TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm (LIDAR)

[EG$]

I'm about 95% done, but I've already put A LOT of hours into this one. All I have left is to clean up some splines, replace some trees, and give it one more thorough check. Building this course forced me to learn multiple types of retaining walls, waterfalls, small creeks. I don't even want to know how many hours I put into the retaining wall on 17, but now I'm confident that I could build any course out there. The Unity engine leaves a lot to be desired from a design standpoint, but any course is possible if you have the patience.

This is the DMV's PGA tour stop and also Tiger's tournament that he used to alternate between this course and Congressional. I think the tournament has been on hiatus for the last couple of years but returning in 2021. I played it when it was known as TPC Avenel in the late 90's. It was redesigned in 2010 for the Senior Players Championship. The course was featured in the original PGA Tour Golf video game made by EA Sports in 1990. A good friend of mine was born into a wealthy family and his entire family are members of the club. Unfortunately he isn't a big golfer, and knowing how much it actually costs to bring a guest to play I haven't asked him... yet.

I'll have it published soon. Screenshots below.

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[Iquinn4]

Looks great!!! Bravo! Did you publish yet or are you waiting on a finished project?

[Wizard of Coz]

Looks like a masterpiece and is going to be Noonan to remember. Yippee-ki-yayyy

[Jtangm04]

Looks like an incredible rendition

[Solstice72]

That's looks so nice. Thanks for the hours put in.

[EG$]

Thanks for the kind words! Building these courses is like creating a digital painting, and its always nice to hear good feedback.

Iquinn - I'm close. It needs a couple additional hours to clean a few things up. I should have it finished by the end of the weekend.

I did want to show everyone the scorecard as well. Its the first time I've been able to get the tee's to match up with the scorecard without drastic manipulation. The LIDAR data must have been pretty good. I didn't do the 'Blend' set of tees, but the other 5 will be available. Every tee and the total distance for each set of tee's matches up perfectly. Check it out!



I did make 15 a par 5, but I probably will go back and make it a par 4. If it makes any of the tours we will not be playing it from the tips and I can't justify a 440 yard par 5. So it'll be a long par 70 course when its done. This course is a beast. 7139 from the tips on a par 70, slope is 140 and rating around 74, and there is plenty of room to make it longer, which I'm sure they do for the pros. The silver tees (blue on my rendition) has the rating (69.9) that plays closest to its par.

I'll give everyone a heads up once it's published.

[Wizard of Coz]

You never know ive had 3 events over 7000 this season with one 7500 ish.

[EG$]

I published the Beta. Do a search for 'TPC PAAF Beta' and you should find it. I may need to brighten the colors and soften the greens and fairways for the final version.

Give it a go and let me know what you think.

[EG$]

I published the final version. The course name is 'TPC Potomac @ Avenel Farm". I had a request to publish another version of the course with junior tees so that will also be coming.

The final version includes all of the tree and spline fixes I wanted to do. I brightened the overall course textures, cleared the sky, and set the clock for noon (just for you Solstice ). I made the greens as soft as slider allows, and the speed should be slow, but not very slow. The OB is now in (with stakes that mark it).

All of the feedback has been good for the beta version, and this version is much better!

Additional screenshots below:

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[Solstice72]

Loving it, a sweet track, I tinkered on it for a while. Like high summer feeling man, it's good to be out there

[EG$]

I just published the version that includes the junior tees with a total length of 3780 yards (TPC Potomac w/ Junior Tee). I basically just used 62.5% of the blue/silver tee length so that the entire course plays similarly to the longer tees.

I mistakenly published two versions of the final. I was trying to figure out why the spectators weren't showing up so I went back, ensured that I had enabled the spectators and published again not realizing that they will not show up unless its a society event.

Both submissions are the same. 92 plays so far between the 2. I hope everyone is enjoying it.

[Everground]

Can't wait to play this! Prob tonight or tomorrow. Thank you!

[EG$]

Ok, so first thing is first. In all honesty, the first version(s) of this course were terrible. I went back and played it about a month ago and it was so boring and drab. My versions of Musket and Worthington were so much better, which is sad because this is a TPC course.

Knowing it was a TPC course, I had to go back and do it justice. In fairness to myself, the LIDAR import left me with about 33% of the resource meter to use, but I had used too many multi-plants which just kills the resource meter. The import went from corner to corner of the usable space in the map which I'm guessing is a resource hog because I usually have a lot more of the meter to work with.

I ended up finding some really good source pictures of each hole that I didn't have before, so I went back, cleaned and smoothed all of the jaggies), reworked bunkers, broke all of the tree mutli-plants and manually planted trees, added a significant amount of detail that was missing, and made sure there was the least amount of empty space when viewing the course from every green. The resource meter is full on this one, but unlike the first attempt the resources are optimized. I spent a lot of time on the clubhouse to make 18 more memorable, and redid the crowd placement to get them in more appropriate places. Playing 18 in a society event will be pretty cool now. It would be tough for me to list all of the improvements because there was so many. I play tested the hell out of it, and I even moved it over to the Protee version temporarily so I could display it on the projector and optimize the green, fairway, and rough textures with Reshade enabled. Reshade is a game changer BTW. Anyone that isn't using it should look into it.

In short, my apologies for the first submissions. They sucked, but this one is good. I honestly don't know what else I could do to make it better (resource meter is full either way).

Give it another shot. I think its worthy of a TPC now. Published name is 'TPC Potomac'.

Updated screenshots below.

[Solstice72]

That's awesome. Great breakdown of a design trip. I appreciate this kind of effort. Which ReShade settings did you click for this?

[EG$]

Solstice - I just used the suggestions in your Reshade thread.

The following are the only features I enabled:

Colourfulness, FakeHDR, Luma Sharpen, Clarity, Vibrance, Levels

It makes such a significant difference. I'm using an Optoma GT1080.

I use the default home screen as a base (the clubhouse screen) and make sure the grass, brick, pavement, and wood trim all look good. The golfer avatar in the subsequent screens is a little too orange and I guess could tweak the sliders a bit more to fix that, but as long as the course looks good I don't really care about the avatars.

[Solstice72]

Ok. I never get much out of sharpen or clarity. Do you modify the sub setting values for those? To what?

[interpathway]

Longtime lurker but created this account to post this message: thank you for all the great Maryland tracks EG$

I played TPC Potomac last night and was very impressed. Similar to my reaction for Worthington

[EG$]

Thank you interpathway ! Glad you enjoyed it them.

Wait until you see Caves Valley! I should be able to get it done before the summer season so we can all play it during the BMW next year.

[dehoffe76]

Really enjoyed Musket Ridge when I discovered it the other day. Just curious with your redesign does it also have the junior tees? Always looking for great tracks to play with my son once the Mevo + arrives.