APCD Courses

APCD Courses

The Real Courses 37-42

Gut Larchenhof

Guenter Kujat

7294 yards. Par 72.

Difficulty Medium

European Parkland

Real - 46mb

Jun 2001

Overall Rank 37th

Guenter Kujat is a masterful designer with a speciality in producing real life tournament experiences. Gut Larchenhof is a European Tour course design from Cologne, Germany. Originally designed by Jack Nicklaus, it is brought to life quite beautifully. The course is open parkland in style, but with a links look to it, containing deep wild brown grasses bordering the holes, making recovery shots tougher to execute. The green rough grass textures and bunker sand will seem familiar and pleasingly stays in character for the designer. The attention to detail here is again evident in abundance, with clever use of objects, including distance markers at the tees, a few excellent small buildings and perhaps the best ever apcd clubhouse which backs the 9th and 18th holes. The woodland panorama fits beautifully, and looking out across the gently undulating course is quite beautiful. The tournament option includes camera crews, advertising boards, a blue hot air balloon located near the clubhouse, and the par 3 jaguar car at the 16th. Sounds are also included, and the crickets and bird calls add great atmosphere especially near the long grass. The course strategy is very good here, fairways are reasonably generous with two cuts to the rough, and one or two fairways also contain central bunkers. Greens are nicely sloped and on the whole are tucked away behind bunkers and lakes, making approach shot choices very important. Trees border the course, but generally they do not block the course views, and are not really in play off the tees. The lakes are superb, with excellent and realistic reeds growing at the edges, and the swan at the 5th was a vision in itself. A wonderful course being both visually and strategically strong, and with excellent hole by hole previews which also name the holes. Technically it is very much one of the best apcd course available, and a course slideshow is also provided and can be downloaded separately.

The K Club

John Aherne

7366 yards. Par 72.

Difficulty Medium

Woodland

Real - 121mb

Nov 2006

Overall Rank 38th

The K Club is one of Irelands most prestigious golfing venues, located in Straffan, County Kildare where two venues are hosted, the Palmer and Smurfit courses. Home to an annual European tour event, the Palmer course (named after its designer Arnold Palmer) recently hosted the 2006 Ryder Cup, which was convincingly won by the European team. Links designer John Aherne who cut his teeth on Esker Field has skillfully re-created this course as a 'Ryder Cup' edition, and it is easily his best creation to date, ranking alongside some of the best we have available in the game. Not only is the apcd work at an extremely high standard, but the tournament option is extensive and realistic and the course itself is magnificent to play. Visually this is a bright and sunny course, the trees are carefully chosen to have light leafy foliage which looks fantastic and reminds me of the early Belfry version by Access. The grass textures and planting adds depth to the rough at the fringes of the course. There are plenty of lakes and streams winding around the course and they will affect many tee and approach shots, and it is this aspect that makes it such an amazing matchplay venue. In terms of strategy it is perfect, fairways are a decent width but finding them is so important or your approach to water guarded greens will become immensely tense. If you are confident and playing well you can score low, but the hazards are always there to catch you out. The closing holes in particular are amongst the best in the game offering excellent choices with 2 reachable par 5’s and all three have water in play. This is a beautiful course, typically European in style but with the added stress of an abundance of testing shots. There are many grandstands here in this edition so you can re-live the Ryder Cup in all its glory. Oh, and the start up screens are fantastic.

Arrowhead

Art Patscheck

6646 yards. Par 72.

Difficulty Medium

Forest & Lakes

Real - 16mb

May 2001

Overall Rank 39th

The Arrowhead course complex is set near Myrtle Beach in the Carolinas, and has the feel of being located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. This design by Art Patscheck puts together the front 9 of The Waterway course and the back 9 of The Cypress to create an outstanding experience. Originally released as a small file it offered fantastic value for its size, it has now been re-created as a Special Edition which brings it up to date using greater depth of planting, and much better textures. This course is superbly laid out, with the smoothly sloped fairways surrounded by dirt textures in which most of the fir type trees are planted. Lakes are extremely common, often running alongside the holes, and where they are absent long bunkers take their place. The hole designs seem simple yet so effective, containing a very smooth finish, and with enough strategy to always keep you interested. Hazards are provided by the water, bunkers, and some key placed fir trees, and the course always seems to play fairly, with differing degrees of difficulty all around the course. Greens are also nicely sloped and often offer a challenge. The course has a very neat overall feel to it, with a lovely fresh new grass texture. Strategically the par 5's mostly offer a chance at hitting the green in two, but risk is always attached. The course is quite beautiful to look at, ground level planting is very realistic, and it remains true to its original release. Course notes are provided, and in game overhead previews contain wonderful hole by hole descriptions of the challenges. There is a very nice tournament option here too. This course has been improved via a series of updates, and for its file size this is still one of the best courses you can download.

Kapalua Plantation

Andrew Jones

7441 yards. Par 73.

