I am new to this post, but there is something that I have been thinking about for the past few years. Since I can't play golf 365 days a year, or in the summer due to my job as an assistant superintendent, I find myself playing the digital fairways and greens of video games.
One thing in particular has started to catch my attention, and that has been both the lack of detail on golf courses in video games and the outlandishness of the designs.
One game that comes to mind as a cause of some of my curiosity is the EA Sports games, Tiger Woods. I have the 2005 edition of the game, and I am currently awaiting delivery of the 2006 version, so my references will be mostly towards the last year's game. I also will refering to the XBox game, Links 2004. Both games are amazing in their ability to make a very difficult game enjoyable for everybody, but also providing a way for addicted golfers (I confess), to play golf during the heavy winters (I went to school at Ohio State, not much winter play there).
The first aspect that I would like to discuss is the detail is the course maintenance. Now in my fourth season working on golf courses, I have picked up a keen eye for the details that make a golf course unique, from stripes on greens and fairways, to the use of native areas, to even little features like tee markers and course markers.
In terms of stripes, I have begun to become curious. If you pay attention to the videogames of EA, you notice that they have stadiums and venues down to a perfect art, with every seat, advertisement, and monument. However, when it comes to golf courses, they seem to miss the boat when it comes to the details of mowing and the appearence that creates. For example, if you watch a professional event, you notice immediately the difference between your local golf course and the tourney venue. Not a single PGA event this year, had fairway lines that went straight from the start of the fairway up to the approach and the apron of the green. If you look closely at PGA courese, the fairway mowers stop at a considerable distance, and the remaining approach is mowed with walk-behind mower and not a quinplex or triplex. As these areas are hard to mow with a fairway unit, a walk behind is utilized. This I beleive is a major oversight for EA, as they strive to create optimum conditions, the seem to miss this detail. In addition to stripes, the fail to take advantage of the multiple mowing patterns including half and half, checker boards, and diamonds. Lastly, before I move on, is the absence of clean-up pass. This detial could be left out, but when done properly, allows the edge of the fairway to stand out more, plus the look of fairway lines going right to the edge, is just obsurd looking, and a physical impossibility.
For greens, the same things applies, greens for tournament golf do not have triplex lines on them, but in fact are walk behind mower lines (18 inches) or there are no lines at all (a characteristic of double cutting and rolling).
While that is an issue that i care about, I am most concerned with the use (and abuse) of golf course design. Links 2004 has taken some great golf courses, made them digital to the point of obsurdly accurate realism, and then did the righteous thing, left them alone. Tiger Woods 2005 in particular, seemed to slap golf course architecture in the face, in my mind.
Tiger Woods 2005 has a section, devoted to "Tiger Proofing." Immediately when I started playing this, I thought that the courses could be altered, but in fact, you can almost destory every golf course on the game by changing the color of the fairway, adding 150+ yards to a hole, and making greens smaller than billiard tables on a hill top. It really makes no sense to me when you can take a monumental course that is a precedent of degisn like St. Andrews, and make the course look obsurd.
I'll step off of my soap box and start to hear from everybody else. Sometimes my hands start to flow my thoughts a little to quickly. This is a discussion board.
Sorry to stop in the middle of my post, but I am currently working on several things, but I would love to hear some opinions on the issue.