Eaton Golf and Sailing Club

[Cottyuk]

Eaton Golf and Sailing Club

This is the third and final course in this series of city-based golf courses (Cookridge City & Meanwood Heath). This is the easiest course of the series. Although trees line the fairways to encourage shot shaping, the wide fairways and light rough offer a generous playing surface. The design is centered around a boating lake and therefore several holes border the water. The course is aimed at challenge circuit play on the TGC Tours and is therefore accessible for all abilities. For a tougher test, the greens can be used at maximum speed.

Using the Q technique of tee manipulations (which has brough a new dynamic to course design), the black and white tees vary in length and position and offer a very different playing experience from each respective tee sets for society play.

Par 72

Black tees 7,517
White tees 7,421
Red tees 7,055

[Q]

just finished playing this on defaults and only managed a -1, despite the light rough this course still challenges you off the tee to aim for the right spots and place yourself on the right angles into the greens.
Cotty you've really nailed that clean realistic look here, this definitely feels like a real life course which is something to achieve in its own right and also manages to play well! The planting is well done and not overdone.

I'd say this is quite a step up as the sculpting here feels more natural and smoother than your last course by a mile! My favorite hole is definitely hole 10 which really baits you into quite a narrow shot if you want to go at that green

[Cottyuk]

Q Thank you kind sir.  I posted the course on the 2k forums also, and someone was asking about the tee manipulations, so I have dropped your name (only as Q) on there and pointed them to these forums if that's OK.

[jscaddon]

I played this course today and I am mightily impressed. The course feels very natural in that the slopes are gentle but well placed. The result is that it is fair but tricky if you're not paying attention (I missed a few short putts as I second guessed myself). The thing I liked most about the course was the planting, especially with regards to the views from tees. I recognise the bunker style and saw that I have played a course or two of yours before. This was the best of them. Overall, the biggest compliment I can give is that it felt like I was on a real course, and a course I'd like to play in real life too. Good job 5 stars

[Cottyuk]

Thanks for giving it a play and the kind words.

[joesklad]

5 stars! Just finished and I loved #7 and #10. Gotta love a short par 4! I agree with previous commenters that your sculpting is excellent and bunkering was extremely well done. At times I found the contrast between the extremely green light rough and the dead brown dark rough a bit too stark. Maybe bringing those two colors closer together would improve your overall color palette, but that is a matter of preference rather than something that is wrong with your course.

[Cottyuk]

joesklad Thanks very much for your comments.  In response to this I thought I would use hole 7 and describe the design of it and what I was hoping to achieve.  It might be useful for other designers to have this broken down into steps.  I'd be happy to break down other holes if anyone is interested.

Hole 7 is a par 5 and reachable in two shots. There is water on the right of the green (image 1), and thereofore the hole design is centred around this hazard.  As can be seen in image 2, the trees on the right hand side will immediately give the player a descision, there is enough room on the left half of the fairway, and therefore the drive is a simple one, but the trees immediately will place doubt in the mind of how close can they get to them withouth hitting them.  The options are to (for a RH), to fade it into the fairway, or try to cut off as much of the corner as possible, and likely end up on the left hand side of it.




The left hand side of the fairway is the easiest place to hit, especially as the fairway slopes toward the player.  As can be seen in images 3 and 4 below.  The fairway sloping in this way is intentional as this left to right slope will push the ball to the right and if the player hits a straight ball the water on the right of the green will collect the ball.  Therefore, the better strategy would be to try to position the ball on the right half of the fairway, not only to avoid the slope but also to give the player the best approach to the green - this however is obviously the most difficult shot to execute.  The other design decision was to place trees (image 4 and image 5) on the left side for the approach shot, so that the ideal second shot (a draw) round those trees is necessary.


The final design decision was to place a few bunkers on the left (images 5 and 6).  It is likely that the player will push the stick through more than nornal to make sure they avoid the water.  Those bunkers will collect any hooked or over drawn shots, and the green is designed to slope away from the bunkers so that the resulting bunker shot requires precision.  The hole is fair in that a well placed drive and approach shot will allow an eagle opportunity, but anything offline could result in the player taking a bogey.

[cmull4]

I’ve just gone through and played or replayed all of your courses. Really like all of them. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with next.

[Cottyuk]

cmull4 - wow, that's a commited effort thanks so much!

That has spurred me on to do another analysis of course design - This one is routintely exploited in real life golf, and translates less well to the game, but it's an excellent way of getting a player to make shot decisions.

Distance perception

I've analysed hole 2, which is only a short par 4 which plays at 440 yards from the black tees.  So the question I asked myself, with knowing that the course was designed to play more on the easier side (and knowing that it will yield quite a few birdies), was how to create a relatively short hole that requires thought and therefore interest to play well on.

Image 1 below shows that the hole is wide and inviting, but narrows toward the landing area, and has a subtile elevation change of around 40ft (30ft from the fairway).



