Hello folks,
As the Volunteer Lib-Op for the Accolade BBS I have seen literally hundreds
of JNUG and JNSE courses.  Of these about 20% are top rate and about a third
are barely rate a single play and not really worth the cost of download.
Designing fine courses takes a lot of time.  Figure between 120-150 hours
for a first class job, more or less depending on how quickly you do art.
I'm posting this file of design tips to help the beginners especially, but
really it's also for all of you as something of a checklist.  I hope you
find this useful as I also have gone through almost all of the very same
errors and problems each new designer does and learned from each of them.

**STARTING OUT**
Your first task is to get a vision of the kind of course you want to
create?  Who will play it? (Beginners, Pros, tournaments, vacationeers?)
Is attractiveness important to you?  Do you want the course challenging?
Do you want the course to be passive (trees, rocks, bushes, and grass only),
or do you want it more lively (animals, signs, lawnmowers, birds, sheep, etc.)?
Do you want it to be the best you know how to produce?  (Meaning, are you
willing to put in the extra work for a winner?)  Is this to be an original
design or a reproduction of an existing course?  Finally, where do you
want this to be located?

**BACKGROUNDS**
Many folks start with the plot but I like to start with the background, or
at least the idea of it.  Otherwise you can get a mismatch between the
background and the plot features such as a beach on the South but showing in
the background as West.  The other reason is that backgrounds are difficult
and most often you may wish to borrow a background from another course.
Courses such as Banff, Scorpion, Royal St. Kitts, Oakcreek, Spanish Bay, and
Rolling Evergreen have spectacular ones to use or modify. BTW - if you
borrow someone's background or objects please be sure to give them credit
in a coursename.TXT file included with your coursename.ZIP.

Since backgrounds take so much work you need to carefully plan their key
features such as a major mountain, rock pinnacle, town, water tower, bay,
or whatever.  The reason is that you would like to position many of your
holes going into these key features.  For instance Robert Trent Jones, Jr.
built Oakcreek with about a third of the holes going toward the magnificent
red towers.  You don't have to perfect backgrounds before moving ahead but
you do need the directions of the major features identified.  Many folks
are finding Deluxe Paint 2 Enhanced as a good tool to build backgrounds.
There are utilities available on the BBS's to import/export between DPE2
and JNSE.

**PLOT**
By the time all is said and done the purpose of the plot is to provide
the vehicle for the layout of the holes.  Many folks flatten the whole
plot and build all elevation work on the holes.  I think this is a bit
extreme and if you don't add some elevation into the plot later it looks
like a unattractive pancake course overhead.  You'll also notice that
many folks have done a great job of putting logos and course names on the
plot.  I think that adds quite a professional touch.   I do think that
some elevation work for hills, canyons, water, and beaches on the plot
is useful.  Deadhorse Lake is an outstanding example of this.

The most important thing is to watch what you do with water.  Generally
speaking, lakes are FLAT, streams flow downhill, and waterfalls drop straight
down. Isles is a good course to examine for waterfall construction.  Most
detail elevation work will be done on the hole overheads.  Most folks
don't bother with objects on the plot unless it's a clubhouse or
other significant feature.

**OBJECTS**
The objects will merge with the background to give your course a personality
all of its own.  Many great trees are available from the various courses
I mention which can augment the standard ones.  Adding your own new
objects is a huge plus.  One of the things thats making objects and
backgrounds harder to borrow is the use of the PALEDIT program to modify
the colors of the palette in use.  This needs to be a part of your
planning.  For instance, on Oakcreek the background and objects were
both subjected to a customized palette to give the proper southwest color
to everything.  Borrowing the plum tree without the palette wouldn't
work well.

Objects available include boats, trees, animals, ducks, houses, rakes,
signs, crowds, TV towers, and lots of other stuff.  Use your own
innovativeness to add to the lot.  If you plan to show adjoining
fairways on the hole overheads you'll need a flagstick object.  One
thing - there are a number of ill-sized objects out there most of
which are too large.  You have to put a 20' high golf cart 100 yards
away to have it look reasonable, same with a 18' moose.  More on this
later.

**HOLE ROUTING**
Routing is a function of what you want in the background as you approach the
greens and working with the land features you have put onto the plot.
A course works much better with the streams plotted on the plot rather
that added at will on individual holes.  Before you begin with the program
figure out what the sequence of holes you wish will be.  For instance,
middle par 4, long par 5, middle par 3, long par 4, etc.  As you lay out
each hole be aware of the type of hole you want such as straight, curving
R or L, dogleg R or L, double dogleg, uphill, flat, downhill.  Remember
that up and downhill holes affect the balls length so don't make unreasonable
(especially uphill) holes.

Balance the straight, right and left doglegs so no specific type of player
is favored.  The doglegs in themselves rarely force hooks or slices, that's
done by the placement of objects.  Remember you'll start and finish by the
clubhouse.  Whether the ninth ends there or at the hot dog stand is up
to you.  One other thing.  As you're laying out the holes have in mind
whether you're going to show adjoining holes on the course overheads.
They are added work but they make both the overhead look better and the
course more fun to play.  So, if you'll show them don't isolate each hole
where there's no parallel fairways.  A whole course can be laid out in as
little as about 1/4th of the plot.

