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Mark_Rowlinson

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Halifax with wintery pictures
« on: April 16, 2009, 11:10:51 AM »
Halifax is one of Yorkshire’s gritty industrial towns, with the world’s oldest surviving choral society and a surprisingly handsome parish church. Halifax Golf Club, a few miles north of the town, boasts a rugged moorland course. I played it yesterday with Andy Levett and a young lad called Callum who joined us from the 2nd hole. His advice on the best lines to take from the tee was often invaluable. And his ball-spotting skills in murky light were extremely valuable. The weather was cold and misty, so I must apologise in advance for the poor pictures – which would get no rating at all on the Arble scale.

This is largely a James Braid course of the early years of the 20th century with, it seems, alterations to the 2nd and 10th made by Dr MacKenzie in 1912. The layout was clearly dictated by the abundant natural features, resulting in a good number of exciting green and teeing ground locations. There are some blind shots, especially if you finish in one of the river valleys or grassy gullies which interrupt a good number of holes. Many fairways slope considerably to one side or the other. What struck us was the length of compulsory carry needed from many tees, which must have been formidable in the days of primitive clubs and balls. The moorland turf was springy and remarkably dry, providing a fine playing surface. The greens were still in their winter woollies. There is some savage rough if you spray the ball wildly, but for the most part the fairways are generous, as they should be, sloping as so many do, and when the wind is funnelled up the valley it can make a difference of several clubs. The calling of curlews is an added attraction, and there is a great sense of getting away from it all, despite public footpaths and tracks crossing several holes.


The course criss-crosses a valley, climbing gently until on the 12th you break out onto high ground, before plunging back down to the valley spectacularly on the 17th.

1st 441 yards par 4


It is not easy to discern the correct line from the 1st tee with the fairway (broad and shared with the 18th) falling from view.



In fact the drive is all about angles to set up a second shot across low ground to this well-sited green.



This is a big green in comparison with most others on the course and has significant internal contouring.

2nd 117 yards par 3


A diminutive hole, with the first of a number of ledge greens characteristic of the course. The putting surface slopes from back to front, although it is difficult to perceive against the more severe slopes of the background.

3rd 386 yards par 4



A hard hole! You may just be able to make out a marker post in the far distance. The green sits just in front of that, but you will be unlikely to see it when you are playing your approach shot. First you have to find the right bit of fairway, its big left to right slope pushing the ball to the right. Drive too far and you will end up in the stream which crosses the fairway.



The stream grows in threat the closer you get to it. As you can see, you no longer have a view of the green.



This is a stream to be avoided at all costs!



Even from the safety of the far side of the stream it is difficult to judge the approach shot because of the dead ground in front of the green hidden from view by the hump-backed fairway. It played into the wind for us and was unreachable in two.

4th 426 yards par 4



Another sterling long par 4. The drive should easily clear the stream with which we tangled on the 3rd. You can just about make it out above Andy’s club. What you must not do is drive too well or you will run out of fairway and perish in the next stream. Andy judged his drive to perfection.



There is the stream. What you cannot tell is just how deep its gully is. You can, however, understand the difficulty of judging the right combination of length and height to hit and hold this ledge green.



The putting surface is well nigh at right angles to the direction of the hole.



A picture taken when I last played at Halifax, back in the 1980s I should think, looking back down the fairway from behind the green. There is enough movement in the putting surface to make long putts quite testing.

5th 392 yards par 4



Another excellent hole. The tee in this photograph is well forward. The further back you go the harder it is to pick the right line. Essentially the stream runs up the right side of the fairway for the first 240 yards or so. There is a strip of fairway to its right, but that increases the dog-leg, making the hole play much longer. You might be able to clear the stream where it cuts across the fairway 150 yards from the green, but the dangers are many.



Again, do not go in the stream.



It takes a lot more than 240 yards of carry to clear the stream with its grasping banks and stone bridges.



You can just make out the green in the distance, the left hand of the two flags.



