steep slopes on the bunker faces.
This course is a FREE release. It is now available for download at apcd-courses.com and Links corner.
The Augusta team wishes you many happy rounds!
Course links
Screenshots
