Jim, sounds like you were on the right track. I don't know how others do it but I will route the course first then go back and explore each hole for it's strategy. However, when routing, I will look for holes that work well with the topo and try to find interesting features to exploit. I look primarily for greensites and work backwards. But first, the most important thing to locate is the clubhouse. This takes up at least 5 acres and needs good access. It directly impacts the location of 4 holes (1,9,10,18) if your doing returning 9's. Indirectly 2,8,11,17. Plus the practice area - about 12 acres. Next is the maintenance compound - 2 acres and semi-truck accesss. Knowing the locatioin of necessary utilitiesis very important because extending these services can be very expensive.
This first routing is just centerline sticks with 60'x100' ovals for greens and a retangle for the tee.
Next, identifiy the features/hazards of the hole. Finally, sketch in the fairway. Now go up to the greens and chart back to find the distances for the up tees and locate them.
It is very informative to put all 18 holes side by side on a wall to look for redundancies.
Also, make a chart showing club selection by charting out the various tee players to see if a wide variety of clubs is used (or is every hole driver, 9 iron?)
Finally, blow the greens up to a large scale and put them on the wall side by side.
Garland, I'm surprised they shot you apart, I actually liked what you were attempting to do. TEP National. I think where you got into trouble was not being able to relate the 2-d to 3-d in your head (maybe I'm wrong) and ended up with alot of blindness. I agree, that software looked cumbersome to learn. Luckily, I have mastered by CAD yrs ago and could whip out a presentation colored course plan in a couple days. Faster by hand. I liked how you were not trying to route 'through' the landforms but rather incorporating them into the holes. But in this legal world, it might be hard to find enough Professional Liability Insurance to design blind holes.
Here's a funny 17 hole design story - when dad and his partner Ken Killian were early in their careers, they were working all day on trying to get a routing down for a meeting they had with a protential client the next day. Finnally around midnight, dad got one. Since they had about six hours of driving, they grab Kens station wagon, Dick drove and Ken got in back and drew/colored it up. Bleary-eyed, they arrived for their meeting and rolled out the plan. The client was going though the holes and finnally looked up and said "there's only 17 here". Dad said all he think was "so much fo getting this one" until Ken, who has a great sense of humor retorted "of course we only showed 17 - if you sign a contract we'll show you where the 18th goes".