And the stream does not go away, running up the left edge of the fairway for the 150 yards or so to the green.



Fortunately the green itself is comparatively uncomplicated, but the 5th is, nonetheless, stroke 1.

6th 375 yards par 4



The drive is straightforward. Note the sort of rough they grow at Halifax!



Yet again, the approach is played over a stream and gully, and there is a slight false front to kill the weak approach.

7th 122 yards par 3



Another tiddler, with another false front and a slight downhill slope to the back third of the putting surface. The ball will very likely break from right to left on landing.



On its website, the club mentions that they have restored a number of bunkers previously grassed over. On the whole the bunkers are few in number, pretty shallow and somewhat dwarfed by the bigger features of the landscape.

8th 371 yards par 4



A routine drive from this tee, but much more of a handful from tees on the hillside to our right. Then you are driving towards a fairway curving to the right but sloping down to the left. As the second shot is played up a significant hill good distance from the tee is an advantage.



You fancy that a ball played to the right front of the green will feed nicely onto the putting surface. Someone (Braid?) put this vast hummock exactly in Position A to prevent that very shot.

9th 339 yards par 4



This was not an inconsiderable carry in the days when topping a shot was thought to be the worst crime in golf. With today’s equipment long hitters might well drive the green.



With a flat green the 9th is one of the easiest holes on the course.

10th 299 yards par 4



A drive to a right-to-left curving fairway, just the thing for an old left-hander’s slice. The rough is again notably punitive.



There is just enough rise up to the putting surface to thwart the weak approach. There is also a marked step in the green. Note the players on the 11th tee. Stupidly, I forgot to photograph the prospect from there – an inviting drive.

11th 333 yards par 4



The rough on the left of the fairway is serious. Andy found his ball. My Callaway is still in there somewhere.



Yet again the fairway is interrupted by a stream. In its later stages the fairway leans sharply to the right meaning that many approaches have to be played up and over that mound on the front right of the green.



The pronounced slope of the later stages of the fairway and the punishment awaiting should you tangle with the stream are evident in this view from behind the green.

12th 265 yards par 4



It may be a blind tee shot, but it seems perfectly obvious where you should go.



As we kept reminding ourselves, topping was the worst sin of its age and severely punished.



You think you’ll see the green when you reach the first marker post. Wrong!



Only when you reach this spot do you realise why the first marker post was on the left. There is a long left-to-right leaning bank on the left of the latter part of the fairway, the green sloping strongly from right to left. You are dead if you miss on the right!

13th 525 yards par 5



You are now out on the high ground of the moor with an inviting drive to a broad fairway. You cannot escape the wind up here!



The two bunkers draw attention to the low ground in front of the green, which otherwise foreshortens to view and would lead to underclubbing. Young Levett had no difficulty finding the green in two, his eagle putt missing by a fraction of an inch.

14th 180 yards par 3



The least remarkable hole on the course, but it is very exposed to the wind.

15th 501 yards par 5



An archetypal moorland hole, the drive being blind over a ridge.



Having reached the brow of the hill all is revealed, a long straight hole playing up to a skyline green.



16th 390 yards par 4



A beautiful hole with a big right-to-left slope to the fairway.



There is a gentle front-to-back slope to the armchair green.



Only occasionally are you reminded of the outside world.

17th 178 yards par 3



Here is the ladies’ tee.



And this is what they are aiming at.



And there is even the indignity of a watery grave should you come up short. It is a remarkable hole, almost as far down as it is along. Obviously swirling winds are hard to judge and how much allowance should be made for the huge drop is difficult for the first-time visitor.

18th 429 yards par 4



It is a perplexing drive from this low tee (I am standing on the white tee, from which the view is much clearer). The hole clearly curves to the left, the fairway sloping to the right. How much the hole curves and how much allowance should be made for the slope is hard to say. Bite off too much and there is some terrible rough on the hillside!



