[Ally Mcintosh]

He does by far the best golf course videos… leaves the others in the dust.

You're at the mercy of the production team with things like this, but I thought EAL and his guys did a really good job.  He took the time to read everything that we gave him beforehand for weeks so that he understood the history and was able to focus on the appropriate aspects of it.  And he really does have the passion for this, on camera and off.  Great job by his guys to do all the visuals as well.

He actually acts like a journalist (see also his St. Patricks vid) in amongst the good visuals, inquisitive nature and snappy editing. He researches the story behind the story and then pitches it at the right level and in the right order to bring along the audience.


Haven’t seen any other golf course vids that do that so well.

[Peter Flory]

Coincidentally, I was in another Adventures in Golf video, but only as a prop as I was asked to pose on a tee when someone hit a shot for the camera.  I was playing in the Belvedere Hickory Open a few years ago and EAL and his crew showed up to film an episode where he was playing in the tournament.  I didn't know who he was at that time and I didn't know what to expect from an outsider dipping into the hickory world for a story, but he was great to everyone there, 90% of it off camera.

[Sean_A]

I didn't know what EAL looked like until this summer at St Pat's. We had a strange conversation about his golf bag which he offered to sell to me...which I thought was a joke. I didn't know his company sold bags. I was told afterwards who he is. He seemed nice enough, but it was an odd encounter. Doc later told me that EAL thought I was intense. I thought the same about him 🙃. I guess he thought I knew who he was.

Anyway, it's a good video.

Ciao

[Robin_Hiseman]

I was delighted to see this pop up on youtube yesterday. EAL has done a fascinating film, pitched at just the right level of technical detail with the pay off of playing the course at the end.


For those of us who have been following Peter's efforts on this project from his first post several years ago, we can only imagine his pride and satisfaction at being part of this historic event. Well done Peter. This may have never happened without you.


And yes, EAL did think Sean was intense!

[Ally Mcintosh]

I didn't know what EAL looked like until this summer at St Pat's. We had a strange conversation about his golf bag which he offered to sell to me...which I thought was a joke. I didn't know his company sold bags. I was told afterwards who he is. He seemed nice enough, but it was an odd encounter. Doc later told me that EAL thought I was intense. I thought the same about him 🙃. I guess he thought I knew who he was.

Anyway, it's a good video.

Ciao

You were like two ships in the night, Sean…


I could see how someone might pin you for having a jovial intensity though.

[Niall C]

Excuse my ignorance but who or what is EAL ?


Niall

[Ally Mcintosh]

Erik Anders Lang… the two of you were the A-list celebrity guests in Rosapenna last month.

[Ben Stephens]

I was delighted to see this pop up on youtube yesterday. EAL has done a fascinating film, pitched at just the right level of technical detail with the pay off of playing the course at the end.


For those of us who have been following Peter's efforts on this project from his first post several years ago, we can only imagine his pride and satisfaction at being part of this historic event. Well done Peter. This may have never happened without you.


And yes, EAL did think Sean was intense!

Sean is the GCA version of the Godfather    always chugging a cigar and looking quite stern - the more i got to know him he is a good egg the man harks from Detroit a tough city.

[Sean_A]

I didn't know what EAL looked like until this summer at St Pat's. We had a strange conversation about his golf bag which he offered to sell to me...which I thought was a joke. I didn't know his company sold bags. I was told afterwards who he is. He seemed nice enough, but it was an odd encounter. Doc later told me that EAL thought I was intense. I thought the same about him . I guess he thought I knew who he was.

Anyway, it's a good video.

Ciao

You were like two ships in the night, Sean…

I could see how someone might pin you for having a jovial intensity though.

   It was my complete ignorance of who EAL is! I heard the name, but never watched any of his stuff....or so I thought. I later recalled seeing a video about London Scottish. It didn't make much of an impression...I guess.  The thing is, I liked the bag!

Ciao

[Niall C]

Erik Anders Lang… the two of you were the A-list celebrity guests in Rosapenna last month.

I can't speak for Erik but I'm pretty sure I was closer to the Z-list than the A-list but very grateful to get an invite all the same.


Niall

[John Mayhugh]

That was really entertaining. I haven't been the biggest fan of EAL's videos as the ones I previously viewed (some time back) seemed to be a bit too much about him. Now I need to watch some more recent ones and see what I've been missing.

