[CorsairBadger]

Hello again everyone.

I have moved onto my second venture in The Golf Club's designer since my release of Balmede Links last week (check it out at the link). http://www.hb-studios.com/forum/index.php?topic=17037.0 and I'm happy to show you my progress on the designer, and my new design. 

This course is designed around, and very loosely based on Golf Courses I have played in real life in my native West Midlands of England. Specifically, this course is based in Leicestershire. The course is situated on the edge of a town, with semi-detatched houses on two sides of the golf course, and a farm which runs along the 13th.
It will be little over 6600 yards when completed (I only have 12 holes at the moment) and will be in a mid-autumn setting using the Harvest Theme. This course features some small greens, and precise shots into the pin are needed even though the greens aren't severe, they roll nicely and can provide some challenge to lesser experienced players (such as myself). As well as a couple of ponds, it also has a couple of ditches running around the course. The ditches are of course water hazards, but contain no water. Just like that classic English members course does oh so often.

I wanted to share what I have so far in the program for you all. 


Hole 2: Roadside




Hole 6: Troublesome Oak. So called because of the Oak jutting out into the fairway.


View from the 11th Green across to the 17th and 8th green, as well as the 9th Tee


Hole 14: The Bomb Hole (based on a real life Par 3 I have played with an old bomb crater from WW2 on the hole).



Hopefully this course will be finished some time soon and be available for you all to play.
I will be doing 4 versions for people to play; 3 Members versions that have 3 different pin locations (Red, Yellow and White). I will also be creating a Contest version with some holes having extended tee placements. All variants will have different conditions and lighting, just to add some variety.

Hope to update you all again soon. 

[WindyCityWizard]

Wow this looks really good, especially for a new designer. Look forward to playing it.
The only suggestion I would give, if you're open to it, would be to make sure the bunkers come into play better, and are truly a hazard.
What I'm getting at is looking at the picture of the 11th hole, there's that one bunker at the very left of the picture, close to what looks like a teebox.
I'm assuming it's for the 11th green, and it's really far away from the green, no one will hit into it, so maybe move it closer, not necessarily right up against the green, but a little closer. The bunker at the bottom/bottom left of the picture is a good distance, but wouldn't go farther from the green than that, IMO.

I've come to the conclusion in this game that many of the bunkers in this game are eye candy to make your course look good. The accuracy of which we can hit the ball makes so many bunkers not-hit-intoable. I look at so many of the bunkers on my own courses that I've never hit into/out of, and I struggle to shoot par in the game. I can only imagine how few bunkers, if any, the guys that shoot in the 50s hit.

I'd make sure they're a little closer, not right up to the green like a Melbourne course, but a little bit closer, something the golfer would have to try to avoid.

[CorsairBadger]

WindyCityWizard. Thank you for your praise, and thanks for the feedback. That on the left hand side is the fairway for the 11th, it's a 440 (ish) yard par 4 and the fairway runs up to the green. I had taken this photo before completely finishing the fairway and the first cut around the green, that's why the bunkers look too far away. It looks pretty much how you've suggested now that the textures are finished and in place. 

I probably should have finished the hole before I posted a picture of it haha.

I'm trying to design my courses for realistic playability that look authentic, instead of having eye-candy all over the place. I only hope I am pulling the look off good enough. 

[WindyCityWizard]

That's funny! While looking at the picture, I never considered the fairway coming from the left, always pictured it coming from the bottom. Oops!
In that case, looking good, looking forward to giving this course a try!

[nyt1976]

Looks good!

I especially like the picture of the 11th where you are able to see across the course to the other greens etc.

Hailing from you locale I've been trying to think of which course in Leicestershire you have based this one on?  Rothley Park, Kirkby Muxloe, Scraptoft......??

Same with the par-3 'bomb-hole' 

Looking forward to this one.

[tastegw]

maybe that comes later?  i hope so,  it kinda looks very flat through and through

[nyt1976]

maybe that comes later?  i hope so,  it kinda looks very flat through and through

Taste,

Therein lies the reason so many of the more 'understated' courses don't get much love on here. 

The course creator, in experienced hands such as yours, is a powerful tool and I like your work but I've seen a number of courses, from numerous designers, where shaping has been completed to such a degree that sometimes it can detract from the overall appearance - as though the course is on steroids.

Now, this is a game, and I get that some people like to see this type of fluff but oftentimes less is more.  One thing I learnt from my mentor, who himself was taught by Fred Hawtree, was when to reign things back a little.   

He freely admits that during the golf boom years of the late 80's and early 90's golf design was not inhibited by trivial things like money.  'Bigger is better' was the mantra.  Why have three bunkers when you can have ten?  The number of superfluous bunkers on courses built back then is ridiculous..... 

The same goes for mounding / shaping - I have a colleague who once designed a bunker with a dozen or more supporting mounds around it - why?  Because he could.  No one batted an eyelid.  It was the norm.

I see the same thing on here. 

The lack of any inhibitive criteria (in the real world money / material) means that designers are free to blow the earth up and create even wilder looking courses.

Retail golfers go mad for this.

The offshoot of this though is that when someone creates a real looking course - like the one here - it is seen as being potentially under-par and not up to standard. 

