Patriot's Point

[Sundance]

Hole #7 @ Patriot's Point is a 468 yard par 4. Off the elevated tee short drives will be hindered by the slight right dogleg and power drivers will want to avoid the dual bunkers to the left. Most will have a long iron approach to a huge green guarded by one large bunker on the left and two large bunkers on the right. The left and right front of the green slopes forward feeding the bunkers and most of the right side of the green slopes towards the rough. The size of the green and the undulations will cause some putting anxiety for some and par is good!

Views from the tee, approach and behind the green.

[Sundance]

[tarheel]

So nice!!!

[Sundance]

Hole #8 @ Patriot's Point is 555 yard par 5. Off the tee to the left are a few rough mounds while the right is protected by a bunker and creek running the length of the fairway. The shorter tees can shoot for the fairway on the right side of the creek but you must reach beyond the dogleg to have a good shot. The 2nd shot is daunting with a large pine partially blocking your view and bunkers on either side of the fairway. Going for the green will prove futile so your objective is to safely find the fairway without overshooting which leaves a short lob to the elevated green fronted by a large bunker and surrounded by rough mounds. This is both a tough but scoring hole with a few well placed shots.

Views from tee, approach, lob approach and behind the green.

[Sundance]

[Sundance]

Designer notes: Let's talk shapes. When you new designers lay out a new golf hole you get a tee, fairway and green. The tee is Ok though kinda' small but you can zoom in and double click on the vertex line and move it in or out to reshape the tee box. You can also put your mouse pointer on the line and right click to add a vertex point. I usually get a few ideas for tee box shapes from courses I check online and often just make a nice rectangular or square shape. Another tip, click on the view box and go down to the greens palette and choose the round shaped green for a perfect round tee box. You can also use a few other greens in the palette to make some very nice tees but just remember to double click on the shape and change it to a tee or you will have some very long putts!! To resize your tee box for example the round green shape you just changed to a tee double click on the shape and to the right you will see amount with a blank box. If you want it larger or smaller simply put + or - and insert your amount. Once you are satisfied with your tee box you may want to put a border around it. Most designers use a fringe border but you can use any shape you want that doesn't cover the tee such as light rough, sandy rough etc.. What you do want is to make sure the textures don't clash with each other. The easiest way to place this border is to use the copy and paste method. Say you decide to border your tee box with the fringe texture you simply right click the tee box and select copy. Next you right click again anywhere in your design window and select paste and you will have a duplicate tee box. Now double click the new tee box and check the fringe box then go to the amount box and select +1 or more and you will have a perfectly matched border that you just have to move over the original tee box. Be sure to zoom in so you can place it perfectly and again make sure that your textures are a good match. This same principle applies to the green but always use the fringe texture for the border since this puts the putter in the golfers hands during the play mode.
Fairways are usually bland so again check some courses out and use your imagination. Don't make the fairways too large and or to small and be creative with the landing areas and where the fairways meet the greens. I'll cover some bunker ideas next. Let me know if this is helping you. Any feedback would be appreciated. Thanks and design a gem!!

[Sundance]

Designer notes: Talking shapes part two. Let me pick up with the fairway shape now. Once you have decided on a good shape/layout for your fairway you will want to border it with a light rough that blends with your heavy rough texture. I can't emphasize enough how important it is to make sure your textures blend together as they affect the overall total appearance of your design. Click on your fairway then right click and select copy. Right click again and select paste. Now double click on the copied fairway, select light rough and in the amount box to the right put +5. You now have an identical shape of the fairway in light rough for a border. You can vary the size of the light rough making it smaller or larger for your taste. If you put bunkers along the edges of your fairway you can zoom in and stretch the rough around the edges of the bunker if you prefer but you may have to add some vertex points to make it look nice. Okay, we now have covered the basic shapes so here is a very nice tip. If you want to go with the same tee box that you created for the first hole of your design you can click on it then right click and copy. Now you can open your next hole (and so on) right click and paste and now you have the same tee box. You can do this with any shape in your design and take them to another hole. This is a great way to save time and conform your design in the process. Using your imagination you can really save time and be very creative! That's it for basic shapes.

[BradTheDad]

Good tips Steve. Hopefully, the tips you are providing will inspire a new crop of designers for this great game.

Hole 8 is an absolute cracker Steve. I particularly love the creek work.

Cheers

Brad

[Sundance]

Good tips Steve. Hopefully, the tips you are providing will inspire a new crop of designers for this great game.

Hole 8 is an absolute cracker Steve. I particularly love the creek work.

Cheers

Brad

Thanks Brad. It seems futile putting out these little tips but perhaps it will help some new designers get interested in our game and even help some experienced designers.It certainly will save them some time and frustation. These are the little things that you learn from experience and I wish someone would have posted them 15 years ago.
Hole 8 is one of my favorites as it has so many options and so many little devious entrapments.

[tarheel]

You never really know who might arrive here by accident and need/use your comments. I still hope we get some random folks popping in and discovering this old gem. Case in point, nine years back I would have never thought I would be sitting here with a couple hundred plus rounds played 2022-2023. Maybe my next step will be course design, but I gotta say that I am not artistic at all