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Post by csugolfer60 on Nov 12, 2018 11:57:51 GMT -5
Hi everyone, I've decided to start posting random tips and recommendations about course design, but more for "advanced" things that aren't included in basic tutorials. For great tutorials about how to use the course designer, please see Crazycanuck1985 's series of videos that very eloquently shows how to use the tools to their fullest. This is more of a series of random and specific things that I see people talk and ask about all the time. Tip #1 - Hole Location Difficulty Comparison
A lot of people have difficulty determining a good way to gauge difficulty of hole locations and approach shots for various levels of courses, so here's a quick comparison of the same green with hole location sets for each difficulty-
This is a par 3 on an upcoming design, created specifically for competition on TGCTours, so it has to be modular for various levels of difficulty.
For the CC Tour, the hole is 155 yards, with med-soft greens. What this generally means is that, if you land the ball on the green, it's likely to stop right where it hits. The greens have been slowed down so that there is no "yellow" at all (except for a small bit on the middle tier), meaning the ball won't "feed", only trickle a few feet. What this generally means is that for a CC player, the entire portion of green the pin is on is the landing zone, and successfully landing anywhere within the circle will give you a good chance for birdie. You still have the option of playing to the center of the green for more margin of error, but you won't be landing the ball on the green and ending up off of it very often.
For the Web.com Tour, the firmness of the green has been upped, the distance from the green has been lengthened, and the speed of the green has been increased. This means that the player generally has to plan for a bit of roll out, and also for the ball to kick forward before spinning. This significantly narrows the landing area to get the ball near the pin, and also means that the front edge of the green is more towards the center of the preferred landing area. The fat of the green (center) still provides a 25-foot putt to any pin, but a good player that judges the elevation and wind still has a good chance of landing the ball near the hole and stopping it.
For PGA Tour (and European Tour), the hole has been lengthened to a long-iron, the green firmness has been upped again, and the greens are now very quick. The pins are also moved to about 7 feet from the edges of the green. You'll see the front two pins provide nearly no way to get the ball close, except for taking a big risk and landing the ball in the first cut, to dribble it on. The margin of error for this play is almost nonexistent. However, the center of the green is still a good option to have a putt at either of those two pins.
You'll also notice that the back two pins are tucked more to the edges. Because the greens are firmer and faster, the player actually must draw or fade the ball to get it to bounce and roll near the pin, although there is a little more slack to those two back pins. For all 4 pins, its essentially the following - you have to hit a great shot to even have a putt at the hole from the center, but you have to hit a great, dangerous and even lucky shot to have a kick in. This is the essence of strategic and heroic golf, in you could hit a ball within 3 feet of your landing zone, and depending on which couple inches you land, it could kick back into the bunker, or forward toward the hole. Obviously, this is exaggerated compared to real-life PGA Tour standards, but only because the random elements are much higher in real golf. The "effect" is roughly the same.
There are no "breather" pins, where there is no thought needed. It's just a different thought needed for each hole location. I'd love to see more PGA Tour level designs like this, as it generally challenges the players to think more than simply execute, but please know this is only my personal style and there's no "correct" way to do this.
More to come!
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Post by gamesdecent on Nov 12, 2018 12:11:25 GMT -5
Really looking forward to more of these, very interesting tips to think about here, and something I don't get exposed to having never played in the high level events.
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Post by Violinguy69 on Nov 12, 2018 12:13:37 GMT -5
Great stuff here.
Let me add one thing about choosing hole locations: Designers should always vary the pins so that pin 1 is not always the easiest and pin 4 is not always the toughest. IRL on the PGA tour, hole locations are chosen with the hole's difficulty in mind. On day one, usually the toughest holes on the course have the easiest pin. On day 4, those tough holes get the toughest hole location. When I design a course, I make the 1st hole with normal 1-4 pins. Then the 2nd hole has the number 2 pin as the toughest. And so on. I also make sure to vary the locations so that pin 4 is not always in the back of the green, and pin 1 is not always in the front. Front hole locations (as you can see above) can be really tough.
I've played a few courses here that have had pin 4 in a ridiculous spot on all 18 holes. Players hate that. A good course set up is one that has at least a few green-light holes each round.
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Post by csugolfer60 on Nov 12, 2018 12:26:17 GMT -5
Great stuff here.
Let me add one thing about choosing hole locations: Designers should always vary the pins so that pin 1 is not always the easiest and pin 4 is not always the toughest. IRL on the PGA tour, hole locations are chosen with the hole's difficulty in mind. On day one, usually the toughest holes on the course have the easiest pin. On day 4, those tough holes get the toughest hole location. When I design a course, I make the 1st hole with normal 1-4 pins. Then the 2nd hole has the number 2 pin as the toughest. And so on. I also make sure to vary the locations so that pin 4 is not always in the back of the green, and pin 1 is not always in the front. Front hole locations (as you can see above) can be really tough.
I've played a few courses here that have had pin 4 in a ridiculous spot on all 18 holes. Players hate that. A good course set up is one that has at least a few green-light holes each round.
