Courses with multiple designers

[MrT]

I was wondering how, when designers cooperate in creating a new golf course or to modify an existing one, they divide the tasks among themselves. I mean, does one designer takes care of fairways, another one of greens, etc.. or do they take the lead in creating a certain number of holes each ?

[sagevanni]

Hi MrT,

Leo, Glenn................hope you don't mind and you guys can certainly add anything.

Since you asked...................

Myself, Glenn Braden and Leo Allen are on "our team" so to speak.

We all agree on a course to attempt to recreate in APCD for Links 2003.

Leo places elevation information at certain points on the course terrain. I convert those points into real terrain elevations in APCD and lay out the entire course with basic seam blending and all that. Glenn at any undetermined point takes the course from me and does the green contours. I get the course back to finalize anything that needs looking at. I then send the course to Leo for checking multiple times to get everything in order. It then goes to Glenn for 3D work and planting.

We all have our part but Leo and Glenns work is for me the most important part.

Sage................

[gator]

I would say that it is Sage and Glenn who do the most important work on our collaborations.

Leo

More to come...

[MrT]

Interesting. I would not have imagined, but it makes sense after all. Thank you for the answer. It is a complex endeavor, it seems; high tech stuff.

If I may ask. Who is usually responsible for cup placements on greens? I am not asking about the specific name but, the way you divide the tasks, who would be the decision maker about pin placements? If anyone is.

I assume that, at least for real courses, there is data about that. However, one faces probably tough decisions because designers do not know at what green speed setting their game is going to be used. If I knew how to use APCD, I would find the stimp of the course and design the layouts based on that, but I reckon that it could not be always ideal since players, at least in the early phases, would not play at those settings. Would it be possible for a designer to make a certain pin placement available or not available based on the selected green speed? This question is not motivated by any personal gripe, but I noticed that if I select firmness and speed as set by designers, often the game is not what I expected (except Augusta perhaps and very few others)

I am asking this for I have noticed several differing "styles" in this sense. Some greens have pin placements that work in nearly all green settings, except maybe one or two. Others, half of the settings are troublesome past a certain speed and firmness. On old courses, I can understand, but on newer courses I wonder why it is so. The way Sage described the process sounds highly technical and scientific. Yet, it is not unusual to come across "unhappy pin placements".

I do not believe that there is a "rule" about where pins can or cannot be, but the USGA has recommendations like:
https://golftips.golfweek.usatoday.com/ ... 20540.html
https://archive.lib.msu.edu/tic/golfd/a ... 5mar92.pdf

And I cannot help wondering how come there is so much attention to details, but cup placements, often but not always, do not receive a similar attention.

[braden1308]

Real courses, elevation, textures, planting, it's all very important when you are trying to re-create a course. Not so much with fictional courses, you have more leeway there. Sage and Leo do fantastic work, I just wish I had more free time to keep up

Generally I plant the pins, I try to plant them as fair as possible but once in a while they get away from you.

Glenn

[Jimbo]

...and Ii nitpick.
But I've always suspected that Sage was just the name of an APCD design company.