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Post by theclv24 on Mar 27, 2020 20:40:47 GMT -5
In lieu of anything else to do other than entertain my almost 3 year old, I've decided to turn the half acre or so behind my in-laws' house into a two hole pitching course. Correction: I'm going to try to turn it into a two hole pitching course.
The current state of the piece of property is wild grass, pretty gnarly stuff, and a whole lot of deer poop. At this point I'm only armed with a rake, a weed whacker, and a push lawn mower. Let's just say that expectations are low. The holes would be maybe 40-50 yards, if that? It's essentially a place to practice half to quarter wedges, or to break out some limited flight balls and practice some short to mid-irons.
Here's a rough sketch of what I have in mind:
The two holes would share a fairway, and the hazards would be essentially the areas where I've accumulated the junk I've cleared from the fairway and greens, acting as mounds to avoid.
The first hole features a pine tree on the right, with branches reaching in close to the line of play and catching any wayward shots to the right. The front left hazard mound protects shots running up from the left, while a mound in back catches any misjudged wedges.
The second hole features the largest heap of junk to the right of the green, making it the number one hazard to avoid. The line of sight will play between a mound front right of the tee and a large mound left, but fairly short of the green.
If this actually works, I could see a few alternate tees, as well.
Nothing to see yet, but here's a view from the proposed 1st tee:
This is standing at the back of what would be the 1st green, looking back at the tee:
The tee shot from the proposed 2nd tee:
Here's the 2nd green from the front, with an already existing hunk of junk lurking to the right:
I progressed a little bit tonight after taking these photos, but my back is killing me, and it's supposed to rain tonight and tomorrow. If I make any progress this weekend, or in other words if the project still exists after this weekend, I'll post an update!
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Post by OldSouled on Mar 28, 2020 9:57:54 GMT -5
That’s so awesome! Good luck!
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Post by ezzinomilonga on Mar 30, 2020 2:00:35 GMT -5
Wow..i'm really happy to read you again. I feared you was too disgusted after the Augustagate and decided simply to quit. Anyway..is a great idea. Do you evaluated the chance to create 2 greens in the 2 corners behind the 2nd tee, keeping the 2nd tee more behind and at the center, creating then a green at the left of the first tee (between the lonely tree and the other trees at the left), leaving also some room for another green, at least, in front and right from the first tee? You could have 2 holes around..maybe 60-70 yards (i have not a good eye for measures), from the first tee and one of the same lenght, plus one shorter, from the second tee. I don't know if my explanation makes some sense. You know what? You could start a contest (jokes apart..i hope you are fine and well. And to read more often your words. Have a nice week!) EDIT: looking again the picture, instead to make the green of the second tee, in that corner between those trees, you could move the 1st tee in that point. In this way, the shot to reach the green in the left corner could be a bit more difficult, cause the trees could protect it a bit. And a green then could be moved at the right of the first tee. And, to the left, in front of the "new" first tee, there would be still some room for a 4th hole. (But i still don't know if what i say makes some sense for you, but well.. )
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Post by nevadaballin on Mar 30, 2020 2:34:51 GMT -5
Good way to work on that short game around greens and maybe some bunker shots.
That could prove to be really fun with some plastic wiffle golf balls too, then swapping to a real ball on the green for putting.
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Post by Royce on Apr 2, 2020 10:10:01 GMT -5
Neat idea......I've been contemplating something similar myself (once the inevitable happens and my company shuts down manufacturing completely), stuck at home I plan to finish up my rendition of Pine Valley and was considering a fictional pitch & putt or 9 hole par 3 based around my lake property in central Michigan. Perhaps I keep it contained to my 3 acres and fit in whatever I can as if I was building my own personal course to play during quarantine.
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Post by linkslover on Apr 3, 2020 2:51:21 GMT -5
I could stretch to making a putting green in my back garden. My daughter would enjoy that too. I don't have the room for pitch and putt.
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Post by theclv24 on Apr 3, 2020 19:10:14 GMT -5
After a cold and wet weekend/early week, the weather finally broke in the last 2 days, allowing me to start mowing. The ground is majorly bumpy and wild, and the grass is sparse. Less than ideal playing conditions. I'll see if anything improves and I can mow the greens shorter when the grass starts growing, but it might not amount to much.
Here's the 1st tee again after mowing. The far mound is behind the green, and just to the left of that in view is the front left mound.
From behind the 1st green looking back.
2nd tee. The far mound is behind the green, with the compost area to the right of the green.
Behind the 2nd green. The compost/junk pile to the right side of the green (left side in this pic) actually had a bigger footprint than I thought, so the grass here isn't great.
If I had a whole summer/winter/spring cycle to smooth out the greens, seed some new grass, and maintain it, I might be able to do something here...
But we just bought a house today and close in mid-May, so my time in this backyard will be short. I'll see what I can do between now and then, but it might just be a yard with some mounds in it, lol.
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Post by 15eicheltower9 on Apr 4, 2020 5:01:18 GMT -5
Great project! Used to do the same thing at my old place where I had some room. Wasn't anything special, but had enough land to practice 6I and in. I definitely noticed a difference in my game from just 1 summer of practice. Used to spend hours trying different shots into the landing area. One suggestion I have is mow it often. You don't realize how long your grass is until you mow it and your green area is filled with clumps. I had a push mower with a bagger for the green. I found if I mowed it every 3 days, I could do the whole thing before the bag was full. If I waited too long I had to empty it a couple times.
Have fun!