The fact is that most courses of the type Corsair has set out to replicate in the UK are like this and don't require phenomenal amounts of earthwork to make them shine. 

Someone once mentioned on here an idea of having a 'budget' to spend on a design - each time you formed something it cost.  That would be cool.  Trying to balance cut and fill on a site with no hope of importing thousands of cubes of material is an art form in itself.

It would be great to see yourself and a handful of other well-respected designers create something more restrained and less 'retail'.

[tastegw]

i get what you are saying, i do.

but i have to say, there are only  a few places in the united states that are really flat, plain flat.  so with that said, those places that are typically plain flat do not have gully's around and about, its an oxymoron complex.  so when i see these pics (and no the course doesnt have to be a US course, i was just going off what i have seen in the various states ive been in and through) is a nearly perfectly flat course, with at least one gully area.   so if there can be sculpting off the course, why can't there be sculpting on the course?  that is all i was asking,  if the sculpting was still to come.

i have played a few perfectly flat courses in my days irl, none of them were worth playing a second time around.  they are not interesting to me.

here in this game, we have as you say, unlimited budget, why not take that into advantage.  it does not take away from a course to sculpt it, in fact, i could argue the opposite. you take away from a course when you do not sculpt it.

[WindyCityWizard]

i get what you are saying, i do.

but i have to say, there are only  a few places in the united states that are really flat, plain flat.  so with that said, those places that are typically plain flat do not have gully's around and about, its an oxymoron complex.  so when i see these pics (and no the course doesnt have to be a US course, i was just going off what i have seen in the various states ive been in and through) is a nearly perfectly flat course, with at least one gully area.   so if there can be sculpting off the course, why can't there be sculpting on the course?  that is all i was asking,  if the sculpting was still to come.

i have played a few perfectly flat courses in my days irl, none of them were worth playing a second time around.  they are not interesting to me.

here in this game, we have as you say, unlimited budget, why not take that into advantage.  it does not take away from a course to sculpt it, in fact, i could argue the opposite. you take away from a course when you do not sculpt it.

Corsair did say the course was set in England, and NYT said the courses in this area are flattish, so IDK...
But looking at the pictures, 3 of the 6 look very flat at this time, pictures 1, 2 & 4,
while the other 3, pictures 3, 5 & 6 have some subtle mounds, etc. Picture 3 looks to have a natural decline then incline.
Looks pretty good I think.

[CorsairBadger]

Hailing from you locale I've been trying to think of which course in Leicestershire you have based this one on?  Rothley Park, Kirkby Muxloe, Scraptoft......??

I have played Kilworth Springs, Kibworth Golf Club, Hinckley Golf Club and Glen Gorse Golf Club (in Leicestershire). The course I'm designing has inspiration from Glen Gorse, Kibworth and Hinckley from that list. But also some various other course inspiration from Warwickshire (where I live). Oakridge GC, Purley Chase and Brandon Wood. Brandon Wood is near Coventry and has a Par 3 that is over an old bomb hole in front of the tee, which is what my hole 14 is based on.  . If you're local, I'd recommend Brandon Wood if you play in real life. It's a municipal course, but is well looked after.

 
English courses are typically built on the land available, and not necessarily 'sculpted' in real life because the means and funds aren't there. 90% of 'members' courses are built like this, and have been around for 50+ years when massive amounts of machinery weren't available. Glen Gorse (from my earlier listed courses) for example is nearly 100 years old, and the first competition played there was in 1933.

Taste. I refer you to the attached photos 
These are courses I have played, and have listed above. The picture with the bridge is my local course. These courses are what I'm trying to base my current design on. And hopefully many people will enjoy the more subtle, more natural look to my courses. 

To address the 'flat' concerns. The course has rolling hills and elevation changes, more than bumps. he first hole for example has a 40+ foot climb to the green, and the Par 5 6th is around 60 feet downhill to the green. The course has lots of elevation, but it's all subtle and rolling as it so often is in the English Countryside. There are bumps here and there, and some mounds and things too. However, it's meant to flow around the natural terrain of the area.


Thank you all for your comments. 

[tastegw]

that bridge looks awesome!

the bunkers in the real photos you shown are molded quite nicely,  this was the kind of things i was hoping to see in your work.

[ACES-R-WILD_]

looks good lee i see what i showed you has paid off great looking pics m8 keep it up

[CorsairBadger]

looks good lee i see what i showed you has paid off great looking pics m8 keep it up

Yes. Thank you for helping out the way you did with the share-play lessons and constant feedback. It's just a shame that the other course I was working on (the foggy one you liked) has become so bad with crashes I just can't work on it for longer than a 30 seconds without it crashing and it's just not viable to try and build on it because of it. I shall revisit that idea/style soon though and see if I can get something done without the terminal crashes every few seconds.

On another note. I shall upload some updates to this course at some point this week. With a completed hole 11 this time. 

[Icyken]

You've certainly caught the designers bug that's going around , what are we going to be like when TGC2 comes out , I'm sitting up half the night as it is. !

[ACES-R-WILD_]

anytime lee yeah we all deal with the crash on ps4 tgc2 cant come quick enough