Now, one of the chief problems folks have with their courses is connected
with what's called "centerline problems".  The correct way to lay out a hole
is to click the mouse once for the tee and once for the green on a par 3.
A par four can have one intermediate vertex of a dogleg, and a par 5 - two.
Once you click on the green you must be certain to not move you mouse
pointer and with tour other hand click F3 to save the hole.  If you
double click on the green you will have two things happen.  The target
for a shot will not center on the flag for an approach shot, and the
calculated distance to the hole will be wrong.  Note experienced players
have learned this and always use the autocaddy when the target doesn't
line up on the flag.

**THE HOLES**
Much of your design time will be spent in reshaping, sloping, and decorating
the individual holes.  While you can do these things in any sequence I will
pass on my personal recommendations for various reasons.

*Major Elevations*
I start with the major elevation work to give the right kind of elevated
greens or tees, general slopr to the fairway, and mounds away from the
fairways to keep long range shots interesting.  This is also a good time
to handle elevation on any water running through the hole.  Water crossing
the fairway gives an interesting tradeoff.  I you sink it too far below
the fairway surface it isn't visible and loses it's impact (except negative).
If it's not down a bit it's unrealistic. Three feet below fairway surface
is usually fine.  Now, if it's a lake and you want a ties or rock wall
that difference must be at least eight feet between water surface and the
adjoining land.  If you do this be sure you have that difference all the
way along where you want the wall or else it appears and disappears in
splotches.

Hills are best built in layers with smaller rather than larger "paintbrushes".
In JNSE the elevation changes rolling right or left in the fairways should
be kept small, say under five feet.  Or else, the course becomes unplayable
in dryconditions.  Uphill and downhill can be more liberal but may offer
crazy bounces to the ball if too severe.  Be sure to playtest for this.
Also, don't run the elevations downhill a long way and into water.  The
distance where the ball rolls on into the water shouldn't be more than 3-4
pixels or else you'll be penalizing folks for making good shots.

*Tees*
I set in all four tee positions next.  It's great when the championship
tees are offset, down a separate chute, or otherwise set apart from the
others.  The tee boxes may be individual or one big long tee.  On a
par five you may want from 75-100 yards in the tee boxes and maybe as
much as 50 yards on other holes.  Placing an extra unused tee box for user
modification later isn't a bad idea either.  Be sure to position all four
tees.  I use tee color, surrounded by one row of fairway pixels (or 2),
surrounded by rough.  Then I like to elevate the tee several feet with the
fairway row half way down the rough.  Lot's of fun to play with tee heighth.
Be sure to leave some genuine room between each tee position so it really
plays differently from each tee.  Anything that gives each tee position
something unique helps - we'll do this in object placement.

*Reshape fairways, rough, water, etc.
The straight edges used in the "stock" drawing of the fairways and rough
is just a starting point.  You do want to retain the tee location and green
location or you can have another version of the centerline problem.
Use the elevation contours to build more natural edges to the fairway
and rough.  I suggest using heavy rough as much more interesting than
out-of bounds.  To get "US Open" type of conditions you can bring the
heavy rough close to the fairways.  Remember though, that's frustrating
stuff for amateurs to hit out of!  Keep in mind rewarding good shots and
penalizing poor ones.  Place your fairway traps - not so often the player is
always in them, but at crucial spots where a poor shot finds them with ease.
This is also the time to deal with water.  In areas where water meets
fairway I like a fringe of one row of rough and heavy rough, and if heavy
rough then another row of rough.


*Adjacent Fairways*
If you are going to show adjacent fairways this is the time to do them.
Showing those other fairways, traps, and greens adds a lot of interest to
the play and some novel shots.  Terrific technique, but it's lots of work.
I consider it essential for a top-notch course, though.
You'll need acetate or other transparent drawings of holes to duplicate
their shape from the adjoining fairway.  On Oakcreek some holes show parts
of as much as five other holes.  I think it was Gene Rodriguez on Nahabino
that is showing folks standing on those adjacent tees and greens.

*Reshape Greens*
The stock round green really gets boring.  Kidney-shaped, worm-shaped,
huge undulating, and other shapes keep your course interesting.  I suggest
using the ZOOM mode to build the exact green shape desired and lay in the
greenside sand bunkers at the same time.  Mold the greens around the
traps with perhaps a pixel of rough or heavy rough between them.  Make
sure your green shape can hold five pin positions without puting them
unfairly three feet behind a trap.  Another thing to do here is to fringe
you're greens attractively.  A row or two of fairway around the green with
a row or two of rough, then heavy rough.  Also I like to fringe traps
both in front and on the green.  That's very lifelike.  Rough or heavy rough.
If the green adjoins water you want a rough/heavy rough fringe and watch
the elevations carefully to get the effect desired.

One other thing.  Don't run green or traps into the last pixel row in the
hole overhead.  That last role is propagated into the horizon and a very
long trap looks very poor, and the immense green is as bad.

