Golf Sim Clubhouse Forum

Course: Trump National Doral (Blue Monster) (14.4 MB)
Type: Real, Parkland
Designer: Msmvet
Date: 7/14/2015
Images: Sp, #3, #9, #16, #18
Libraries Used: bayhill, blends2, coosbay, Trump

I would say this course is a fine effort for a first course. We ran into a few green spikes, but that is pretty common on about any course. Plenty of challenge here, especially on very dry. Good job bud.
Dar

I totally agree with Tin. Very well done for a first course. Enjoyed the toughness on the greens but we did run into a few spikes.
Keep em coming bud.

Sadly I agree with both of you.
I´ve smoothen/optimize greens several times and during final test rounds, I´ve found no spikes (Really hate them). But now I ran into a few on 2-7-11 & 17.
Any advices on how to do a nice rolling putting surface? I will re-do the greens next week and upload the fixed version to replace the file.
Thanks for the input guys!

Rule is not to make dramatic changes Msmevt, keep your controls on minimum. Use the slope tool to raise/lower sections of your green a little higher/lower than what you want, it'll still look too sharp but then pickup your green and fringe shapes to a clean area and drop. Then create a shape say twice as large around where the original green was and use the smooth tool on minimum, hit that enough times that satisfies your intent. Optimize the underlying texture such as say your fairway again on minimum enough times until that minimum shows zero. Smooth the same texture until zero shows again. Pickup and replace your green shapes back to where they were and drop. Right click, then left click on 'use as shape' then reduce the resulting shape by 4inches and smooth again as many times until you see the green isn't altering any more. The 4inch shape reduction often creates a realistic fringe edge, without causing a tear or spike by having too many shape points, too close to each other. Getting it right will also cause a wee realistic bump onto the green from landing a fairway chip on the fringe beforehand.
Nice to see you designing, stick with it.

As far as getting rid of spike marks, the great DanO gave us this process for greens. I did this as the last thing to all my greens after learning of it and I don't believe I ever had a problem with spike marks again.

Select the green as a shape. Now smooth on minimum setting (far left) and delete. For complicated multi-faceted green smooth one click to the right. Now right click and optimize on the minimum setting. Note how high the percentage saved here at this time. This is your key to how smooth and spike free your greens are going to be. At this stage the minimum will be probably 45 or as high as 80. Optimize it on the far left now. Any more than that will begin to reduce the details on your greens too much. Now bring up the optimization tool again and see how much detail is left to remove at that first setting. If you have 3% or more left to remove, once again select the green as a shape and give it another minimum smooth. Re-optimize one more time at the minimum setting. This should put it under 3%. If you are close to this number after that second smoothing or under the target do another minimum optimization. You should now have 0% left to optimize. If it's higher than that your green needs another minimum smooth and re-optimization. Once it comes up 0 you have a perfect green.

Ms I wouldn`t fix it it plays fine. Some of the best designers have spikes on there greens. Instead start working on another lol. Looking forward to it.

I think this is a pretty awesome effort for a first release!
Loved the object placement, coming up 9 & 18 are some of the best/realistic settings that I can remember.
Loved the extensive bunkering work that gives this course it's distinctive feel.
Haven't run into any spikes yet, maybe I've been lucky so far.
I will have no hesitation adding this course to my seasons venues.

Excellent work, what's next?

Thank you all, for your complements and advices.

Hookster, I thought it was playable until I included Doral on my current season. On round 2, the spikes on 2 & 7 cost me a boguey and a double. Ended up missing the cut by 1. So, I decided to take Brian´s and Pye´s advices and get rid of them.

Also, I was thinking on my next project, maybe Golf Club of Houston (Shell Houston Open) ,TPC San Antonio (Valero Texas), TPC Boston (Deusche Bank) or East Lake (Tour Championship), depending on the information and pics I could get. What do you think?

Just a warning for you....the jagged traps at TPC San Antonio will be extremely difficult to handle on the architect. I tried putting these type of traps on a course and the entire thing crashed on me before I even got to elevation work on the back 9. Too many points, and they will likely cause a broken glass effect when you put elevations on them.

On another note, I just now got to play your version of Doral, and wow!! For a first time design, I'm very impressed! I also ran into some spikes on holes 7, 17 and another that I can't remember on the front side. Still, it looks just like Doral on television. The only really bad criticism I have of the course, is the fact that the name "Trump" is on it!

Nice job msmvet!