Birchwood golf club UK - My 1st course

[andyf]

I'm pretty confident that no-one will have heard of my home course however I guess as with most people, if there is LIDAR and you don't mind spending time in OSM then it'll be the first thing you attempt.

I was designing this on my X-Box before the revelation of Chad's tool came along and I actually went out and bought a PC just so I could now do this.

Below are some completely untouched images that are just the result of the processing. I haven't done any remodeling or planting at all yet and the results are simply amazing. I actually played all 18 holes last night rather than do any designing as I was in awe of how good it was

10th Hole - A nice little par 3 over water with drop off's to the left and long

4th Hole - a 200yd par 3 from the back tees with a nice ditch and a horribly angled green that is difficult to hit

[andyf]

Coming along slowly...
The 2nd hole. A 550yd par 5 with horribly placed trees lol

[andyf]

The 3rd and 14th is where the water starts to come into play with some awkward placement of ditches too.

The photo was taken to represent the normal course conditions of raining heavily lol

[joegolferg]

Mar 21, 2019 8:25:56 GMT -5 andyf said:

I'm pretty confident that no-one will have heard of my home course however I guess as with most people, if there is LIDAR and you don't mind spending time in OSM then it'll be the first thing you attempt.

I was designing this on my X-Box before the revelation of Chad's tool came along and I actually went out and bought a PC just so I could now do this.

Below are some completely untouched images that are just the result of the processing. I haven't done any remodeling or planting at all yet and the results are simply amazing. I actually played all 18 holes last night rather than do any designing as I was in awe of how good it was

10th Hole - A nice little par 3 over water with drop off's to the left and long

4th Hole - a 200yd par 3 from the back tees with a nice ditch and a horribly angled green that is difficult to hit

I won our captains day out at Birchwood about five years ago... It was a nice course.

[andyf]

I'm not sure if planting each tree and grass individually is the quickest way of getting this done but it's coming along slowly in my spare time when I'm not playing IRL.

This is how the 4th hole now looks



This is the approach into the 5th green



and the approach into the 13th green too



One interesting advantage to having the course mapped out using LIDAR is that I am involved in actually using the game designer to carry out visualisations of major course modifications that will be happening in the next 12 months and using this to show the members of the golf club what each new modification will look like and they are all very impressed by it.

Andy

[Deleted]

Mar 21, 2019 8:25:56 GMT -5 andyf said:

I'm pretty confident that no-one will have heard of my home course however I guess as with most people, if there is LIDAR and you don't mind spending time in OSM then it'll be the first thing you attempt.

I was designing this on my X-Box before the revelation of Chad's tool came along and I actually went out and bought a PC just so I could now do this.

Below are some completely untouched images that are just the result of the processing. I haven't done any remodeling or planting at all yet and the results are simply amazing. I actually played all 18 holes last night rather than do any designing as I was in awe of how good it was

Same here! I started with the Xbox version and bought the PC version just to see what my course would look like in the game. Even with the pins in horrible spots and no trees it was still amazing how nice these LiDAR courses look right out of the gate.

I haven't done my home course yet because the imagery for it isn't that great right now (and it took a while just to find LiDAR data for it, at which point I already picked something else).

To some extent it's a lot of fun to take 'no name' courses that are still pretty good and realize them in playable form in a video game.

[andyf]

Yes I know it's taking a long time... I guess with it being my home course that I get very picky with details and planting everything individually, but it's coming along!!

The opening tee hole tee and green




The approach into the 460yd par 4 3rd



And the 4th green and 5th hole



Andy

[andyf]

Adding in all the extras now including pretty much entire housing estates to get the right background look from some of the holes

This is the approach into the 16th



This is the 2nd shot on the par 5 11th where you have to play to a semi-island whilst avoiding the greenkeepers complex on the left hand side. There have been many balls bounce off that roof

[andyf]

Nearly there now at last....

This is the lovely par 5 8th hole where ideally you need to draw your tee shot and then hit a massive 3 wood fade around the trees to give you any chance of getting close in 2

Tee shot


Approach with those dreaded trees


And then when you get past them you have a thin elevated green to aim for


And this is now the 10th hole with the 9th fairway off to the left hand side


I reckon another few weeks and it should finally be ready to publish

Andy

[hoosierhoops24]

This looks really good. Looking forward to playing this once it's published. One of my favorite things about TGC is that I get the opportunity to play courses from all over the world that I would never get the chance to play IRL. I especially like it when other players create either their home course or a course which has special meaning to them. Keep up the good work!

[bobby22]

I feel the same way Hoosier. I love playing the courses that are real in life. I have courses that I keep to myself to play that I have played in real life and just work on them a little at a time.

[andyf]

The beta is now published and I've put a thread in the under construction section for anyone that wants to give any feedback. I know a number of the members of the club have played it already (one on his simulator too) and they are very complimentary in terms of the realism but I would like some feedback from the general community too, particularly any other designers.

Andy

[paddyjk19]

Have you published the full version yet Andy? If so I’ll give it a play, the photos look great on here

[andyf]

Yeah, it's Birchwood UK LIDAR.
It seems to have gone down well. Currently on 180 plays and rated at 4.5 stars

Andy