*Greens Area Elevations*
While you're at the greens I suggest you do the green and trap elevation work.
One approach has you flattening the green.  Next run a series of smallest
brushsize elevations across the green. I usually do one 2-3' medium or
steep generally in one direction, and then one at about -2' in another
direction.  This seems to be about right.  The other approach has you
working with the given lay of the land, go into ZOOM mode and set green
elevations individually.  Either way works.  You might also remember.
One prevalent feature of courses is that the greens tend to favor
a direction such as toward the ocean, away from the hills, etc.  On
Oakcreek that predominant direction is away from the hills in the North.

Greenside traps are normally somewhat lower than the green, in some cases
there are severe slopes.  Go into ZOOM elevation mode to set them down a
few feet, but if you make them really steep you shouldn't put the pins
just past them unless you like pain!  Put in the elevation and check
with VIEW what the trap looks like.  Maybe try playing from inside
the trap, too.

*Pins*
Go ahead and set the pins now.  Do this in ZOOM mode so you can see the
surrounding evelation.  Please don't put them of the middle of a long
steep slope that runs off the green.  That becomes unplayable in DRY.
Two to three feet elevation differences are quite steep enough.  If you
want a multi-level green that's fine, but don't put pins in the middle.
As a matter of fact, I like multilevel greens, particularly larger ones
where the wrong level will probably cause a 3-putt.  Be sure to set
all five pin positions but before you do decide what you want each
set to be such as "all-balanced", round 4 very tough, half to the
right side and half to the left, only "x" behind traps in any given
round, and so on.  Have a plan.

I can't help but to mention Aotearoa Bay here.  It's my original course
where I had the idea that I wanted a five-day tournament and each day would
require a different selection of shots.  Therefore I constructed five
non-contiguous greenlets on each hole, each having one pin position.
It was originally done for JNUG and changed for JNSE.  On JNUG the
game was simple enough to work well with that accuracy.  It's pretty
demanding on JNSE to hit those small ones.  BTW - That approach is
a LOT of work and I don't seem to have gotten others to try it!

*Positioning Objects*
Here's where you build the character of the course!  A few things to
remember.  Use a variety so the tee shots aren't boring.  Keep objects
that aren't trees (lin signs, benches, carts) far enough from the player
so they don't dither into oblivion.  (Become weird shaped)  Be sure to
check the tee shot view and move the stuff further away if it looks weird.
I like framed tee shots, but they can be hard inhigh winds.  I also like
"marker" trees at xxx yards from the green, at the corners of doglegs,
and marking unseen traps or water.  Clumps of flowers at 150 yds is
nice and the dark plum tree is a great dogled marker.  Decide whether
you want a clump of trees close or spaced apart - particularly crucial
when they're the boundaries between adjacent fairways.  Remember,
sometime you want the golfer to get into real trouble, other times
you'ld like them to luck out.  Give a chance for both.

Work carefully around the green since at one time or another folks on the
green will be looking every direction.  Avoid placing objects which dither
badly near the greens.  They're sure to turn up looking poorly sometime.

**PLAYTESTING**
Accolade has give us a superb new option to play each hole as we're building
it from anywhere on that hole.  This, combined with the VIEW capability
let's you find your construction errors easily.  I strongly recommend
playing each hole as it built and the full course several times.  Use
four players, one from each tee and note poor looking objects, shots
where you can't tell where to aim, trees in the way of reasonable shots,
visibility of streams and traps, and the direction into the background.
Make adjustments, including rotating those holes to get the right
background.  Keep track of whether you're called on to use every club
in the bag on a round and whether good shots work out and bad ones fail.
I also recommend you send some computer players around to see how they
like the course.  You can send them and sit back and take notes on
minor changes to make.

**MISCELLANEOUS**
Your unique innovation and imagination is what'll set your courses apart.
Offworld, horror settings, and ridiculous elevations may get played once and
thrown away unless they're done superbly.  It turns out most of the JN
golfers are fairly serious about the game and just want well-done "normal"
courses.  That still leaves lots of room for your ideas.
A good way to get ideas is to closely study some of the fine courses
I've mentioned.  You'll find most of these ideas have been implemented
on many courses.

Write a coursename.TXT file with background on the course you have made
and your name and address along with any computer ids so folks can contact
you about your course.  Please DON'T name this something like READ.ME as
that would duplicate existing files.  The .TXT file is important or
author's names will tend to get lost.  Before uploading to a BBS your
course should be collected and compressed.  Most BBS's recommend PKZIP
and it's pretty standard except at Compuserve.  Please don't include a
copy of the PKZIP.EXE within your .ZIP file!  Also, don't include .SAV's.

Finally, to all the folks who I have mentioned or who have built courses
mentioned here... You're here because of the fine work you have done.
A year ago we thought we pushed designing to the limits.  I doubt we're
there yet and look forward to continuing innovation.  Keep up the good work.

Paul Conrad   aka "Treefrog"  (Accolade Lib-Op, not an Accolade employee)