The Second Links Traveler

Earlier this morning (Saturday, December 14), I got the absolute joy of sitting down and chatting with Chelsea Malibu and Lexy Amore, the designers and creators of the new Rainbow Links Hawaii golf course. It was entertaining, hilarious, fascinating, and, at times, a little chaotic. I hope you find it as eye-opening and exciting as I did.

GIVEAWAY!!! Leave a comment at the end of this post with your SL username! At 12pm SLT on Sunday, December 29th, I’ll pick one comment at random and that commenter will take home a Steelhead gift card for L$1,000!

Keyli Daltrey: Rainbow Links Hawaii is just objectively beautiful. I’ve walked around the front nine and I love the whole tropical feel of it. Are there any real world courses from which you drew inspiration?

Chelsea Malibu: Many, actually. This was sort of a composite of the high end courses we researched, but mostly Kona and Mauna Kea.

KD: I was positively shocked how quickly the course is coming together. Can you give me an estimate of how many total hours you’ve spent so far?

CM: Actually, neither of us had the time we had when we made Rainbow Valley. That one took ten days, but we worked 12-16 hours a day on it. This one was closer to 8-10 hours times 7 times 2, so 140 hours total.

KD: That still seems like an awful lot of work crammed into one week. Does it feel like work or is course-building really more of a labor of love? What’s the process like?

CM: When we get sims, we discuss what the theme will be, then look at some courses online. From there we do a rough layout for the terrain and Lexy lays out holes with colored prims. That part actually takes about half the build time. Once we have it set and all the mesh fairways, greens, etc. done, I follow and finish the terraforming and landscaping. While Lexy lays out the course, I do the clubhouse and signs and such.

This is our fifth build together; we have a system now. While she is laying out the back nine, I’m landscaping the front nine. While I finish, she is placing tee boxes, getting scorecards ready, and setting pins.

Then there is Poppy who is the core of what TrueGolf does. We now offer the complete scoring systems ourselves.

About here is where Lexy was able to join us. She was running a bit late – RL can be such a brat.

KD: Comparing this build to Rainbow Valley North, were any parts of it significantly more difficult?

CM: This took more thought in the hole design for sure, but neither…was harder or less difficult that the other. The water features on Rainbow Valley took me days to do and here it was all the plants…thousands of plants on here.

Lexy has to redo a lot of holes at Rainbow Valley because I took so long to do the creek.

Lexy Amore: Not long, but small nips and tucks. What’s great is you see something, but the other sees it better. I am not close to her eyes when it comes to the final look and decor.

CM: Lexy will play each hole over and over and over to make sure it’s challenging but fair, then tells me where I need to put in more hazards. She’s the hazard queen!

KD: The hazard queen! I’m so calling you that now! Her Royal Highness, Lexy, first of her name, the Hazard Queen!

LA: We’ve got to make them think out a golf shot, something we’ve done here and YES, we had the new (Tour Pro VGS) TrueGolf HUD in mind when we laid it all out.

KD: Rainbow Links Hawaii is located on the Blake Sea, and I know there are waterways accessible for boating on all sides. What challenges did that create?

LA: Less space, but (it turned out) we kinda had more than we needed anyway.

CM: We had to make it tropical, and couldn’t use any off-sim stuff.

Originally, we were going to do a desert course.

LA: And you got the brilliant idea of a tropical jungle.

CM: Yep…not just another sand and palm tree build.

LA: Coming from cold Norway, all tropical I am ready to go!

KD: Still talking about your location on the Blake, did you incorporate the waterways at all into the build?

CM: Yes, we have a dock on the far east side.

KD: I love the idea of being able to sail to the course, moor my pretty yacht, play 18 holes, and then sail home.

CM: Exactly. I plan on taking my offshore boat that is moored at the dock now to Sirens today.

KD: When Poppy Williams announced the course on the TrueGolf Discord, she hailed it as “THE golf course where you can utilise your Tour Pro HUD to the max”. What kinds of design choices did you make to create a course that would really let Tour Pro users really spread their wings?

CM: This is a pro level course, styled like any you would see on the PGA tour. Pros can shape their shots. They have complete control on where it moves, how it bounces when it lands…things we mere amateurs could never do (IRL). This course is designed with that in mind.

LA: One can hit it straight as we have been doing, but will gain a lot by shaping shots from the tee to the green.

CM: Any clubs can play here, and will probably (have the ability) to get similar scores. It’s just going to be more enjoyable with the Tour Pro series. It’s target golf; if they just crush the ball, then this may not be the course for them. (The course is) challenging but fair, risks with rewards on every hole.

KD: Will we see any new merchandise (golf balls or caddy bags) released in the TourGolf shop to celebrate the opening of the new course?

CM: Yup – two new balls: the earth and the moon as well as a new tropical print bag.

KD: Do you have any special events being planned to mark the opening of the new course?

CM: We’re going to open tomorrow (Sunday, December 15, 2024), but may do a party after the holidays. The sim next to us is called Happy Feet and is a high capacity event sim we can rent by the day.

KD: Last one! You’re coming off a remarkably successful product launch – what’s next for TrueGolf? Anything you all have on the drawing board that you can talk about?

LA: TrueGolf Handicap system. It’s the one last thing we need as I see it now. It brings a lot of new players as all can play and post high on the scoreboard. We got such good feedback after the SLympics.

CM: We do have one more feature to add to the TP system, and more new clubs. The new TaylorMade AI-designed clubs and a Ben Hogan set from the 1950’s.

KD: Can you tell me anything yet about the AI-designed clubs? That sounds fascinating.

CM: Most manufacturers now have their clubs begin design by AI. The Paradygm clubs are the Callaway version of their AI-designed clubs. I’ll have to hand make them; no AI for SL mesh yet.

We got to talking about what to wear on the opening day, and Chelsea broke out her Polynesian outfit.

Thank you so much to Chelsea, Lexy, and Poppy Williams for being so accessible with the questions I had about course design and TrueGolf over the course of writing this post. I really appreciate it.

GIVEAWAY! Don’t forget – Second Links is giving away a SteelHead gift card for L$1,000! Comment with your SL username and on December 29th I’ll choose a winner at random! Good luck!