The very featureless nature of the final green is perhaps fitting, for it is a difficult green to pick out against the mountainous backdrop despite the marker post.

All in all a course very high in character, with some real quirk, for sure. As a higher handicapper I should not fancy my chances of compiling a medal score round here, but it is great fun for match play. Total length is 6069 yards, par is 70, standard scratch 69.
« Last Edit: April 16, 2009, 11:18:52 AM by Mark_Rowlinson »

Sean_A

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Re: Halifax with wintery pictures
« Reply #1 on: April 16, 2009, 12:29:19 PM »
Mark

I really enjoy these tours of the lesser lights and this one looks to be quite special - especially the lower holes.  I also liked the look of some of the tees with their irregular shapes.  Halifax looks to be a gem.

Ciao
New plays planned for 2024: Nothing

Mark_Rowlinson

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Re: Halifax with wintery pictures
« Reply #2 on: April 16, 2009, 02:43:45 PM »
Sean, Have you played Welshpool, another Braid moorland gem? If not, we should meet up there. I think you would enjoy it. Plenty of quirk, a good deal of excitement and one of the toughest finishing holes in all golf, full stop!

Robin_Hiseman

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Re: Halifax with wintery pictures
« Reply #3 on: April 17, 2009, 05:14:57 AM »
Mark

Very many thanks for the wonderful photo essay.  Halifax is my home town, so this took me right back to the days in my early youth when my Mum used to drop me off at a golf course on the way to work, with my 'Return of the Jedi' coffee flask, Spam sandwiches and a Mars Bar.  before picking me up again after work.  Halifax (or Ogden, as it is generally known locally) was occasionally on that rotation and I have very fond memories of golf there.  I played there again a few years ago and was much more aware of the strategic nature of the holes, particularly 3, 4 and 5.  Thankfully, I caught a better day than you did, but I've been up there in a gale, so know it can be savage.  It was clearly too misty for you to see the enormous windfarm that now looms over the course from the top of the moor. 

Generally, golf in the Pennines involves a lot of severely sloping fairways and ledge greens.  My home course was a quirky little 9-holer called Ryburn, on the moors above Sowerby Bridge.  We had two sets of tees for each hole, including one at the 10th, which made for one of the most bizarre par 3's I've ever played.  From a lofty tee, the shot played across the 4th fairway going from left to right, then over a thick woodland copse, which made the shot blind.  Behind the woodland you crossed the 2nd hole going from right to left before arriving at the green, hidden behind a high mound in a deep dell.  This was a seriously intimidating hole for a 36-handicap 11 year-old, I can tell you!

Courses worth a look in the Halifax area include Huddersfield (Fixby), Bingley St.Ives, Bradley Hall and Outlane, which features a tee on the 6th hole which is actually out-of-bounds.  Top it off the front of the tee and you have to take a stroke-and-distance penalty!  There are a few other decent tracks around Huddersfield, but I never played them.  Nothing too outstanding here though.  You need to head up to Leeds for the good stuff.
2024: RSt.D; Mill Ride; Milford; Notts; JCB, Jameson Links, Druids Glen, Royal Dublin, Portmarnock, Old Head, Addington, Parkstone, Denham, Thurlestone, Dartmouth, Rustic Canyon, LACC (N), MPCC (Shore), Cal Club, San Fran, Epsom, Casa Serena, Hayling, Co. Sligo, Strandhill, Carne, Cleeve Hill

Jason McNamara

Re: Halifax with wintery pictures
« Reply #4 on: April 17, 2009, 06:03:40 AM »
Great stuff as always Mark.  But are those artificial tees a year-round thing?

Nevertheless, looks like lots of fun.

Robin (and Mark, for that matter):  Would you include Ilkley and Shipley in the local group worth seeing?

Mark_Rowlinson

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Re: Halifax with wintery pictures
« Reply #5 on: April 17, 2009, 06:12:07 AM »
Robin,

Nice to hear from you.

