El Escorpion 2005
Course description
The course
This fictional course is set on the sunny East coast of Spain where I now make my home. The sandy, rocky soil and wonderful mountain views make it a lovely place to play golf although in summer the heat really becomes too much and you almost feel like diving into the lakes to cool down as you play around the course! When I originally conceived the course back in 2001 (it seems like a lifetime ago) I had the idea to make it the most strategic test of golf that I could, so that the thoughtful golfer would have a clear advantage. I may have been a little over zealous with some of the fairway narrowing and green slopes and although the course was very well received at the time (winning course of the month at Links Corner) I was never totally satisfied with the way it turned out. As my knowledge of course architecture has grown I decided to apply some of the things I had learned over the last few years to make the course play the way I had originally thought it might. The recent release of the links modification brought the forefront the very sloping greens and under faster conditions the 2001 course was almost unplayable. This along with the many mails I have received over the last year enquiring when I would be updating the course prompted me to return to Escorpion and bring it up to the visual and playability standards that people have come to expect from my Links2003 courses.
The construction
Having played many test rounds both alone and with trusted friends I began to make notes on which holes needed to change. The course was originally constructed using shape insertion techniques so the first thing that needed to be fixed was the mesh and elevations. I have improved the mesh coursewide in the process smoothing out many of the unrealistic slopes and elevation changes that plagued the original course. All the greens were re elevated from scratch making the greens much fairer than before. That's not to say they are easy though! Once the mesh and elevations were fixed I started to construct new bunkers and tees. Those familiar with teh 2001 course will easily spot the changes the most substantial being the remodelled 10th hole. The hole is now shorter and instead of playing over a waste area to a very narrow green I have widened the fairway to allow a short iron to be played over a mamoth new fronting bunker to a green now much more receptive to good play. I used to hate the 10th hole but now I love it - I hope you do too! Many new tees have been added around the course both to change playing angle and alter hole lengths and also to maximise variety from the forward tee locations. Most of the bunkers have been re-elevated and it goes without saying that they have the multiple texture blending features that have become one of my trademark features. The rest of the textures have been changed and updated from the dryer looking scrubland texture to the high resolution grass textures seen throughout the course. the totally new rough textures were once again made using digital photographs as their base. they give a more clumpy uneven look to the rough without tiling problems. I'm very pleased with them.Tees with divots, new custom fairway, fringe and green textures complete the overall look. Planting has been updated with fine tuning to the already good planting (it has been said that the orginal El Escorpion had already had some of the best planting seen on a 2001 course) Dave Campbell has made the wonderful new hole previews and they will be an invaluable aid if you play the game at the higher difficulty settings with no top camera view. The course is still instantly recognisable but with the new alterations and improvements it's a whole lot more fun to play. I wish you many happy rounds!
Course links
Screenshots
Purchase El Escorpion 2005
My Links 2003 golf courses are available for $6.95 each.
There is a discount if you buy two or more courses at the same time. For current pricing and discount information, please go to the purchase information page.
Click the button below to purchase my courses, or click here for detailed purchase information.