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Post by theclv24 on Apr 17, 2020 11:09:20 GMT -5
Final Update:
I knew my timeline for this project was too short. The main problems were that the ground was too bumpy, eliminating any kind of rollout of the ball, which is kind of necessary imo for a good golf experience. A decent amount of work would have to go into smoothing out the dirt. The other problem is that as the grass was starting to grow in, it was obvious that there just wasn't enough of it. That area hasn't been maintained as yard, so it would need to be seeded for some thicker growth.
These are all valuable lessons for the future, but for now, as I'm currently less than a month away from closing on a house (which has a much smaller yard), I'm going to have to call it quits for this project. It's still a fun area to bang balls around, as long as you can avoid the deer poop, and as long as there isn't two inches of snow on top of it like the present moment, but a polished practice area it is not. In truth, though, I'm having a much better time just putting my son's wagon out in the yard and chipping into it, while he swings and misses with his youth clubs.
On a positive note, I'm only a couple days' work away from releasing my first design on the PS4!
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Post by ezzinomilonga on Apr 17, 2020 18:40:42 GMT -5
Final Update:
I knew my timeline for this project was too short. The main problems were that the ground was too bumpy, eliminating any kind of rollout of the ball, which is kind of necessary imo for a good golf experience. A decent amount of work would have to go into smoothing out the dirt. The other problem is that as the grass was starting to grow in, it was obvious that there just wasn't enough of it. That area hasn't been maintained as yard, so it would need to be seeded for some thicker growth.
These are all valuable lessons for the future, but for now, as I'm currently less than a month away from closing on a house (which has a much smaller yard), I'm going to have to call it quits for this project. It's still a fun area to bang balls around, as long as you can avoid the deer poop, and as long as there isn't two inches of snow on top of it like the present moment, but a polished practice area it is not. In truth, though, I'm having a much better time just putting my son's wagon out in the yard and chipping into it, while he swings and misses with his youth clubs.
On a positive note, I'm only a couple days' work away from releasing my first design on the PS4!
Is great to hear you still create courses. 2 questions : - do you have some difficulty to design using only the controller, or you was used to it also when you designed courses on pc? I ask cause i tried to do everything using only the controller, but i'm a lot slower on everything requires great precision..so i decided to work mainly with the mouse, using the controller as a keyboard, in short. - you are still working on Shoreacres?
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Post by theclv24 on Apr 18, 2020 11:57:22 GMT -5
Final Update:
I knew my timeline for this project was too short. The main problems were that the ground was too bumpy, eliminating any kind of rollout of the ball, which is kind of necessary imo for a good golf experience. A decent amount of work would have to go into smoothing out the dirt. The other problem is that as the grass was starting to grow in, it was obvious that there just wasn't enough of it. That area hasn't been maintained as yard, so it would need to be seeded for some thicker growth.
These are all valuable lessons for the future, but for now, as I'm currently less than a month away from closing on a house (which has a much smaller yard), I'm going to have to call it quits for this project. It's still a fun area to bang balls around, as long as you can avoid the deer poop, and as long as there isn't two inches of snow on top of it like the present moment, but a polished practice area it is not. In truth, though, I'm having a much better time just putting my son's wagon out in the yard and chipping into it, while he swings and misses with his youth clubs.
On a positive note, I'm only a couple days' work away from releasing my first design on the PS4!
Is great to hear you still create courses. 2 questions : - do you have some difficulty to design using only the controller, or you was used to it also when you designed courses on pc? I ask cause i tried to do everything using only the controller, but i'm a lot slower on everything requires great precision..so i decided to work mainly with the mouse, using the controller as a keyboard, in short. - you are still working on Shoreacres?
I designed on PC using only a controller, so the learning curve in moving to PS4 was... nonexistent? The biggest challenge was finding a cheap PS4 copy (got it on Amazon for $15), since paying $50 or whatever it was on the PSN Store felt like self-abuse.
As far as Shoreacres, I'm still 1-2 months away from being able to set my PC back up, so I won't make any decisions on stalled projects until then. I have had that course on my mind, though, since it's my farthest along RCR. We'll see. I have a lot of things piling up on the checklist: new house renovation, moving, new baby coming. All of these things feel very RCR unfriendly, to say the least.
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Post by ezzinomilonga on Apr 18, 2020 12:08:12 GMT -5
Is great to hear you still create courses. 2 questions : - do you have some difficulty to design using only the controller, or you was used to it also when you designed courses on pc? I ask cause i tried to do everything using only the controller, but i'm a lot slower on everything requires great precision..so i decided to work mainly with the mouse, using the controller as a keyboard, in short. - you are still working on Shoreacres?
I designed on PC using only a controller, so the learning curve in moving to PS4 was... nonexistent? The biggest challenge was finding a cheap PS4 copy (got it on Amazon for $15), since paying $50 or whatever it was on the PSN Store felt like self-abuse.
As far as Shoreacres, I'm still 1-2 months away from being able to set my PC back up, so I won't make any decisions on stalled projects until then. I have had that course on my mind, though, since it's my farthest along RCR. We'll see. I have a lot of things piling up on the checklist: new house renovation, moving, new baby coming. All of these things feel very RCR unfriendly, to say the least.
oh, you can scream it. (i asked cause i dream about your version of that course at least 1-2 times per week. Well..it means i'll just continue to dream and wait)
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Post by claybagel on Apr 18, 2020 20:19:33 GMT -5
Unfortunate timing but congrats on your new house at least!
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