How do I improve? A guide.
Apr 15, 2023 3:19:43 GMT -5
Terry Grayson, Granitza, and 14 more like this
Post by b101 on Apr 15, 2023 3:19:43 GMT -5
I wanted to put together a bit more of a guide to this, tagging lots of designers so that you can view their completed threads and find their courses, whilst linking useful videos and the like. This isn't for the basic tutorials - there's the Crazycanuck1985 YouTube channel (Link here) for those, but more that process of continual improvement.
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'How do I improve?' This is the big question. If this is just a casual hobby and you're happy with just putting out courses, great - go for it, it's supposed to be fun and just enjoy that. But if you want to improve and constantly get better, how do you go about that? As many of you know, I'm a teacher who does a lot of work in training other teachers to help students learn more effectively, so there's a lot of experience behind this, both in TGC world and real life meta-learning. Below is a roadmap that will help, but does require effort.
The key concepts:
- It's not all about you. Look at what others are doing.
- You need to understand what you're doing it, how you're doing it and what you're trying to achieve. Purposeful learning is challenging and your workflow should be slower and more deliberate.
What should I do?
1) Be honest and assess your own strengths and weaknesses. Research by studying others' courses, then work hard on those weaknesses.
If you can get a playthrough of a course, great. That'll help get someone else's view, but you don't need that - you should be able to identify these yourself and you cannot rely just on others as it leads to learned helplessness. What do you find difficult in the designer? What comes more easily? What do you enjoy and enjoy less? Once you know that, you should find people who are good at that area and study their work. What do they do well? How do they accomplish it? Spend time just looking around their courses and analysing how they accomplish what they do on specific aspects.
As a worked example :
Self-assessment: my strengths are hole designs, flatter plots, technical and detail work. My areas that I will always be working on are planting (it doesn't come naturally), elevation change, quirky hole designs and making CC level courses. Not saying I'm not good at those, but those are what I would say my relative weaknesses are.
Studying others: before South Yarra, I spent a lot of time looking at golfwolf's planting on Frankston Heath, but in specific areas. How did he tie planting into bunkers? What was the scale of the trees? How did he create visual interest in the top of treelines? How much spacing from treeline to surfaces? How big were the bunkers? What were the random elements? How did he mix grasses? When you start out, it might be simpler: what objects are they using? how big are their greens? where and how do you place tees or fairways to make a tight routing work? It's those sorts of specifics you might need - go in understanding exactly what you're aiming to learn and be prepared to revisit this multiple times. Make notes of hole ideas, planting tips, scaling etc.
A list of people to study - N.B. Most of the below are very good at everything, but I've gone with areas of greatest strength. (I'll edit when I've doubtless left people out)
Hole designs, surfacing, strategy: b101 , PithyDoctorG , rjwils30 , Energ1ser , mayday_golf83 , tpetro
Sculpting: grovey31 , joegolferg , gamesdecent , staypuft39 , reebdoog
Planting: golfwolfuk , scottish67 , mattf27 , arcticfury , ChrizZcE , Terry Grayson
Quirky/innovative designs: digitalbunny , mattyfromcanada
Tutorials for beginner/intermediate:
Crazycanuck1985 tutorials - the go to for all designers when they start out. We all started here: Link
b101 tutorials - more for strategy and advanced tips: Link
2) Actively watch playthroughs of other people's courses. Understand what made good design. A lot of people will only watch plays of their own courses, but you take so much more from watching an experienced designer give feedback on a course you haven’t designed - it helps train your own eye and you will soon notice that you’re spotting the same things that the experienced designer is. You’re therefore less likely to commit those errors in your own designs, whilst massively improving your understanding of what good design is. The feedback is pretty common and those videos are a real treasure trove for design insight.
Playthroughs:
b101 (CC x2, Dream Team x2): www.youtube.com/@b101design/playlists
PithyDoctorG (World Cup, CC): www.youtube.com/@griff526
mayday_golf83 (World Cup, Major): www.youtube.com/@jeremymayo7997/videos
reebdoog (CC): www.youtube.com/@reebdoog77
3) Work on a course with a specific aim. Once you've figured out what you're trying to do, practise that specifically. You can't focus on everything at once so gradual, targeted improvement is better. Again, leaning into my back catalogue for a worked example of how I practised. Each course, I focused mostly on one element (and came up with the course idea based on what I felt I needed to work on):
Greenstone River - templates and hole designs
Hollingbourne - framing on a parkland course (nowhere to hide)
Black Salt Valley - sculpting (only used the raise tool - and it shows...)
Montellago - elevation change
South Yarra GC - planting/environment
Maurelle Point - limited sculpting
Sapelo River - flat bottom bunkers
Playa Saona - dead flat plot, CC difficulty
Fast forward to present-day and you'll see I'm still doing that: Westholme Ridge (elevation), Huntington Sound (environment, finding natural sites for templates) etc. You get to a point where it plateaus a bit, but have to keep trying to find things to push yourself with.