[Tim Gallant]

I really enjoyed that video, and it only made my desire to play the course grow. I always thought Lido would have been a bigger, brawnier, bolder version of the CB courses that I've seen, and judging from some of the on ground shots in there (ie - first fairway), it certainly looks to be the case!

[Mike Bodo]

Watched EAL's video on the Lido a couple of days ago on YouTube and was thoroughly riveted by both the course and contributions from messers Flory, Doak and Keiser Jr. If there's one minor critique it would be that there wasn't a lot of ground level footage of the course from the vantage point of the player. You saw any number of swings, but not from behind the player to see what they were contending with from a strategic standpoint. Not sure if this was by design, but the footage of the course captured from the drone was incredible.


To Peter, whose love affair with The Lido and brilliant 3D computer renderings were the genesis behind this project, how was it to actually play the course you helped inspire and resurrect? Did it live up to or exceed expectations? This has to be an incredible dream come true. I couldn't be happier for you given all the sweat equity you put into researching this and creating the hole renderings to the best of your ability based on the information you were able to compile from untold sources.


Chapeau to everyone that had a hand or role to bringing this course back to life. It looks Amazing!

[David_Tepper]

EAL has carved out quite a niche for himself in the golf vlog-o-sphere. Getting sponsored by United Airlines and getting his videos hosted on their inflight video system is quite a coup.

[Peter Flory]

Mike- I try to separate my personal involvement from my judgment of the course since it wasn't my design... but part of why I went so deep into the digital recreation was because I was so astonished by what I was seeing/ uncovering as I was doing it.  My overall conclusion is that it is a very unique course where the severity and placement of the hazards forces you to think strategically while you play.  The Old Course is the comparable that comes to mind the most.  There really isn't a single tee shot that lets you off the hook.  Most of them have hazards to negotiate and the view is either totally or partially obscured.  On the par 5s, all four of them have different crossing hazards to negotiate- 4 has the lagoon and then a large trench bunker.  6 has a convex set of sandy mounds and berm fingers that crosses the fairway and blocks the view.  7 has a diagonal trench all across the fairway.  And 17 has a version of Hell's bunker that needs to be crossed.  On the approaches, the greens are sand based, so they are firm.  But they are also perched up because of the way that the course was constructed with fill only.  So many greens are Lawsonia like in their elevation.  That combination makes the angle of the approach much more critical than a typical American course and it brings the greenside hazards much more into play as you try to cheat them to hold the greens or get to certain pins. 


It's not a pretty course, but a rugged one.  I expect a certain percentage of players to conclude that it's too difficult for them, just like what happened with the original.  But for good players and/or those who prefer match play over medal, I think that they will find it to be really interesting, especially on multiple plays. 

[Mike Bodo]

It's not a pretty course, but a rugged one.  I expect a certain percentage of players to conclude that it's too difficult for them, just like what happened with the original.  But for good players and/or those who prefer match play over medal, I think that they will find it to be really interesting, especially on multiple plays.

Big and rugged. Sounds like my kinda place.    Are the greens raised to the point you can't run a shot on to the putting surface that lands short? If the fairways are sand-based like the greens (which, I presume they are) then I would think conditions would be firm enough in front of the greens to allow shots that land short the opportunity to run up on them provided there's an opening. If not and you're forced to land shots on the majority of green in hopes of holding them, I can see there being a lot of difficult sand shots and pitches.

Regardless if I ever get to play the Lido, I want to thank you for posting the computer renderings of the hole recreations you did lo so many years ago and both Tom and Brian for making it a reality. I thought at best the Lido would be a course I could play virtually one day only to have the opportunity to experience it as close to its original presentation in the here and now. It's truly amazing how this all came to be.

[Peter Flory]

You can run the ball only almost every one if you're in the right position to do so, except 10 and 14.  But a lot of them are perched with some false fronts- 17 is the best example.  If it's down wind, holding it with a lob wedge would be difficult and you'll need to bounce one in. 

[Tom_Doak]

You can run the ball only almost every one if you're in the right position to do so, except 10 and 14.  But a lot of them are perched with some false fronts- 17 is the best example.  If it's down wind, holding it with a lob wedge would be difficult and you'll need to bounce one in.

Next time we play I am going to ask you to play a running approach on 12.  I guess it’s possible . . . if carrying the cross bunkers short of the green doesn’t count.

[Matthew Rose]

I've played Peter's version in the game; I have the same software.

The thought I had over and over again, more than once, is "this would be some golf course if they built it in real life".

One thing Peter's Lido did do and do well was keep my interest even in the contained environment of a video game, which is not something that happens often with virtual golf courses.