Difficulty Medium

Tropical Coastal

Real - 78mb

Dec 2006

Overall Rank 40th

The 3 courses at Kapalua, Maui (Bay, Village and Plantation) have been available in the Links game since the Links LS 98 version (my first and fondest purchase of the game). The par 73 Plantation Course, is the course of the champions, and site of the PGA Tour Mercedes Championships each January, featuring an elite field of previous year's PGA Tour winners. The grand scale of the course designed by Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore unfurls across natural geographic coastal formations and pineapple plantation fields that will take your breath away. It is a dramatic venue where distance means little as the elevations and slopes make their mark on your gameplay. There are many sea views from this dramatic course, where the fairways are generous, but stray and you will find yourself in deep grassland and wasteground that is usually unplayable. The last Microsoft version (2003) has now been upgraded by Andrew Jones (famous designer of our beloved Augusta course), and has made this into another one of our best designs. There are sweeping improvements all round, the new 3d clubhouse has been remade by Pat Auge and the panorama now looks amazing, sharper and lighter and better fitting for such dramatic location, having been redeveloped by Rick Weathers. Textures and deep grass planting now looks much more natural and not quite so overgrown, giving it a smoother and better kept appearance. The strength of the course lies in its playability and its annual association with television coverage. By relative standards the fairways are easier to find, but the elevation changes and sweeping slopes make approach shots more tricky to judge. The opening hole is a classic and tough start requiring a perfect approach shot over deep grass onto a low green. The par 5’s all offer great opportunity to attack for an eagle chance, and the 17th and 18th holes use strategic slopes to rank as excellent finishing holes. Kapalua Plantation is a popular and cleverly laid out course, and this version raises it to become one of the finest venues to play in the game.

Oakland Hills South

Steve Avery

7099 yards. Par 70.

Difficulty Hard

Parkland

Real - 85mb

Jun 2006

Overall Rank 41st

Located in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan USA, the Oakland Hills South Course is ranked at 13 on the top 100 US courses by Golf Digest. It was designed by Donald Ross in 1918 and has been subsequently redesigned by Robert Trent Jones and Arthur Hills. It has hosted ten major championships, including the US Open in 1985 and 1996, and most recently the 2004 Ryder Cup, and the next major will be the 2008 PGA Championship when there are plans to lengthen the course to 7300 yards. The course was built on rolling terrain and only features relatively few trees closely bordering the fairways. Water hazards (two ponds and one creek) come into play on three holes, and the signature hole on the South Course is at 16, a 406-yard, par 4, requiring two well-executed shots up a dogleg right fairway to reach its very small green over the pond. The last five holes are memorable and are known as the "Fearsome Fivesome." After a lengthy par 4 at 14, the 15th has a fairway bunker to make you edgy off the tee, the aforementioned 16th tee shot must find the fairway to get over the pond, the 17th is a lovely uphill par 3, and the long final hole overlooked by a great 3d clubhouse is a 490 yard par 4 that will really test you. Steve Avery has brought us a number of course designs including the highly rated Oakland Hills North and was co-designer of Sarazen Links. His contribution to the game is much appreciated, and this design is superbly textured and planted, with lovely bunkering, has blended paths and excellent clubhouse work. The rough is deep here for true US Open conditions and it makes this course really tough to play. This is one of the rare courses that really looks its best when the crowds are included bordering the fairways, adding a layer of depth to the course, as the venue can seem a little plain without them. It is considered by many as one of the great world venues, and this design is beautiful but the real course seems to lacks a little something extra to make it exciting. The fairways are narrow and pinched where you want to drive, and the rough is deep which dictates your play, and although it does finish strongly the apcd ranking therefore does reflect the fun factor of playing here. That said Steve has done an excellent job and you will never need to use your old Microsoft converted version again.

Stonebridge

Dan Kilbank

6567 yards. Par 71.

Difficulty Medium/Easy

Parkland

Real - 44mb

Nov 2003

Overall Rank 42nd

Dan Kilbank designed Ottawa Great 18, a lovely autumnal course back in 2001. Since then he has been quietly working on this next design called Stonebridge Golf and Country Club, a real course design based on one of the finest 18-hole championship public courses in Ottawa. Professionally it was designed by noted architect Ted Baker, a Canadian designer best known for the Lionhead Golf Club in Toronto. Stonebridge offers a wonderful blending of parkland and linksland golf, and is nestled within a lush rolling landscape of verdant parkland and the picturesque Jock River. This creation is apparently a very accurate replica using contour mapping as a starting point. The end result we see now is quite beautiful. Everything on this design is executed just right, it plays like a dream allowing players to choose how they play each hole, and never really dictating the decisions. Its fairly kind off the tee, but does ask some great questions of how bold you wish to be. The elevation work is right up with the very best, the contours are excellent and the greens roll beautifully, proving sufficiently tough to test the putter, perhaps over tough at times. It offers a natural playing experience, and as a whole it does remind me somewhat of Microsoft's style in designing courses, which is meant as a real compliment. Visually the course is very strong, with great textures, realistic planting with a good mix of long fescue grass around the course. The trees and bushes are well chosen, and the 2D buildings look great, becoming more evident down the back nine. To pick out special holes is difficult, as they all seem to offer up something great, and the par 5's are all reachable if you wish to take them on. The par 3 semi-island 2nd hole is noteworthy and tests your nerve early on, and the 6th is a classic, asking a drive over the line of bunkers and backed by a really lovely pink walled house. I rate this course very highly indeed, and just love playing it. In easy conditions it offers quite a relaxing round off the tee, but its greens will bite back. A magnificent design, and one of my all time favourites.