4) Listen to others' feedback and don't take it personally.
Play count and star rating don't matter; ignore them. The feedback you get on Completed Courses will likely always be positive, as it's really a showcase area rather than a feedback area and much of the feedback is typically from casual players who don't really know what they like; ignore that. When you do get playthroughs, whether for contests or from experienced designers, listen to the feedback and try to understand it. Particularly focus on the area of development you had identified and worked on. Did you nail that aspect? You won't always agree with all feedback and that's fine - the important thing is that you're considering it and evaluating. Sometimes, it really is just personal preference. Often, you'll disagree with it at the time then look back a couple of weeks/months/years later and realise they were spot on. As such, I always try to point out as much as I can and explain in detail, giving as much constructive criticism as I can - it's the only place people really get that feedback they often need to hear (and if you've signed up for a contest, that's probably part of what you want out of the process). Plus, as previously mentioned, it's useful for others beyond just that one designer.
One final word on contests: Judging is a great experience and you can learn so much as a designer if you sign up to judge, listening to the more experienced judges in the room - certainly, learning from Eric (vctrylnsprts), Terry Grayson and others in the first Dream Team contest really helped me in understanding what contest judges looked for. But if you're judging, it's vital that you don't assume you know everything and that you try to understand why other people think differently - healthy debate is vital. That said, if all the experienced designers are saying one thing and you're a newbie saying the opposite, you probably want to reconsider your opinion and really dig into why they are saying what they are. As a contestant, at some point, you will have your courses judged by designers who are less experienced than you and you will disagree with comments you know are wrong. Take that on the chin as best you can, frustrating though it can be.
5) I've done all that. Then what?
It's a continual process, so go back to the first thing you were working on. Find other inspirations and places to learn from. A few bits of advice:
- Spend more time on plot creation before putting holes down. If you create generic land, you'll get generic golf; the more time you spend really developing that piece of land so that it has character, the more likely you are to be able to find really interesting golf holes on it.
- Use the land that there is rather than superimposing golf holes you've already mentally designed. The very best real life courses are in total harmony with an outstanding piece of land, using the terrain and natural features to the maximum giving unique and memorable golf holes - try to do this.
- Research real life courses, architects and look at top golf photographers.
Architecture:
thefriedegg.com/
golfclubatlas.com/
Photographers:
www.golfphotos.com.au/ (my personal favourite)
twitter.com/LinksGems
www.pjkoenig.com/
evanschillerphotography.com/
kevindiss.com/
www.kevinmurraygolfphotography.com/
www.markalexandergolfphotography.com/
---
Hope that helps and will add to it as need be.
---
'How do I improve?' This is the big question. If this is just a casual hobby and you're happy with just putting out courses, great - go for it, it's supposed to be fun and just enjoy that. But if you want to improve and constantly get better, how do you go about that? As many of you know, I'm a teacher who does a lot of work in training other teachers to help students learn more effectively, so there's a lot of experience behind this, both in TGC world and real life meta-learning. Below is a roadmap that will help, but does require effort.
The key concepts:
- It's not all about you. Look at what others are doing.
- You need to understand what you're doing it, how you're doing it and what you're trying to achieve. Purposeful learning is challenging and your workflow should be slower and more deliberate.
What should I do?
1) Be honest and assess your own strengths and weaknesses. Research by studying others' courses, then work hard on those weaknesses.
If you can get a playthrough of a course, great. That'll help get someone else's view, but you don't need that - you should be able to identify these yourself and you cannot rely just on others as it leads to learned helplessness. What do you find difficult in the designer? What comes more easily? What do you enjoy and enjoy less? Once you know that, you should find people who are good at that area and study their work. What do they do well? How do they accomplish it? Spend time just looking around their courses and analysing how they accomplish what they do on specific aspects.
As a worked example :
Self-assessment: my strengths are hole designs, flatter plots, technical and detail work. My areas that I will always be working on are planting (it doesn't come naturally), elevation change, quirky hole designs and making CC level courses. Not saying I'm not good at those, but those are what I would say my relative weaknesses are.
Studying others: before South Yarra, I spent a lot of time looking at golfwolf's planting on Frankston Heath, but in specific areas. How did he tie planting into bunkers? What was the scale of the trees? How did he create visual interest in the top of treelines? How much spacing from treeline to surfaces? How big were the bunkers? What were the random elements? How did he mix grasses? When you start out, it might be simpler: what objects are they using? how big are their greens? where and how do you place tees or fairways to make a tight routing work? It's those sorts of specifics you might need - go in understanding exactly what you're aiming to learn and be prepared to revisit this multiple times. Make notes of hole ideas, planting tips, scaling etc.
