How to map a Golf Course.

[Nickvet419]

List of categories to use while mapping a golf course:

Golf Course - (boundary)  The golf course land.

Golf Course - Fairway (boundary) Short cut grass path to the hole.

Golf Course - Putting Green (boundary) Short cut grass area used to put into the hole.

Golf Course - Hole (point) The hole itself.

Golf Course - Rough (boundary) Tall uncut grass.

Golf Course - Sand Bunker (boundary) Sand pit.

Golf Course - Tee (boundary) Area from which ball is initially hit.

Golf Course - Golf Shop (point) Where to purchase golf time and items.

1. Add the boundary of the Golf course itself and set the category as Golf Course. 

2. Outline the Fairways. Use satellite view at full zoom to be able to see where the fairways actually are. Many golf courses have these areas well defined. 

3. Trace the Putting Greens next. Because the greens and golf course layer color are very close it works best if you outline the fringe with the fairway category and outline the greens on top of that.

4. Mark the Hole as a point feature as you can see the small circle in the picture below. It does not have to be exact as golf courses often move the location of their holes around the green. 

5. Outline the entire Tee locations. There may be multiple tee's per hole. Mark each area separately.

6. Outline the Sand Bunkers and Roughs accordingly. 

7. Outline an water hazards.

8. Outline any buildings on the golf course.

9. Mark the Golf Shop as a point.

10. Mark any golf cart paths as a Road with the priority = no auto traffic.

The ent result should look something like this.

 

[Nickvet419]

Forgot to add Golf Driving Range, Simply outline the the driving range area.

[Ramu]

Hi Nick,

This article is very lucid and easy to understand.

Lots of mappers could benefit from your work if you go ahead and post this article on the Map Makerpedia.

Currently we are in the process of gathering all Map Maker related content created by mappers like you so that both new and experienced mappers can learn and benefit from your work. Please use this form to add the content.

Looking forward to more articles like this from you :)

Thanks and Regards,

Ram Mohan

[Blake [Brak]]

Nice work! That's one pretty golf course!

[I MAP]

Good work Nick

[Nickvet419]

thanks,  did that.

[Saikrishna Arcot]

Amazing gold course! Maybe I can try to do one near me.

[Saikrishna Arcot]

I meant "golf", but gold pretty much describes the quality.

[Nickvet419]

looking at the Rough feature from other maps, It seems like that should be added first basically outlining the entire hole. Then the other features could be added on top of that.

[Nickvet419]

would look like this.

[Jaxcoffee]

See post here.

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/google-mapmaker/Fc43EUpdDZo

[Alex Hempton]

Thanks for the useful information.  I just tried my hand at mapping out the Balboa Park 9-Hole Executive Golf Course.  There's also an 18-Hole Golf Course across the street from it, but I have to take a break!  

http://www.google.com/mapmaker?gw=10&qmo=myedits_pending&hl=en&ll=32.722247,-117.135834&spn=0.009802,0.018711&z=16&vpid=1318021070989&lyt=large_map&hyaw=311.77139075121187

[Alex Hempton]

I labeled each hole, but none of the numbers seem to show up on the published version of the Golf Course.  It seems like some sort of hole # should be published, no?

[Nickvet419]

Looks great!  As of now, the hole numbers do not get rendered on the map. Maybe that can be requested on future map displays. 

[Serge]

Hi, Nickvet419. Have a look this Golf Course

A Rough feature are cover all others, exluding a Tee. What I did wrong? Can you suggest something or even help with this Course? Feel free to delete/add a features.

Herewith a plan of this Golf Course:

[Jaxcoffee]

Fairways and other features aren't rendering correctly on top of the rough boundary. You have to cut in and around the other features with the rough boundary for them to show correctly.

Here are a couple of examples.

http://g.co/maps/af8fd

http://g.co/maps/f8sgq

http://g.co/maps/be4xb

http://g.co/maps/nxd6n

I have been working with a couple of GR's in trying to get the rendering situation straightened out, and they are working on it, so hopefully the workflow for doing courses will improve.

[Alex Hempton]

Yeah it definitely seems like the hole numbers would be useful - and what should be named the hole #?  For example I was naming things:

Hole 1 Fairway

Hole 1 Tee

Hole 1

[Serge]

@Alex Hempton: I added the hole numbers, but these categories do not display the name.

[Alex Hempton]

@Serge - yeah, it seems like they should at least show the Hole #... hopefully Google will update to do that.

[Jaxcoffee]

Create a hole number name with a POI!

[Nickvet419]

Hey Serge, You mapped out the rough correctly. the problem is that it does not render on the map correctly at the moment so I would discontinue mapping the rough for now until the problem is fixed. I made out a report on the issue tracker here 2054.   Here is the mappedia article I wrote on how to map a golf course  https://sites.google.com/site/mapmakerpedia/how-to-map-a-golf-cours 

[Nickvet419]

@Alex, Giving the poly's names is a great way to organize and help keep them from being deleted as duplicates. Only the names do not get published on google maps. 

Adding wrong categories to a feature to get it to render is not the correct way to solve a rendering problem. Submit a report here http://code.google.com/p/google-mapmaker/ and request the feature to be rendered differently on the map.

[Jaxcoffee]

You are correct Nick, but there is a workaround. I showed four examples in a previous post.

