Golf Architecture Pictures website

[Frank Pont]

I have just started a website called www.GolfArchitecturePictures.com with the specific goal of showing a large selection of pictures of many different golf courses around the world (such as the tough and beautiful 17th hole of Carne Belmullet shown below).



By putting my collection of golf course pictures online, I wanted to make it possible for other golf enthousiasts all over the world to benefit from accessing and using these pictures.

The emphasis of the site will not be on showing the best quality pictures of golf courses, but rather on showing a large number of details of holes, greens, tees, bunkers, water hazards etc of many golf courses.

So far I have uploaded pictures of 65 golf courses in Ireland, UK, Holland, Belgium, France and Germany. In the next few weeks pictures of another 65 golf courses will follow. Unfortunately the quality of some of the the older pics is not not so great, but I hope to replace them over time, either with newer pictures I made myself or using pictures from other contributors .....

The goal is to continue adding pictures of interesting golf courses from around the globe to this site, if possible aided by other golf players/architects/enthusiasts who are also willing to SHARE their treasured pictures they have built up over many years. (I kind of see this as an Open Source golf course pictures project).

The site will NOT BE COMMERCIAL, but rather will be a free visual encyclopedia for people interested in classic, modern, links, parkland, beautiful or even ugly and poor golf courses.

Visitors of the site are allowed to download medium resolution samples of the pictures for non-commercial use, however the copyright remains with the person who made the picture. Permission is required from the person who made the picture before any commercial use; e-mail links are provided with the web photo galleries.

Next to downloading people can also link to the pictures on the site, say during a discussion on Golf Club Atlas.

The long term vision is to develop a site with tons of pictures of hundreds/thousands of golf courses. A site where it is possible to look up a picture of a typical Colt bunker at Swinley Forest, a McKenzie green at Alwoodley, a Doak hole on Barnbougle Dunes and a Pete Dye water hazard at TPC Sawgrass etc etc....

People interested in contributing pictures should see if they have pictures of courses that are on the list (or should be on the list) but which are not yet covered (these courses are not underlined). Alternatively, if you have newer, more detailed or better quality pictures of courses that are covered, these are also more than welcome.

What are the requirements of the pictures? In terms of quality they should be made with a 3 Mega Pixels digital camera or better (the pics on the site are 1024 x 768 pixels). In terms of quantity golf course pictures should include views from the tee, landing area, green , bunkers, hazards etc. In most cases between 100 to 200 pictures per 18 holes golf course gives enough detail.

You can either send your pictures on a CD-Rom or DVD-Rom to the address on the website, or zip the files and send them to the email address on the website using a service like www.YouSendIt.com. Please send the pictures full size. Ofcourse all contibutors will be named/acknowledged on the site.

I am also interested in your input and help on listing the relevant golf courses per country/state. For the European countries I am using my own experience aided by the Peugeot guide, but I'm sure I have also missed a number of gems that should be on the list...

Finally, all your feedback and comments about the site will be much appreciated.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Frank,
What a great idea. However, I find that on Golf Club Atlas, as well as the majority of website discussion groups that 800 pixels wide is most sufficient for viewing them for use in discussion groups.

Also, I have had both great success and failure with sending stuff on YouSendIt. It helps to be registered, but still, for some reason it's very inconsistent. and it's just not my computer either. It's on several that I have tried sending from. Most of them brand new computers!

[Steve_Roths]

Frank- what an incredible site!!!!

Great job.  I look forward to the courses being filled in over the years.

[Tom Dunne]

Great stuff, Frank. This site will be a nice resource for GCAers, and many others. I'm planning on getting a new digital camera soon--hopefully I can contribute some shots at some point....

[Ryan Farrow]

Nice work. I appreciate what you are doing but may I suggest the addition of historic photos? At least for many Golden Age courses the difference from a picture take in 1920 and 2006 is incredible.

[cary lichtenstein]

Terrific....Bravo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Jin Kim]

Great idea.

[Brendan Dolan]

Awesome!

[Dan_Callahan]

Frank,

Are you planning on offering any descriptions to correspond with the photos? I love looking at the photos from Ireland and, since I haven't played any of the courses, was wondering which holes I was looking at (and with closeups of hazards, where on the course they are located).