Image 2 below exposes quite a few features.  The main aim of a hole like this in real golf is to get the player to hit it into a hazard at the front of the green.  Bunkers around 50 yards before the green act as the optical illusion (this bunker optical illusion is exploited alot on real life courses). Also by creating an elevation change (usually 20-30yards) will require the golfer to use an extra club.  For the average golfer this usually results in misclubbing.  The last design descision that is usually employed is a tiered green or one with length, again to challenge distance perception.

To achieve this in this game I have narrowed the fairway toward the landing area, to ensure that consideration is given to the tee shot, and placed a few bunkers to catch wayward shots.  The 3 bunkers at the end of the fairway are the optical illusion and the large bunker at the front of the green is designed to catch short shots, and is deep enough to ensure that an accurate recovery shot is needed.  With the elevation change and wind in to the face if the player ends up in the fairway bunker, 4 clubs extra might be needed which immediately has turned a relatively short hole into one that requires accuracy and thought.


Image 3 shows the green set up.  Anything short is penalised with the deep bunker, and run off areas at the front of both sides of the green.  Secondly, there is a tier placed along the middle of the green so that pin positions at the back of the green require an accurate approach taking into account the elevation change.

[Cottyuk]

The switchback

A very well recognised hole, the switchback, is one that tests the ability of the golfer to shape the ball in opposite directions.  This is an extensively used hole throughout the world, and one on this game that can be exploited very well.  Arguably one of the most annoying types of holes for TGC Tours players due to the reluctance of wanting to shape the ball.  A course could be designed around this central concept, and would offer shot variety throughout the round.

There are a number of holes that use this concept on Eaton, but I will focus on hole 1 as an example.  Hole 1 is a par 5 that plays around 580-590 yards, making it an ideal hole to exploit the switchback. The 7th at Eaton could be considered a switchback that requires a fade then a draw.

There are a number of considerations for getting this right.  The main design consideration is how to create a landscape that forces the player into shaping the shot.  Trees are the obvious choice to force the player to shape the ball around them, but as a subtile compromise, a dogleg, fairway camber and or well positioned bunkers can achieve a similar set up.  One of the most important parts to get right are the angles of the second shot, and to make sure that the fairway is not too wide so that the angles that you want to create are negated.  Having said this, allowing some width will allow the player to make a shot decision from the tee, and ideally allow them to access a pin position that the other side of the fairway would not.

Hole 1 (image 1 below) shows the setup of a hole without using trees from the tee.  Well positioned bunkers and a slight dogleg should indicate to the player that a (RH golfer) straight or faded shot would result in the ball running through the fairway, whereas hugging the left bunker would set up the ideal approach.  Image 2 shows the type of angle the player would face with their second shot.


With the second shot it is important to angle the green away from the player, so that the opposite shaped shot is required.  In this example a fade would now be needed.  If exectued well this type of hole and shot is very rewarding, and in this case would yield an eagle opportunity.  The danger of over fading the ball could result in the ball ending up in the trees, or more likely in the bunker.

Image 3 below shows the set up of the green.  To reward the golfer, the green can include a spine down the middle, so that for example, in the image below, the top left pin position can be accessed.

[abowidow5712]

I played all 3 of your tour worthy courses and this one. All excellent golf courses. I like Cookridge City GC the best, but if the bunkers were better sculpted on this one I think this would've been my favorite. I liked this layout the best. Your detailed post on the switchback hole shows you're a fanatic of architecture like many of us in the community and your courses show how well you grasp many of the strategic concepts in course design. Keep up the great work! Is Ross your favorite architect? He used the switchback hole quite frequently, designed Aronimink, and this course has a lot of Ross influence. I like Ross a lot.

[Cottyuk]

abowidow5712  Thanks for the kind comments. 

I'd never really thought about the influence Donald Ross has on so many of these designs, but it certainly seems like it.  In terms of my favourite designer I'd have to say Pete Dye - I used to go to the states a lot to play golf and he had a big influence on many courses in South Carolina and Florida, and those memories are very dear to me.

I'm humble enough to admit that in terms of my designs I'm very much still learning and the courses that I've created have been as much about exploring the designer and becoming familiar with the tools as they have been creating courses.  The community has some amazing designers and this has been a brilliant learning curve.   Experimenting with which real life designs translate well to this game and conversely which designs work well on this game that couldn't be used in real life and marrying those two concepts is probably the most enjoyable part of the designer for me.

If I had more time I would love to create a series of tutorials and design concept vidoes, but I'm not sure it would add to the brilliant content that others produce anyway.

[Cy Langers BSG]

Hey Cotty , played this morning and absolutley loved this layout . Had a ******** Georgia vibe to it and gave lots of reasons for thought and precision especially off the tee. I personally used the 90% partial tee shot on many holes and this bore its dividend with a solid 80% fairways hit over 2 rounds in IB society. greens were well sulpted and friendly to well thought out approaches. 5 stars mate for sure . Loved it. BSG

[Cottyuk]

Cy Langers BSG Thank you so much for the feedback!  Lovely to know it's been on a few societies and that others have enjoyed playing it.