[Franklin Ruiz]

Hi, I'm new on this and I have a question about boundaries. The Golf Course I need to publish in Google MapMaker is not simple because all the golf area are inside a mass residential, condominiums, restaurant and tennis course.

Here is an image of the golf course, and my question is Do I have to define the boundary including the whole area or it is possible to create the boundaries of golf course separated pieces?

Any help is appreciated.

[Nicholas Vetrovec]

Should be made in one feature.  Use the add Cut out tools where needed. 

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[Franklin Ruiz]

Thx.

On Friday, December 21, 2012 3:56:04 PM UTC-6, Nicholas Vetrovec wrote:

Should be made in one feature.  Use the add Cut out tools where needed. 

[Jet Martin]

Nicholas (and anyone who might have relevant info), I'm looking for a source for GPS mapped golfer courses (Long/Lat for each hole and relevant geographic features (e.g., markers for Front/Middle/Back of green, Tee locations, Hazard locations, etc.). I'm looking to build a GPS Golf app for smartphones.  Does anyone know if Google has any plans to provide this type of data through one of their products.

Thanks in advance,

Jet Martin  

On Thursday, September 22, 2011 8:05:54 PM UTC-7, Nicholas Vetrovec wrote:

List of categories to use while mapping a golf course:

Golf Course - (boundary)  The golf course land.

Golf Course - Fairway (boundary) Short cut grass path to the hole.

Golf Course - Putting Green (boundary) Short cut grass area used to put into the hole.

Golf Course - Hole (point) The hole itself.

Golf Course - Rough (boundary) Tall uncut grass.

Golf Course - Sand Bunker (boundary) Sand pit.

Golf Course - Tee (boundary) Area from which ball is initially hit.

Golf Course - Golf Shop (point) Where to purchase golf time and items.

1. Add the boundary of the Golf course itself and set the category as Golf Course. 

2. Outline the Fairways. Use satellite view at full zoom to be able to see where the fairways actually are. Many golf courses have these areas well defined. 

3. Trace the Putting Greens next. Because the greens and golf course layer color are very close it works best if you outline the fringe with the fairway category and outline the greens on top of that.

4. Mark the Hole as a point feature as you can see the small circle in the picture below. It does not have to be exact as golf courses often move the location of their holes around the green. 

5. Outline the entire Tee locations. There may be multiple tee's per hole. Mark each area separately.

6. Outline the Sand Bunkers and Roughs accordingly. 

7. Outline an water hazards.

8. Outline any buildings on the golf course.

9. Mark the Golf Shop as a point.

10. Mark any golf cart paths as a Road with the priority = no auto traffic.

The ent result should look something like this.

 

[DdDave]

I doubt Google is going to get into the business of golf course GPS apps, it's far to specific of a market.  Google is not in the habit of letting 3rd parties have access to their data either, so I don't think you will be able to get their data and use it for your app.

[Jet Martin]

Dave,  agree...I wouldn't think they would but you never know. It looks like through Google earth you can view golf course maps (outlines of courses...just not hole specific information). But that said even getting access to their "outline" GPS coordinates would be of some benefit.

I would hate to license data from some source only to find out that Google or MS Bing has near term plans (within 24 mos)  to enrich their map data that would give me what I need. FYI....Most Golf GPS apps for smartphones display satellite images of courses using Google Maps or Bing...so not sure what you mean by not letting 3rd parties use their data...perhaps you are referencing data that Google creates and layers on top of satellite imagery that they get from USGS?

Thoughts/Comments?

Regards,

Jet 

On Tue, Jan 8, 2013 at 10:03 AM, DdDave via General Map Maker <google-mapmaker+noreply-APn2wQdF...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

I doubt Google is going to get into the business of golf course GPS apps, it's far to specific of a market.  Google is not in the habit of letting 3rd parties have access to their data either, so I don't think you will be able to get their data and use it for your app.

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Regards,

Jet Martin

[DdDave]

Displaying the images from Google Maps is one thing, but the data for the tees, bunkers, pins, etc... is probably not coming from Google, the app provider or golf course is likely providing that info and then the app would overlay it onto the satellite imagery from Google.  I'm pretty sure Google does not give out the raw data associated with any mapped entities.

[Jet Martin]

Dave, 

Thanks for clarifying. I've just starting to try and figure out how to use Google Earth/Maps to create golf course views. There was a lot of discussion in the post thread about layering data on map...and issues/problems related to that. To display a map I'm wondering if all I need really is just enough data points (long/lat) to be able to outline each hole? Of course ultimately I would need more data than that to make a map useful for a Golf GPS application (e.g., Tee location, Mid of Green location, Front of Green Location, Back of Green location, Location of Hazards, etc.). And this is where the challenge arises...I think there are some 40K+ golf courses available in the world. 

I did notice that Google seems to have outlined the courses in Google Earth...I was hoping that I could at minimum use that outline as a starting point and layer on additional data (as referenced above) to build a course map. You seem long/latt outline data wouldn't be assessible programmatically, right? 

I still hoping that I will find a source for the Golf Course data that is reasonably priced and ideally accessible via an API. It's hard for me to imagine that each of these Golf Course GPS apps manually mapped out 20-30K golf courses...there must be some data source that they have used.

Hoping that someone on this post will see my post and contact me. 

Regards,
Jet   

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Regards,

Jet Martin