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It has
always been a routine for me, when I start up my PC, open outlook to get
my emails, open my Internet Explorer, go to my PGA mailbox, open another
browser window, go to bubsnews, read the latest LS news happenings, give
out a smile, until today. "It is with great sadness and a heavy heart that I make this announcement, bubsnews has closed. " (click here to read it all) What???THE BUBSNEWS CLOSED??? How can this be? Well we really can't realize what the site has done for us until it closes. George Fitting aka Bub explains it all in his site. The only thing that I can say is it is a great loss for the links ls community. To each one of you there who in one way or another has been to bubsnews and appreciates what he has done, please enter the forum below and speak out. I will forward this to Bub to show him our appreciation.
Links
LS 2001 BETA, I
finally have installed the Links LS 2001 beta on my new PC. My PC
config is as follows: PIII-800 Mhz, 256 MB RAM, 32 MB Savage4 Video
Card, MS Intellimouse So after giving almost 1.5 GB to Links LS, I finally ran the program. The interface has a new look. Looks more like a web page now hehe. I went on to create my player and this time you have more options that you can imagine. Here are the screenshots with some comments from me: screen0000.jpg - Links LS Desktop screen0001.jpg - Golfer Appearance screen0002.jpg - Club Distances I went on to play a round. The graphics indeed are more detailed. The physics better. The ball flights are truer with respect to your lie. I played a match play with Sergio and for the first time in playing against a computer player, I have been outdriven, out hit, outputted. He hit his snap at 16-6 for about 75% of the time, even for irons. The cup is looks smaller too than in pervious versions. The swingmeter is more difficult to read because of the removal of the bigger dots. All dots now look the same on the swing meter. I am still trying to find the distances in these dots as the one included in the tutorial is not accurate. One bad thing with the beta and I hope its not with the one on the stores is the mouse fart. There are times when I get about 5-10 farts in a round, mostly in putting. I thought it was my mouse but I have 2 mouse here, my old and new one and both have the same fart problem. I asked around as well and indeed some guys have experienced mouse farts. So till LS 20001!!!!
SAD BUT TRUE (hehe) Oct. 18,2000 I just got an email from Larry Shillings(Birdmor) last October 8 to find the the biggest surprise on Devil's. Just when I thought my -15 would stay for long, in less than a 2 weeks, he submits an awesome -16 round. Makes me think, I should have gone for the green in 2 on my last round LMAO. It indeed raises the bar again. It is such a great effort done on the most challenging course. You can check out Birdmor's email to me at the testimonials section. I apologize to Larry as well for the late post, but congratulate me for being a father to a baby boy!!! OOPS!!! I DID IT (AGAIN)!!Oct. 2,2000 I
just received 2 recorded files for Devil's Island. They are -14
and -12 from John Shillings and his brother Larry. It's been a
while since I shot a decent Devil's round so I decided to play with
these files. Here is how it went (as far as I can recall Hole 1, Hit a pulled teeshot but still hit the fairway. 5W second shot the the pin leaves me about 11 ft for birdie. Hole 2, 6W for a tee and 5W through the trees to the fringe. Chip to 22" (this is when I discover I didn't toggle record button on). But I still played on because at this stage I thought it is impossible to match the -14 record sent to me by J.Shillings. Routine bird for Hole 3, almost a hole in one on hole 4 , hitting the pin then having 25" left. On hole 5, I hole about 6 ft. of hairy putt for a bird. Parred the 6th, Bird on 7, drained a 30+ ft on 8th for bird. Birdied the 9th. As I am playing alongside two great rounds here, our standings are J. Pineda -7, L. Shillings, -7, J. Shillings -6. L. Shillings eagle hole 10, while both J.Shillings and I birdie it. All of us birdie 11 to 14 except on 13 where L. Shillings made par. Though hole 13, I was at 11-under, The Par 3-14th makes me think twice about my shot, whether to go for it or play it safe , get my par and move on. I decided to go for it, 6W, 2 clicks down perfect snap hit puts me to about 5ft past the hole for my birdie putt. L Shillings then makes a bogey at 15 while we birdie. At that point it was just the two Johns in the thick of it, me at 14 under and J. Shillings at 12 under. I birdie 16 while J.Shillings made par. We both birdie 17, and going to 18, I was at 15 under and he was at 13 under. I was thinking of being greedy by going for it in two but I decided to play safe and aim for bird instead. My third shot left me about 22 ft and narrowly miss my birdie putt. J. Shillings made a bird to finish 14 under. At the end of my round, all I can say is, it could have been lower (ain't it true for all of us? ) I do have the verify file on the Devils page if you don't trust me as well as some snapshots of the scorecard.
I apologize to John Shillings for beating his round so soon, but I guess the same goes to his brother, whose record he beat after getting the 12-under round. Cheers to us and those who love playing on the edge!!!
Some things I'd like to see in future versions of Links LS (9/7/2000) There has been leaps and bounds of changes since I first played this Links 386 game in 1995. While I do admit that I can hit the ball longer then and made more eagles on par-5's , the present Links LS is definitely awesome. If you play real life golf, you know how true the flight of the ball is, in other words, you feel the game flowing in you. So much has been added in Links 2001 like the left handed golfer and course designer. Still there are some features that I would want to see in future versions of Links LS. True they may be small items, but they add up to the games realism. The first thing on my list is the ability to hide your clubs during online play. Normally, on online play you get to see what club your opponent used. You may say that you don't know what he changed on the loft setting but still if I'm your opponent thinking of a hard 6 iron, and see you play a wonderful 5 iron, I'll have second thoughts with the 6 iron and use the 5 iron instead. On the tour, there are some caddies signaling the clubs what their pro hit (which is considered cheating). Second, I used to play MS Golf as well and its golfer animations are so customizable. You can even change the skin complexion. Why not for Links LS? Third is the drop rule. I don't really know the drop rule by heart in golf but I think you cannot just drop 30 yds back into the fairway after a bad shot. I think the 2-club rule should be enforced by Links LS. Fourth is the fairway condition.
There are many golf tournaments made difficult by hard fairways or
made easier by wet courses. I do hope that this option happens
soon on Links LS. I asked a developer once and he said that the
course fairway can be altered only on the design phase. Maybe
someone can make a rock hard Old Course at St. Andrews soon Lastly, I wish someone starts a real Links LS tour (or is there one already?). A tour where players can only use the main view, cams disabled, no grids - yes even on greens (tour players don't have these remember). Don't you think we will get PGA level scoring this way? I know that there are a lot of people shooting extremely low scores with Links LS and I believe that all these cams and grids help a lot. I can easily shoot -10 using grids and cams but I don't think I'll manage a -3 with them off, now wont that be exciting?
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