[Jack_Marr]

I have just started a website called www.GolfArchitecturePictures.com with the specific goal of showing a large selection of pictures of many different golf courses around the world (such as the tough and beautiful 17th hole of Carne Belmullet shown below).



By putting my collection of golf course pictures online, I wanted to make it possible for other golf enthousiasts all over the world to benefit from accessing and using these pictures.

The emphasis of the site will not be on showing the best quality pictures of golf courses, but rather on showing a large number of details of holes, greens, tees, bunkers, water hazards etc of many golf courses.

So far I have uploaded pictures of 65 golf courses in Ireland, UK, Holland, Belgium, France and Germany. In the next few weeks pictures of another 65 golf courses will follow. Unfortunately the quality of some of the the older pics is not not so great, but I hope to replace them over time, either with newer pictures I made myself or using pictures from other contributors .....

The goal is to continue adding pictures of interesting golf courses from around the globe to this site, if possible aided by other golf players/architects/enthusiasts who are also willing to SHARE their treasured pictures they have built up over many years. (I kind of see this as an Open Source golf course pictures project).

The site will NOT BE COMMERCIAL, but rather will be a free visual encyclopedia for people interested in classic, modern, links, parkland, beautiful or even ugly and poor golf courses.

Visitors of the site are allowed to download medium resolution samples of the pictures for non-commercial use, however the copyright remains with the person who made the picture. Permission is required from the person who made the picture before any commercial use; e-mail links are provided with the web photo galleries.

Next to downloading people can also link to the pictures on the site, say during a discussion on Golf Club Atlas.

The long term vision is to develop a site with tons of pictures of hundreds/thousands of golf courses. A site where it is possible to look up a picture of a typical Colt bunker at Swinley Forest, a McKenzie green at Alwoodley, a Doak hole on Barnbougle Dunes and a Pete Dye water hazard at TPC Sawgrass etc etc....

People interested in contributing pictures should see if they have pictures of courses that are on the list (or should be on the list) but which are not yet covered (these courses are not underlined). Alternatively, if you have newer, more detailed or better quality pictures of courses that are covered, these are also more than welcome.

What are the requirements of the pictures? In terms of quality they should be made with a 3 Mega Pixels digital camera or better (the pics on the site are 1024 x 768 pixels). In terms of quantity golf course pictures should include views from the tee, landing area, green , bunkers, hazards etc. In most cases between 100 to 200 pictures per 18 holes golf course gives enough detail.

You can either send your pictures on a CD-Rom or DVD-Rom to the address on the website, or zip the files and send them to the email address on the website using a service like www.YouSendIt.com. Please send the pictures full size. Ofcourse all contibutors will be named/acknowledged on the site.

I am also interested in your input and help on listing the relevant golf courses per country/state. For the European countries I am using my own experience aided by the Peugeot guide, but I'm sure I have also missed a number of gems that should be on the list...

Finally, all your feedback and comments about the site will be much appreciated.

Great site Frank. I'm particularly pleased you chose the 17th in Carne for this website, as it is one of the most wonderful and difficult holes I've encountered... My favorate hole in golf.

[Paul Jones]

Frank,

This is great and I am sure a lot of people will enjoy your site.  I am always looking for sites like this one to help out when planning a trip, especially overseas.

Thanks,
Paul

[Peter Pratt]

Frank,

What a great site!

Could you tell me which hole is on your home page--roly poly fairway with pines (I think) down one side...

Thanks,

Peter

[Brent Hutto]

Peter,

The course is Royal Hague. You know, in the Netherlands. Surely anyone would recognize that!

[Peter Pratt]

Brent,

Thanks--I'm learning more evry day!!

[Dan Kelly]

Frank Pont --

Thank you. I have already bookmarked your site, and
will consult it regularly.

One observation: A picture may be (and very often is)
worth a thousand words ... but a few well-chosen words
certainly can add to the value of the picture.

Are you planning to have any captions? Nothing extensive is
needed -- but just something like "Tee shot, No. 1, Par 4, 390 yards"
would add immeasurably to the experience.

