Pelican Hill Becomes a Chip Shot With Computer Game
Given Pelican Hill Golf Club’s prominent location, perched in the hills next to the ocean along the Newport Coast, it’s no surprise the facility’s two courses are known across the country.
The vistas are especially amazing on clear days and it’s a captivating experience for players who seem to spend more time lining up photos than putts.
Maybe the only drawback to the location is the price of a round, which is $135 on Mondays and Tuesdays, $160 on Wednesday and Thursday and $175 Friday though Sunday.
But there is finally a way to play the ocean course at Pelican Hill as many times as one has time for, day or night, for a one-time investment of about $20.
Of course, there’s a catch.
Instead of a driver, players need a hard drive and the rest of the parts that make up a computer.
Access Software, a Salt Lake City company, has recently released a computer version of the ocean course that runs with most Links LS or Microsoft golf games.
Pelican Hill joins California courses such as Pebble Beach, Rivera Country Club and Torrey Pines that have been immortalized on computer disks.
Besides being a nice pro shop souvenir at Pelican Hill, the project holds many advantages for the course according to Jay Colliatie, the director of golf.
It gives the course nationwide exposure, helping sell it as an appealing vacation idea to those spending a chilly winter with golf clubs stored until spring.
“We’ve gotten a lot of positive response from it,” Colliatie said. “We feel it has a lot of benefits, including being included with great golf resorts like Pebble Beach. We were anxious to do it.”
There is a helicopter tour of each hole and the footage that was taken for this part of the game was given to the course and is now part of the course’s archives.
The game has amazingly detailed re-creations of each hole and the surrounding area, including homes under construction when the videotape was shot. The details are exact from the tree that stands in the right side of the first fairway to rocks that sit between the par-three seventh green and the lake next to it.
“Actually,” Colliatie said, “I haven’t played it yet. I guess I should.”
Maybe, but why stare at a computer screen when the real thing is just outside your office window?
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A suggestion: To get the most realistic feel for the course, the recently released Links LS ($39.99 at Best Buy) is the best choice.
While most games come with only two courses, Links LS has three--the Village and Plantation courses at the Kapalua resort on Maui and the Latrobe (Pa.) Country Club made famous by Arnold Palmer. Another disk in the game offers a tour of Palmer’s office and library.
Links LS was picked as the top sports game in a recent edition of Computer Gaming Magazine.
The game’s strong graphics are its most appealing feature, but players can also take on Palmer in a skins game or control everything on a course from the speed of the greens and wind to the density of the fog.
The only drawback is not having a computer powerful enough to run the game effectively. On a computer with 16 RAM and a 100 Pentium chip, a game with one player takes between 35 and 40 minutes to complete a round.
It takes the computer about 10 seconds to redraw the the screen after each shot.
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The lack of any serious rain in the current long-range forecasts is good news for the Nike Tour players who are competing at the Moreno Valley Golf Club this week.
Last year was the first time in the three-year history of the event that a round was lost to rain.
The $200,000 Inland Empire Open starts Thursday and concludes Sunday, with the winner getting $36,000.
Admission is free on Monday and Tuesday during practice rounds and spectators on those two days will be given coupons good for free tickets to Thursday and Friday’s rounds.
Otherwise, tickets are $8 a day or a season pass is $24.
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Gone to Maui? Here’s a chance for amateurs--anyone with a valid USGA handicap index--to win a trip to Hawaii for four rounds of golf at Makena Golf Resort on Maui.
TeamGolf’s International Challenge, a two-person scramble tournament, has 11 open qualifying tournaments from Friday to Oct. 1 at Southern California courses. The top 10% of finishers--in each of two flights--advance to the regional tournament at Coto de Caza Oct. 6. The winners there advance to the international finals on Maui, air fare, lodging and golfing paid.
There are one or two open qualifying events each month. Tustin Ranch is the site on June 18. For more information call Michael Marcus at (714) 240-5952.
Notes
The Southern California PGA’s Golf Expo will be held March 7-9 at Long Beach Convention Center. The annual exposition will feature demonstrations and product introductions from manufacturers such as Calloway, Cobra, Taylor Made and Lynx. Admission is $7 for adults and $4 for seniors (55 and older) and juniors (11 to 18). Children 10 and younger are free. . . . The Irish American Partnership is holding its 1997 Southern California golf tournament at Dove Canyon on April 14. Two winning foursomes (best gross and best net) will win a trip to Ireland for the Grand Championship Tour, which will be played in September in Lahinch, Ballybunion and Waterville. More information is available on the World Wide Web at https://www.workcare.com/golf.html
The Orange County Golf Notebook runs monthly. Suggestions are welcome. Call (714) 966-5904, fax 966-5663 or e-mail Martin.Beck@latimes.com or Steve.Kresal@latimes.com