I share your liking for Fixby, haven't been to Bingley for a great many years, don't know Bradley Hall, but I do know Outlane.

I've probably told this story before but I recall playing at Outlane. There's a hole (4th?) where you play across a deep valley. It was directly into the sun and neither of us could find our balls when we got to the other side. A few holes later another player came up to us and gave us our balls - he'd been on another hole and had seen where our balls had finished. How kind of him. I also played there on my own one day and was about to pay my green fee when a member said, 'Why don't you play with me. The green fee's cheaper that way.' We played the first three holes and he pointed me to the 4th tee. 'I never go over there. Haven't been for years. I just play these three holes until the bar opens, and it opens in three minutes.' He was still at the bar when I finished and I was able to buy him a drink - not his first of the evening!

Mark_Rowlinson

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Re: Halifax with wintery pictures
« Reply #6 on: April 17, 2009, 06:16:43 AM »
jason, No, the artificial tees are winter only. They were still playing winter rules, too.

Shipley has been warmly recommended by Andy Levett and we intend to meet up there soon.

Ilkley is a lovely course - quite expensive for visitors - with an opening sequence of holes along the river, including an island hole, and a testing back nine. Harry Vardon's brother was professional there many years ago.

Dan Herrmann

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Re: Halifax with wintery pictures
« Reply #7 on: April 17, 2009, 06:50:33 AM »
Mark,
Great education - I never knew about moorlands before. 

I love this course - it looks as if Dr. MacKenzie did his work only a couple of years ago (a good thing).

Here are some great aerials: http://www.halifaxgolfclub.co.uk/aerialimages.htm

Tony_Muldoon

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Re: Halifax with wintery pictures
« Reply #8 on: April 17, 2009, 04:29:44 PM »

Thank you, thank you, thank you.   Is this the very definition of a sporty course?  I would love to tee it up there.

Darwin really settled some scores with Braid.  I can’t see any formulaic bunkering here or any other Braid course I've seen.  It seems to me the wilder the territory (Pennard, Brora) the more reason to send for Braid.  The Brother and I had a great time at Queens Park, Bournemouth last year and that has some steep hills, and yet he found exciting, walkable golf.

Mark could you define exactly what you mean by this?





There is a gentle front-to-back slope to the armchair green.

Let's make GCA grate again!

Sean_A

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Re: Halifax with wintery pictures
« Reply #9 on: April 17, 2009, 07:19:51 PM »

Thank you, thank you, thank you.   Is this the very definition of a sporty course?  I would love to tee it up there.

Darwin really settled some scores with Braid.  I can’t see any formulaic bunkering here or any other Braid course I've seen.  It seems to me the wilder the territory (Pennard, Brora) the more reason to send for Braid.  The Brother and I had a great time at Queens Park, Bournemouth last year and that has some steep hills, and yet he found exciting, walkable golf.

Mark could you define exactly what you mean by this?





There is a gentle front-to-back slope to the armchair green.


Tony

Not to get too far off target, but I will do whenever I can help set the record straight for Braid.  I would like to know how the heck Braid ever got a reputation for rote and penal bunkering?  This has to be one of the biggest lies in archie history.  I am guessing Carnoustie has something to so with this and while it may be true for that course (it certainly has seriously penal bunkering these days), I believe Braid had the good sense to know for whom he was building and for what purpose.  It is no secret that I hold Braid in the highest regard as an archie and why not when the man was the primary ingredient in three of my all-time favourite courses: St Enodoc, Pennard and Brora.  I have always said that if an archie these days could claim these three courses as his he would be heralded as a genius.  Hopefully, Braid will get that long overdue respect some day.  He certainly did more than enough to earn these accolades. 

Ciao
New plays planned for 2024: Nothing

Mark_Rowlinson

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Re: Halifax with wintery pictures
« Reply #10 on: April 18, 2009, 06:11:21 AM »
Tony, the approach to the 16th plays uphill, but the green itself slopes very slightly down from front to back, calling for a perfectly weighted approach shot.

