Hi all,
As promised, I created a tour with four rounds at Prestnoch Public Golf Links to support the famous summer competition that takes place there : the Dorwick Belt Open. Created at the end of the 19th century by the Earl of Dorwick, this competition gathers all players, pro or amateurs, who love this part of the world and traditional links game. The trophy is still made of a really nice and huge leather belt, offered each year by the Earl.
On Saturday night, as the open runs on that day in the "Earl's way", a special routing made for the earl and finishing at the 12th, just in front of the Hall, there is an evening gala where all the players and official are invited. Even though this is a stiff competition, no one would dare to miss this "little soirée" where the local nectar flows like forever and some Scottish game are attended too.
By the way, the 4 rounds are set to give the player a complete experience of the course and are set as follows :
1st round : start early Thursday morning, while rain pours since the beginning of the week and make the course play very slow. The routing is "regular" and you start form the 1st tee. Some holes have been shortened to take account of the slow conditions and some pins are set in positions that would not be playable with fast greens.
2nd round : start at noon form the 10th. The weather is nicer and dry and the course have well dried from yesterday. The fairways and greens, still a little wet play at mid speed.
3rd round : start in the afternoon and uses "Earl's way" routing (using regular hole numbers : 13/14/03/04/05/06/16/17/18/01/02/15/07/08/09/10/11/12 ) a very special route that makes the last nine play very short with most of the par 3's. A real opportunity for the moving day. The course has dried again and the fairways are hard and the greens begin to be faster.
4th round : ends late afternoon with the "regular" routing. The course plays at full length as the fairways are now extremely dry and fast. The greens are faster than the previous day but not unplayable. Notice that the 7th and 11th have been lengthened by sharing the same tee as the 14th. An eye there on the score board and your opponents is inescapable.
A TGC "pro" player should play the open between -10 and -15, I think.
As I saw that the first release of the course played easy, I will not release a "Members" version. If you want to try an easier version, play the Thursday and if you want to battle for par, play the Sunday version.
A final note : there is a local rule which cannot be set with TGC : any fairway other that the one of the current holes is considered as "out of bounds". So, please, play the game and do not cut.
Have fun !
Dominique