I work for Trackman and my job is more or less doing what Peter does, albeit using different software, although I am doing courses that are built (or in some cases finished and grassed but not open). One of the things that I do when I finish a project is I test it thoroughly by playing it multiple times in a modified PC version of the Trackman software; it's basically VG2 but played with a mouse.

And I find a lot of the courses don't translate particularly well to the virtual world, in terms of being able to hold one's interest for a long time. I do tend to get resort type courses that might be considered rather one-dimensional, especially some in continental Europe that tend to have a very 80s sort of flavour to them. Occasionally I get to work on some gems though; one profiled on this site should be coming out very soon and I feel lucky to have been assigned it.

(As an aside, on the rare occasion I do get to work on a course with a GCA profile I find the profiles very useful in helping with my re-creations - so thanks!)

This whole thing has been fascinating to me in part because I've never thought of doing what I do in a real-world context; it's always just been for the simulator environment.

[Tom_Doak]

I watched the video yesterday (which I never do; I feel awkward seeing myself on camera, and damn, I look fat now), because so many friends have commented on it.


I thought it was very well done, but that I got too much air time.  It’s a shame that Brian Zager only got a little cameo, because his contributions were critical; and that Brian Schneider was barely mentioned, because he put in way more hours than me, trying to get it right.  (I’m sure he would have been featured more if he hadn’t been off to his next project by the time Erik showed up to film.)


Unfortunately, story-telling usually means simplifying things, so even a very well told story only has room for a few characters.  And it just takes more characters than that to actually build something as big and complex as a golf course.

[Ronald Montesano]

I remember, early on, emailing Peter and talking his Lido game on the virtch. I then connected his input with TD_RD as designers, and really started to get excited.


When some wag asks you for the membership list of your favorite foursome, I'd be hard pressed to choose a better trio than Peter, Tom, and Kevin Lynch. Allow me to elaborate a bit.


Peter's game translates from one world to the other. He is a designer and player in the video world, as well as being one bad-ass golfer, whether steel or hickory. Tom is the straightest verbal shooter I've met in a long time, and is a guy who really likes to play golf while talking about baseball or whatever.


So how does Kevin fit into this? Kevin writes "The Scrambler" columns on my site, and devours golf courses voraciously. He was with me in Wisconsin in 2021, when we were able to tour Lido during its early grow-in phase. We had never seen trucks so big in our lives.


Kevin played golf with TD and two of my buddies (I was odd man out, so I got to document the day on film) and on one particular hole, asked TD "So this breaks uphill and left?" to which TD, stopping in his tracks, said "What?" Kev had read it absolutely backward; it was downhill and right. We all started laughing, until Kev stayed with his read (that's how I remember it) and kinda missed the putt.


What made it a great day was that Roger, a pure, public-course golfer, shot a great round of 75 the first time he saw the course. This elicited the following comment from TD: It's a pleasure to watch someone play this course the way it was meant to be played, and score well.


So that's my lineup. PF, TD, and the golf soulmate, KL.

[Peter Flory]

You can run the ball only almost every one if you're in the right position to do so, except 10 and 14.  But a lot of them are perched with some false fronts- 17 is the best example.  If it's down wind, holding it with a lob wedge would be difficult and you'll need to bounce one in.

Next time we play I am going to ask you to play a running approach on 12.  I guess it’s possible . . . if carrying the cross bunkers short of the green doesn’t count.

On 12, I just laser the face of the cross bunker and try to hit a low shot that carries that.  The pad in front of the green works really well to slow it down.  I think CBM wrote something about expecting players to have a driving iron for their approach shot there. 

[Peter Flory]

I thought it was very well done, but that I got too much air time.  It’s a shame that Brian Zager only got a little cameo, because his contributions were critical; and that Brian Schneider was barely mentioned, because he put in way more hours than me, trying to get it right.  (I’m sure he would have been featured more if he hadn’t been off to his next project by the time Erik showed up to film.)

I was really happy to see Zager in there.  Also, the pop in that they did in NY at the Lido next door was really cool.  Some real characters there. 

[William_G]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hq7Zl82hkFY

hole by hole

[John Foley]

GCA has been a great treasure of wonderful stories to feed all of our passion, interest, hobby. Been around here since the very early days when Tommy said we're all over at GCA now. In all of that time, other than the pizza man story, this is the one that is the coolest.


Congrats to all those involved, the works looks spectacular.

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