Peter Pallotta

Re: Halifax with wintery pictures
« Reply #11 on: April 18, 2009, 08:55:13 AM »
My thanks too, Mark.

I'd avoided this thread because I thought it was about Halifax, Nova Scotia covered in snow, and I just couldn't stand the thought of more snow.
But instead, just lovely, in that Sean Arble-Mark Rowlinson way. Ah, to be "out on the high ground of the moor with an inviting drive to a broad fairway"...

Peter

Mark_Rowlinson

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Re: Halifax with wintery pictures
« Reply #12 on: April 18, 2009, 08:06:40 PM »
It's been pointed out to me that, despite what it says on the club's website, this is more likely to be the work of Sandy Herd in 1902 than Braid. If Herd worked on it in 1902 and MacKenzie made a few alterations in 1912 it is very unlikely that anyone tinkered with it in between. Also, I'm not entirely sure when Braid began designing golf courses.  Any views?

Sean_A

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Re: Halifax with wintery pictures
« Reply #13 on: April 18, 2009, 08:32:14 PM »
It's been pointed out to me that, despite what it says on the club's website, this is more likely to be the work of Sandy Herd in 1902 than Braid. If Herd worked on it in 1902 and MacKenzie made a few alterations in 1912 it is very unlikely that anyone tinkered with it in between. Also, I'm not entirely sure when Braid began designing golf courses.  Any views?

Mark

I don't think the fact that Herd worked on the course precludes Braid working on it later even if Dr Mac did some work on it also.  I don't know anything about Halifax, but it sure looks like Braid could have done some work there. 

As an aside, certainly by 1908 Braid was doing extensive design work.

Ciao
New plays planned for 2024: Nothing

Jon Wiggett

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Re: Halifax with wintery pictures
« Reply #14 on: April 19, 2009, 02:41:50 AM »
Mark,

I used to play Ogden on a regular basis. Great course which is a real challenge. I know that even the tour players had real trouble here on days with a brisk breeze. Ogden also has the habit of changing its playing characteristics on an almost hourly basis as the wind alters direction a lot there.

Emil Weber

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Re: Halifax with wintery pictures
« Reply #15 on: April 19, 2009, 04:18:52 AM »
Nice Tour, very interesting. The site reminds me a little bit of the pictures I've seen of Rustic Canyon.

Mark Chaplin

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Re: Halifax with wintery pictures
« Reply #16 on: April 19, 2009, 06:27:19 AM »
Are you sure young "Callum" isn't Arble in disguise??
Cave Nil Vino

Cory Brown

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Re: Halifax with wintery pictures
« Reply #17 on: April 19, 2009, 12:05:31 PM »
I have always been curious, what are the soil conditions like on these moorland courses?  Are they heavy clays or sandy?  If these areas weren't being used for golf would they be pastureland?

Dean Stokes

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Re: Halifax with wintery pictures
« Reply #18 on: April 19, 2009, 02:29:23 PM »
I have always been curious, what are the soil conditions like on these moorland courses?  Are they heavy clays or sandy?  If these areas weren't being used for golf would they be pastureland?
It would be filled with roaming sheep and the odd misguided hiker.

Like Jon Wiggett, I played a lot of junior golf at Ogden and always enjoyed the 40 minute drive there (equivelent of approx 3 hours in the States for a round of golf!!!).

There was always a lot of stratergy involved in playing this course. You really had to drive your ball correct distances. Then if you wanted to see the pin for your second shot, you quite often had to be on the correct side of the fairway.

Not a heavily bunkered golf course but still very challenging.

The amazing part about Mark's photo tour is how the pictures do not really show the true elevation changes. From the first green to the 8th green (I think) is quite an incline, then you go up and over onto the 'tops' another 20-30 yards. You then decline the entire amount in one hole, #17.