Absolutely agree here. While in the few real-life tour events I've played, it seems like sometimes the R1 pins are toughest (or just random difficulty), I definitely can confirm that rotating pins between front/back and left/right to equalize over 4 rounds is a priority, not only for difficulty, but for the actual traffic on the greens. It also makes for the most interesting 4 rounds if you can move the pin the greatest amount of space between them.
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mayday_golf83
TGCT Design Competition Directors
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Post by mayday_golf83 on Nov 12, 2018 13:44:19 GMT -5
Great stuff csugolfer60 and I tend to agree with these philosophies. As a follow up (or maybe another segment in its own) I’m curious as to your philosophy on pin positions from a micro perspective, and does this also change relative to the skill level of the intended audience. What I mean by that is a number of courses I’ve played recently try to up the difficulty by placing the pin on little knobs, or switchbacks. Basically the mentality seems to be, “I’ll concede letting you get inside of 8 feet, but good luck making the putt.” Personally, I know I try to have the grade remain consistent within 5-10 feet from the hole. Doesn’t mean you might not have a putt with movement, but that movement is reasonably consistent the closer in proximity you are to the hole. Curious to hear your take on this.
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Post by csugolfer60 on Nov 12, 2018 14:00:50 GMT -5
Great stuff csugolfer60 and I tend to agree with these philosophies. As a follow up (or maybe another segment in its own) I’m curious as to your philosophy on pin positions from a micro perspective, and does this also change relative to the skill level of the intended audience. What I mean by that is a number of courses I’ve played recently try to up the difficulty by placing the pin on little knobs, or switchbacks. Basically the mentality seems to be, “I’ll concede letting you get inside of 8 feet, but good luck making the putt.” Personally, I know I try to have the grade remain consistent within 5-10 feet from the hole. Doesn’t mean you might not have a putt with movement, but that movement is reasonably consistent the closer in proximity you are to the hole. Curious to hear your take on this. Great question - I think my answer is a mixture of above. You will generally see a consistent grade around all my pins, but the grade will be green around the hole, but very steep. Meaning, the ball will stop, but not very easily. I do abide by the "9 square rule", but I think its important (especially for PGA Tour level difficulty) to get the grade around the hole relatively steep, but not quite yellow. This gives the smart player an advantage, when they are able to put the ball below the hole and putt uphill to it. I use this quite a bit in the upcoming course, which has greens that bowl inwards from the edges, preventing you from getting close to the hole much of the time. However, the player that hits it into the correct fat part of the green will have a 20-25 footer uphill, which means they can be much more aggressive. This provides a very natural flow to the course at this difficulty level - Good tee shot, well struck conservative approach, good putt. 20-30% chance of birdie, few bogies. The aggressive or overzealous player might make some tap-in birdies, but will often be struggling for par after just barely missing their intended landing zone. Here's some examples of hole locations with grids (sorry its hard to tell the steepness, but you can generally get an idea) -
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Post by Deleted on Nov 12, 2018 14:04:55 GMT -5
What I mean by that is a number of courses I’ve played recently try to up the difficulty by placing the pin on little knobs, or switchbacks. Basically the mentality seems to be, “I’ll concede letting you get inside of 8 feet, but good luck making the putt.” Personally, I know I try to have the grade remain consistent within 5-10 feet from the hole. Doesn’t mean you might not have a putt with movement, but that movement is reasonably consistent the closer in proximity you are to the hole. As a player I definitely endorse the second philosophy. I'd much, much rather have a tricky to reach pin, but if I do nail it and get close I don't want a spiky accelerating/decelerating/double break that will ruin my medium putt stats.
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Post by csugolfer60 on Nov 12, 2018 14:10:51 GMT -5
What I mean by that is a number of courses I’ve played recently try to up the difficulty by placing the pin on little knobs, or switchbacks. Basically the mentality seems to be, “I’ll concede letting you get inside of 8 feet, but good luck making the putt.” Personally, I know I try to have the grade remain consistent within 5-10 feet from the hole. Doesn’t mean you might not have a putt with movement, but that movement is reasonably consistent the closer in proximity you are to the hole. As a player I definitely endorse the second philosophy. I'd much, much rather have a tricky to reach pin, but if I do nail it and get close I don't want a spiky accelerating/decelerating/double break that will ruin my medium putt stats. It's also much more like real golf. If a greens mower hits a mound like that you'll have a very expensive broken piece of equipment. I don't mind the occasional mound, but it has to be gradual enough that it doesn't look like someone buried a bowling ball.
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Post by linkslover on Nov 13, 2018 8:25:22 GMT -5
Excellent opening post and idea for a series of tips. I've found it pretty useful.
I place my pins so that round 1 pins are generally the easiest and round 4 pins are generally the hardest but I do not apply this to all 18 holes, I mixed it up. Roughly half the pins or just over follow my ideal above.
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Post by crunchshark on Nov 15, 2018 7:30:45 GMT -5
I try and make all four round pins quite equal. A good start i think is to place the pin on the centre of the green say five times on pin one, four on pin two,five on pin three, four on pin four for a balanced starting point. Then vary the rest trying to even out front and back pins.My greens are ok it’s visuals and sculpting i need to improve.
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