A list of people to study - N.B. Most of the below are very good at everything, but I've gone with areas of greatest strength. (I'll edit when I've doubtless left people out)
Hole designs, surfacing, strategy: b101 , PithyDoctorG , rjwils30 , Energ1ser , mayday_golf83 , tpetro
Sculpting: grovey31 , joegolferg , gamesdecent , staypuft39 , reebdoog
Planting: golfwolfuk , scottish67 , mattf27 , arcticfury , ChrizZcE , Terry Grayson
Quirky/innovative designs: digitalbunny , mattyfromcanada
Tutorials for beginner/intermediate:
Crazycanuck1985 tutorials - the go to for all designers when they start out. We all started here: Link
b101 tutorials - more for strategy and advanced tips: Link
2) Actively watch playthroughs of other people's courses. Understand what made good design. A lot of people will only watch plays of their own courses, but you take so much more from watching an experienced designer give feedback on a course you haven’t designed - it helps train your own eye and you will soon notice that you’re spotting the same things that the experienced designer is. You’re therefore less likely to commit those errors in your own designs, whilst massively improving your understanding of what good design is. The feedback is pretty common and those videos are a real treasure trove for design insight.
Playthroughs:
b101 (CC x2, Dream Team x2): www.youtube.com/@b101design/playlists
PithyDoctorG (World Cup, CC): www.youtube.com/@griff526
mayday_golf83 (World Cup, Major): www.youtube.com/@jeremymayo7997/videos
reebdoog (CC): www.youtube.com/@reebdoog77
3) Work on a course with a specific aim. Once you've figured out what you're trying to do, practise that specifically. You can't focus on everything at once so gradual, targeted improvement is better. Again, leaning into my back catalogue for a worked example of how I practised. Each course, I focused mostly on one element (and came up with the course idea based on what I felt I needed to work on):
Greenstone River - templates and hole designs
Hollingbourne - framing on a parkland course (nowhere to hide)
Black Salt Valley - sculpting (only used the raise tool - and it shows...)
Montellago - elevation change
South Yarra GC - planting/environment
Maurelle Point - limited sculpting
Sapelo River - flat bottom bunkers
Playa Saona - dead flat plot, CC difficulty
Fast forward to present-day and you'll see I'm still doing that: Westholme Ridge (elevation), Huntington Sound (environment, finding natural sites for templates) etc. You get to a point where it plateaus a bit, but have to keep trying to find things to push yourself with.
4) Listen to others' feedback and don't take it personally.
Play count and star rating don't matter; ignore them. The feedback you get on Completed Courses will likely always be positive, as it's really a showcase area rather than a feedback area and much of the feedback is typically from casual players who don't really know what they like; ignore that. When you do get playthroughs, whether for contests or from experienced designers, listen to the feedback and try to understand it. Particularly focus on the area of development you had identified and worked on. Did you nail that aspect? You won't always agree with all feedback and that's fine - the important thing is that you're considering it and evaluating. Sometimes, it really is just personal preference. Often, you'll disagree with it at the time then look back a couple of weeks/months/years later and realise they were spot on. As such, I always try to point out as much as I can and explain in detail, giving as much constructive criticism as I can - it's the only place people really get that feedback they often need to hear (and if you've signed up for a contest, that's probably part of what you want out of the process). Plus, as previously mentioned, it's useful for others beyond just that one designer.
One final word on contests: Judging is a great experience and you can learn so much as a designer if you sign up to judge, listening to the more experienced judges in the room - certainly, learning from Eric (vctrylnsprts), Terry Grayson and others in the first Dream Team contest really helped me in understanding what contest judges looked for. But if you're judging, it's vital that you don't assume you know everything and that you try to understand why other people think differently - healthy debate is vital. That said, if all the experienced designers are saying one thing and you're a newbie saying the opposite, you probably want to reconsider your opinion and really dig into why they are saying what they are. As a contestant, at some point, you will have your courses judged by designers who are less experienced than you and you will disagree with comments you know are wrong. Take that on the chin as best you can, frustrating though it can be.
5) I've done all that. Then what?
It's a continual process, so go back to the first thing you were working on. Find other inspirations and places to learn from. A few bits of advice:
- Spend more time on plot creation before putting holes down. If you create generic land, you'll get generic golf; the more time you spend really developing that piece of land so that it has character, the more likely you are to be able to find really interesting golf holes on it.
- Use the land that there is rather than superimposing golf holes you've already mentally designed. The very best real life courses are in total harmony with an outstanding piece of land, using the terrain and natural features to the maximum giving unique and memorable golf holes - try to do this.
- Research real life courses, architects and look at top golf photographers.
Architecture:
thefriedegg.com/
golfclubatlas.com/
Photographers:
www.golfphotos.com.au/ (my personal favourite)
twitter.com/LinksGems
www.pjkoenig.com/
evanschillerphotography.com/
kevindiss.com/
www.kevinmurraygolfphotography.com/
www.markalexandergolfphotography.com/
---
Hope that helps and will add to it as need be.
