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Rounds Played

Mild/Hard/2: 29-31-60 (-12)
Mild/Soft/1: 31-26-57 (-15)
Medium/Normal/4: 30-31-61 (-11)

Many more rounds to come!

Initial Thoughts

This conversion of Mission Bay Golf Club (Jeff Helton/JN5) by Fred Hanser is primarily just a straight compilation to GBC, with just a few small elevation changes done. Prior to playing my rounds here, I had not heard much about Mission Bay nor had I ever played it as I went from JN4 straight to GBC.

My first impression of the course was a very, very good one. I loved the hole overheads and the course overhead as well, along with the setting and overall layout of the course. I think it is excellent how the cliffs and drops in this course are rendered with great accuracy. Everything on the course seems to blend together very well (The trees blend very well with the textures and background)...As far as your custom work goes for this course, its near perfect! The elevation like I had said is well done too, however I noticed somewhat of a fault as I continued my round. I observed several tees with slight elevation to them...which is disappointing when seeing a course of this caliber. The holes are moderate length, with the course coming in at 7,128 yards. It took me 27 holes to really find my game here...when I shot a 26 on the back during the second round. I birdied every hole on the back 9 and eagled the par 4 hole 16...I will definitely be back here for more rounds!

Be sure to download this one, as I believe it is a definite keeper. The only shame here was the fact that some tee elevation was not fixed, but maybe Fred will give us a second conversion that has these problems fixed. One of the top courses released this month!

This fine JN5 course was converted to
JN6 by Fred Hanser. The 17th tee was
flattened, but no other changes were
made.

Nov. 16, 2002
Fred Hanser
St. Louis, Missouri
USA

This course has done everything I ask for involving course routing and continuity. The course flows very well (excellent hole & course layout here) and offers a wide variation of wind direction on all holes. This also seems to be a course you could very possibly see in real life. It offers the true spirit of an ocean course, and all of the objects, textures, and background fit in very well. I can't find a single here not to give this course a perfect rating in course rating and continuity...

Just like this course was a cut above in course routing and continuity, Mission Bay also had fairly superior hole layouts and strategy. The course plays to an almost perfect distance, coming in at 7,128 yards. All of the holes have fair lengths and offer good risk/reward situations. I couldn't really find any negatives here in the hole layouts, however the elevation on some tee boxes and failure to elevate more on a few fairways could play a role in strategy part of this. There are no gimmicky type holes on this course, and the design plays just as real as existing course renditions by names such as Trent Jones and Jack Nicklaus.

This course has very solid realism - Great sounds, matching textures/objects/background...Nothing much that is a real negative. The only problem here is the elevation of tee boxes (biggest disappointment on this course) and open flat areas on several fairways. It seems like maybe a few more hours put into this course just flattening and smoothening would have made it a superior rendition. You will definitely get a real-life feeling playing this course, I just think things like I mentioned above take away from some of the outlook.

This course has solid "A" technique, but could have used a little more time invested in the actual course regarding small detail in some areas. The course and hole overheads and very well done and add a little extra interest to the design. It is obvious a large amount of time was spent on certain areas (drop offs, cliffs...etc) however certain areas could have been worked with a little more. 9/10 here for Technique.

The textures on this course blend in very well with everything else, and I believe there is a very good contrast between the light rough and heavy rough/etc...It would have been nice to see a little more texture variation around the teeboxes and in a few areas off the fairway, but overall the texture set is very fitting. It is always nice to see a set of non stock textures that fit the other custom data on the course.

Mr. Helton adds a lot of custom work on Mission Bay, which all helps build the spirit and increases realism admirably. I love all of the custom objects - from the carts to the beautiful fitting custom trees to the clubhouse and practice area on 18...everything on this course comes together is excellent fashion. You could possibly argue that there could have been a few more custom objects on this course, however I believe Jeff has done a very adequate job considering the locale of Mission Bay. Objects and other non stock items were definitely a strong point in this design. A+.

Mission Bay came with excellent hole overheads, and just a few small issues I noticed...The course overhead is a little difficult to read as it does not number any of the holes and makes a few holes difficult to locate. It also would have been nice to see a little more information on the course overhead, and possibly a nice border on the hole overheads. Overall the overheads were done very well...A-.

Mission Bay definitely stood out with all of the custom data...and fitted the setting very, very nicely. There was a read me file included (see above) but it only included a small amount of information. The handicaps are set adequately, and the splash screens are done with high quality. There was no custom flag or rounds included with the course, but that isn't an issue considering the amount of quality work put into this design.

Hole 4 Tee	Hole 6 Green	Hole 9 Approach
Hole 10 Tee	Hole 12 Approach	Hole 18 Tee

2002
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2001
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