[ForkaB]

Brilliant idea and pictures, Frank.  Thanks

Rich

[Paul_Turner]

Nice one Frank.  I'll get some over to you.

I haven't had time yet to look through the Berlin Wannasee pics.  But I think the 3rd 9 holes is the one to see there (even if short)?  Did you see it?

[Frank Pont]

Gents, what a response!

Let me respond in sequence:

Tommy, I thought hard about the resolution. I found that often the pics on the GCA discussions were not detailed enough for my liking, I guess its subjective. Also most people now have screen resolutions of 1284 X 1024 or larger (17 inch screens or larger). YouSendIt has failed me once, but I can imagine it isn't reliable; any suggestions for other services?

Ryan, I wish I had the historic pictures... most of the historic (Colt) courses I am working with have virtually no old pictures, but anything you guys can get me will be put on the site...

Dan and Dan, I thought about captions, but to be honest I just don't see how I can make time for that next to my full time job as a golf architect.... maybe I'll find an smart way to get around it without tons of inputs (I've got 25,000 pictures of golf courses). In any case, in almost all cases I walk and therefor photgraphed courses from hole 1 to hole 18 in a linear fashion, so if you keep count while going though the pics you can deduce which hole/tee it is... I am still considering putting masterplans/strokesavers in per course... if only I had more time...

Paul, I still have the UK (Colt) pics you sent me last year, are you Ok if I put them on the site? Also could you send me the Morfontaine pics? I think you are confusing Berlin Wannsee (old English style layout in Berlin) with Sporting Club Berlin (way outside B), which has a Faldo, Palmer and Stan Eby course. I liked the Eby course best, although most people flock to the Faldo course (Eby was also very involved with that one I guess). Schloss Wilkenstein outside Berlin (Sandy Lyle) was also a very good course...

Received message from Chis Hunt (former classmate in Edinburgh GCA studies) that he is sending me extensive pictures of some 200 courses, which is exciting news (he was even more addicted to making pics than I was).

Hope that I can entice more of you guys to start making extensive pics of the courses you are playing, even if it just is your homecourse, with a digital camera. Make 200 pics next time you play, you'll be surprised how easy it is and little time it takes. Burn the pics and send them over, lets keep this thing going!

Also can still very much use input for the courses I need to list for the US stares, Canada, Oz, NZ and SA.....

The Email info@golfarchitecturepictures.com is the best place to send your comments and inputs....

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Frank,
 I too am all for seeing the detail myself, but it drives me nuts when someone posts an image that you literally have to move the mouse all over the place to really see the image, especially if it's not showing any detail!

That size will be fine!

As far as YouSendIt, I'll send you one I took in a bit! (via YouSendIt.)

[Ryan Farrow]

Frank,

Other file uploading sites that I know are reliable:

http://www.sendspace.com/ (best of the 3)

http://rapidshare.de/

http://www.megashares.com/

[Mark_Guiniven]

Fantastic idea Frank. Are you going to have any Royal Worlington?

[Frank Pont]

Mark,

good point, I'll add it to the list, but I don't have pics of it yet. I hope the Brittish contingent will step forward and help out....

[Paul_Turner]

Frank

Of course you can use those pics I sent you.

Regarding Berlin Wannsee:  I'm pretty certain that the 9 hole course is Colt/Morrison.  I've seen this par 3 in an old magazine just after build:



Side on:


Classic Colt and Co shaping.


It looks more interesting than the 18 hole course there.  Did you see it?  Had a quick look through your pics and couldn't find that par 3.  (I think Peter Alliss's father Percy was the pro there).

www.glcbw.de

[George Pazin]

You might not be emphasizing photo quality, but you're doing a damn good job of it anyway.

Thanks.

Terrific photo on your intro page to your website as well, btw.

[Brent Hutto]

Side on:


Classic Colt and Co shaping.

Paul, I'm not fully oriented on this picture. What is the pad in the right foreground? Is it a forward tee for this hole?

If so, that's a darned tough angle for whatever short hitter chooses that tee. I hope it is the up tee box, it's always nice to see a short tee with a challenge equal to or greater than that faced from the longer player hitting from all the way back...