I used to play regularly with a great man, a member of Ogden for years and a Yorkshire County team member on many occasions. He told me he had hit every single club in his bag from Driver to Sand wedge on #17. Fun stuff.

If I got the invite tomorrow I would go and play Ogden.

Living The Dream in The Palm Beaches....golfing, yoga-ing, horsing around and working damn it!!!!!!!

Andrew Mitchell

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Re: Halifax with wintery pictures
« Reply #19 on: April 20, 2009, 06:45:33 AM »
Thanks for the photo tour Mark.  You were unlucky with the weather if you played it last week as it has been dry & sunny here in Yorkshire for the past couple of weeks.

Although I live only 10 or so miles from Halifax GC I played it last year for the first time in probably 20 years.  It was a breezy cold evening and I'd forgotten how hard it was in such conditions.  Judging the carries over the streams on the first few holes was very difficult.  No yardage books at Halifax to help the first timer or infrequent visitor judge distances ;)

17 is certainly a challenging par 3.  One of the GCA tests of a good course seems to be that it asks you to use every club in your bag.  What about if only one hole asks the same question ;D

Mark & Andy - I note your next Yorkshire meet up is scheduled for Shipley, a course I know well.  If you have room for another in your group please let me know and I'll try & join you.  Alternatively if you fancy a visit to my home club of Northcliffe (just a couple of miles up the road from Shipley) I'd be delighted to host you.   
2014 to date: not actually played anywhere yet!
Still to come: Hollins Hall; Ripon City; Shipley; Perranporth; St Enodoc

Andy Levett

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Re: Halifax with wintery pictures
« Reply #20 on: April 21, 2009, 04:47:25 AM »
Interesting it may be by Sandy Herd - having thought it was a Braid, I thought I saw a lot of Braid in it. Those greens cut out of hillsides are the sort of thing Tom Simpson decried as simplistic and unattractive but very reminiscent of Braid's work at, say, Perranporth. The elevated, angled 4th green is very reminiscent of the 13th at Elie, known to be one of Braid's favourite holes, though as Sandy Herd was from St Andrews he could have been familiar with that hole as well.

Armchair green's a good expression, capturing both the look and comfy, forgiving nature of the raised banks at back and sides.

I've had a look at my pictures and they don't add anything to Mark's but the course was such fun I've signed up for an open there in June and if the weather's a bit more helpful will try to do some then and add them to the thread.

Mark_Rowlinson

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Re: Halifax with wintery pictures
« Reply #21 on: April 21, 2009, 02:17:30 PM »
Andrew, I'd be delighted if you were able to join us at Shipley. Mark

Thomas Dai

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Re: Halifax with wintery pictures
« Reply #22 on: August 21, 2014, 03:31:32 PM »
I'm bumping this old thread as Ogden-Halifax has been mentioned a couple of times recently including in the "'Lesser' courses you'd really like to play" thread currently running - http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,59381.0.html - and because the course, even in the wintery weather present when Mark did his fine photo-tour, looks an absolute wow. Duncan used the term 'Wuthering Heights' (golf) in relation to another thread. I reckon it's a description that could apply here. Some cracking looking holes and that downhill par-3 17th, bloody hell! Not a tee, more a platform to launch a hangglider!
atb
« Last Edit: August 21, 2014, 03:41:16 PM by Thomas Dai »

Jon Wiggett

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Re: Halifax with wintery pictures
« Reply #23 on: August 21, 2014, 04:11:29 PM »
Thomas,

Ogden is a fine course on a par from a golfing challenge and GCA as any course I have played. It, along with Baildon which is similar, does not get the recognition it should because although it usually presents good playing surfaces it does not look manicured but rather very rugged which many cannot see beyond to notice the real quality beneath.

Jon

Jon Cavalier

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Re: Halifax with wintery pictures
« Reply #24 on: August 21, 2014, 04:21:40 PM »
Really glad you decided to bump this thread. I very much enjoyed the tour - looks like a fun place to play. Thanks guys.
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