[Celtic wolf]

I've started work on this in the designer, I don't know what it will come to but hopefully something I can port over to TGC 2019. I wanted to work with feedback I received from my contest entry to improve my designing and create a good playable course. A couple of details that were brought up were having fairway around the greens and sight lines, so I've worked more on getting these right at the start of designing. Also in the steppe theme I thought it would be good to leave a bit of base terrain around the bunkers to give them a dried out look at the edges. I've got the basis of 4 holes done and I'm not going to do any planting until I get the course playing right first.

[Celtic wolf]

Here's a few photos of hole 5 of this WIP, just to show the process that I go through in creating a hole. Just thought I'd post this to see if it helps other designers or if they have any ideas to make my process more efficient.

1. I measure the distances out from the tee for the green and landing area, after placing the green and fairway around it I move back to the landing area and create a couple of bunkers around it. After that I'll measure the size of the fairway and create a spine for the fairway.

2. Next I'll laydown the fairway making sure there is ample space around it for the light rough so it's not hit ting the edges of the bunkers.

3. Then I'll start splining the light rough and try to get the hexagonal shape of it to be halfway on the fairway. I'll normally do one side first then down the other side. I'll go back and check it for kinks and move waypoints or smoothing the corners of the path.

4. Using a variety of brushes I'll fill in the heavy rough around the fairway and bunkers which can affect the light rough so I'll go back to that and try and get it even again. I think in future I might just place the heavy rough before fixing any kinks in the light rough.

[Celtic wolf]

A couple of pictures of the course that I'm working on.

The 6th hole is a slight downhill par 3 with 2 hollows which are split by a path at the front of the green.


The risk/reward 7th's fairway splits into a narrow and wide landing areas, the wider fairway will lead to a longer approach shot.

[Celtic wolf]

Here's a couple of pictures of the 8th and 9th holes, I've published a beta under the name DW Beta F9. I'd like to ask if anyone could give it a playtest and let me know what they think. I've not done much sculpting or any planting. It's my first course with fast greens so some of them may less sloping, I don't think I've sculpted the bunkers on the 9th and the green tee has a slope. If you can give it a go and give me some feedback that would be great, thanks.

[RockManDan]

Really no right or wrong way Bro.....   Everyone has a different process.  Me, I lay out simple auto gen holes using the simple create holes tool.  Once I have the basic 18 laid out to where I like the flow of the course then I turn down all the fairway, rough, heavy rough, and bunkers, Trees, and rocks to zero so I have only the tees and a small green left.  Then I plot out landing areas and bunkers similar to the way you do and fill in using the terrain to mold the course.  Other people flatten the whole plot and go into “Full God Mode”.  Some autogen the entire course and then keep what they like and work with what they don’t.
You gotta do what works for you.  Your course looks pretty good so far.

[Celtic wolf]

Really no right or wrong way Bro.....   Everyone has a different process.  Me, I lay out simple auto gen holes using the simple create holes tool.  Once I have the basic 18 laid out to where I like the flow of the course then I turn down all the fairway, rough, heavy rough, and bunkers, Trees, and rocks to zero so I have only the tees and a small green left.  Then I plot out landing areas and bunkers similar to the way you do and fill in using the terrain to mold the course.  Other people flatten the whole plot and go into “Full God Mode”.  Some autogen the entire course and then keep what they like and work with what they don’t.
You gotta do what works for you.  Your course looks pretty good so far.

I've been changing the way I design with every course, this is the first one that I've went Full God Mode on. I raised the whole plot then flattened it out and started a bit of sculpting then plotted my first four holes. What I done with this one is I raised the terrain around the edges so there's no view of the border of the plot. I've seen designers who'll layout their full course then sculpted around it, but as you said it's what works best for the designer.

I'm just looking for people to give this a play and let me know if there's anything like a fairway that's too tight or the greens are too easy or anything else. You can only design to what your game is like, for example I'm normally good with my tee shots so a shot that I find OK others might find pretty hard to nail. Then my putting isn't the greatest so some putts that I find hard others might find them easy. So I've published a beta of the first 9 so I can get feedback and apply any changes then proceed from there.

Thanks for the comments.