hey, all

[ADC]

How ya'll doing?

So, I just wanted to let you all know that I'm working with PGA again. I have no idea what the project will be like, but my goal, this time, is to actually finish 18-holes within the next three months. New courses are the liveblood of the game these days, right?

I was also wondering if anybody else was working on anything? I'm very interested to see what the first course of 2012 will be.

Later,
Alex

[SteveHorn]

ADC! I'm working on a new rendition of a older course I released 6 or 7 years ago. I have know idea when I'll have it completed at this time.

[spencerturner]

Not sur e if I will be the first for 2012 but I am working on #13 at the moment and with a little luck might be finished by the weekend. Not sure. Spencer.

[Terry Grayson]

Post some pics folks!!!

After finally getting my ol trusty computer up and running again I played a few rounds of golf, found a couple of courses that are in different staged of design, but just couldnt get motivated
to finish...

Im thinking about perhaps building another course, but just cant decide on locale, or what I want to build....

Looking forward to yalls new courses....

[ADC]

I am the point where I am have been more messing around than doing anything serious. Tried a few plots, from the 2010 contest plot to one near Baiting Hallow, New York. They are good, just...all my previous designs end up being along the lines of "looks hard, plays simple." I want a course that is strategic in nature.

Warning that this post is kinda...maybe putting too much thought into it and not enough course building. I want something that is in every way I can muster a believable early-to-mid American golf course. The best early architects knew that golf belongs on a links property. If you don't have one, find the best way to emulate it. So, I am studying what the arhcitechts of old would do, and am trying to find a fictional, yet challenging and believable, course to make for you all.

I recently played about 7 rounds at Coos Bay.I know it's a well publicized course, but all I can say is WOW! Beyond the library, what is amazing about that course is the options. There are so many different ways to play each hole. That's the kind of play I'm trying to work with.

Even though Coos Bay is located in Oregon, it reminds a good deal of a course on Long Island called Friar's Head. Friar's head features extremely sandy terrain, little to no manicured rough, and rolling greens that are from 3000 to 18000 square feet in size! Some of those greens have 3-5 feet of elevation difference in them. The point: you are not playing a course chiseled from the land. You are playing the land with manicured sections, lol.

I do have a picture I can share. This isn't anything that will actually be finished, it was just an idea, but it kind of shows what I mean when I talk about strategy. This is the second shot to a par 5. You are around 260 yards from the green, and about 40 feet above it, so if the wind is behind you, it's definitely a 3-wood green light. Or is it? The green is 30 yards wide and about 50 feet deep. If the pin is on the extreme right, go ahead, fire away round after round. Even if you miss the green, there is plenty of room on the right of the green to get up and down for birdie. But this is NOT an pushover hole. The further to left the pin is, the harder it gets. If the pin is on the extreme left, think twice about blasting away. Those bunkers are very deep, very small, and the green on that side is not nearly as forgiving as the green on the right. HOWEVER...the grass around that left side of the green IS fairway, not rough. Even if the pin is over there, you could still try and blast a 3-wood at it. But your target is very small, with plenty that can go wrong if you hit anything less than a stellar shot. Plus, the green has a false front. There is little chance of a 3 with the pin on the left.

I am proud of the way this shot turned out. The only reason I'm not going on the project is that 1 good shot does not a golf course make. Even the tee shot here wasn't that good. And, if there is one thing I don't do well, it's planting on purpose, and the height scale here is noticeably too high. This was my 4th attempt, and I just lost interest. But, it's still an example of what I'm trying to get after.

The course I'm working on will have some of the following traits:
Fairways and greens of great undulation and variety in size. It's not about if you are going to find the fairway, it's about finding the right section of the fairway to find the right section of the green. If you can't hit a 30-60 yard wide fairway...you deserve bogey to be the best possible recovery.
A lakeside/Oceanside parkland setting where neither the woods nor the water is majorly in play. And this is not to say they won't be in play ever, just not other hole.)The Old Course, which is the king of Scottish course that those early-American era designers brought over, barely has trees or water IN PLAY. However, no one would argue that the ocean is THE biggest factor of challenge St. Andrew's. Take the 5th hole. Getting on the green that's 100 yards deep isn't a problem, unless the wind is in your face. If the wind is, it's 3 shots all day long, PLUS, you need to find the right section of all that green. (
No cart paths It's enough to get 18 golf holes, I'm not going to kill myself to figure out how to get the path tool to work, as it rarely does for me. Besides, golf was meant to be a walking game, in my opinion.
A sense of identity and strategy throughout. I never want any of you to feel like you've had the same shot twice.

Thank you, all, for reading this far, and for keeping this community and game alive for so long. Here's to great golfing!
Alex

[ADC]

So, I tweaked that hole, making it a shorter par 4. This is what resulted. The fairway bunkers are now in play, which gives them meaning, as before you could just pound a 3-wood over it all day long. Here's something I didn't expect. Before, if the pin was to the extreme left, really the only way to get real close was to hit it to the right and pitch the whole length of the green. Moving the tee up so much has opened up the green a lot more as well. The further the pin is to the left, the better the angle is from just short of the right fairway bunker.

I also redid all the planting, and I think it was well worth it.