Have you ever been surprised by an aerial?

[Peter Pallotta]

Have you ever played a golf course and then, when later looking at an aerial view/overhead routing map of the course, found yourself being surprised/taken aback by what you saw? Has what you felt, on the ground, walking and playing a course, ever been at odds with what the aerial/overhead is telling you?

Peter

[Anthony_Nysse]

All the time. Look at the most recent aerial on nearmap.com of Seminole Golf Club. (Aug 2015) LOTS of fairway lines being moved this summer to be closer to bunker edges. Also can see all the courses aerifying and/or doing construction in our area.

[JC Jones]

All the time. Look at the most recent aerial on nearmap.com of Seminole Golf Club. (Aug 2015) LOTS of fairway lines being moved this summer to be closer to bunker edges. Also can see all the courses aerifying and/or doing construction in our area.

Holy smokes!  Looks great.

[Adam Clayman]

P2, Red Lawrence's Desert Forest fits your bill. Although. I saw the aerial then played, the bowling alley straight lines on the aerial are non existent on the ground. The movement of that ground is so well done it defies description. All done with hand and horse labor in 1962 Arizona.

[Peter Pallotta]

Thanks, Adam - that's an excellent description (and explanation i.e. the ground movements so well done). The 100 year old, 9-hole Guelph Country Club also surprises: yes, in playing it I'm struck by how few bunkers and water features one encounters, and then indeed the aerial confirms that there are only 14 bunkers and 1 pond. But on the other hand, the aerial shows a compact site/routing on a small piece of tree-lined land, but in the playing I feel anything but cramped, and the fairways are wide, and the trees do not impinge on play at all; and the constant and relatively dramatic elevation changes makes the playing a much different experience than I'd expect from the aerial.
Peter 

[Jim_Kennedy]

Yale -back in the mid '80s it was pretty 'overgrown' and I never realized that many of holes were pretty near each other. Some years later I saw an aerial and was surprised to see just how close they were.

[Dave McCollum]

Check out the timeline photos in G Earth of ANGC looking for one in the heat of summer.  Greens and bunkers shaded with tarps, construction going on, massive top dressing, etc.  I looked because I read somewhere that it looked really bad.  To me it didn’t.  It just looked like a golf course being intensively maintained—not for golf but being prepared for a future show.         

[Ben Hollerbach]

For me the reaction has always been the other way. Going to a new course I'll always look up the aerial before I go. Numerous times during the round I find myself thinking "this is not how I envisioned this hole at all" The two biggest that come to mind is how the 3rd hole at Monifieth Ashludie fit in the routing and the 6th hole at Belvedere.

[Kalen Braley]

For me its always been looking at places like Bandon Resort.
 
Some of the holes are not hard to spot as they either have distinctive fairway cuts or are routed thru the forests....but on other parts of the property all you see if bunkers and the occasional green, and if you hadn't played there before, you'd wonder how the hell the routing goes...

[Joe Bausch]

Surprised a bit by the aerial of Ferry Point from July of 2014 as the Google Earth shot nicely captured an airplane above the course!


http://xchem.villanova.edu/~bausch/images/albums/FerryPoint/pages/page_3.html

[Matthew Petersen]

P2, Red Lawrence's Desert Forest fits your bill. Although. I saw the aerial then played, the bowling alley straight lines on the aerial are non existent on the ground. The movement of that ground is so well done it defies description. All done with hand and horse labor in 1962 Arizona.

I would agree. While on the course, it feels like a bigger site than it is, and the holes don't feel right on top of each other, though they sort of are and you can become aware of this if you're spraying it.


But more than anything the course on an aerial looks like a lot of mostly straight east-west holes. Playing it, there feels like there's a lot of movement, both in the land and the holes themselves.

[Andrew Buck]

Have you ever played a golf course and then, when later looking at an aerial view/overhead routing map of the course, found yourself being surprised/taken aback by what you saw? Has what you felt, on the ground, walking and playing a course, ever been at odds with what the aerial/overhead is telling you?

Peter

Normally, I'm surprised by an actual course after only looking at aerials prior to the first play.

[RJ_Daley]

Of course the aerials of Google and Bing do not have contour lines.  I am always surprised before playing and looking at the google map aerial, or after at how high or dramatic mounds, slopes and such are.  I am fair at reading and imagining an aerial topo with 2foot on ele contour lines.  I can usually envision the steepness of a slope by the spread of distance of the contour lines, but even with a bit of having walked several properties and laid out potential routings with tope map aids, I really need to see the actual land to really have a decent idea of how it lays.  I was quite amazed by Tom Doak's capacity in that regard once when he showed us a topo and concept routing of Pac Dunes.  Of course it is his craft and trade and all.... but I"m easily mesmerized by shiny spoons. 

[Brett Wiesley]

I look at google maps often before playing, and find it helps me appreciate the routing, especially and internally looping one, or one that crosses itself.  You can sometimes appreciate hills/valleys and mounds by shadowing, but not always.  Also there are times when I see homes, and then when playing find they are comfortably set back or landscaped and do not impose on the course. 

[Sean_A]

Yes, an early, but not initial aerial of ANGC...the bunker scheme was enthralling.


Ciao

[Paul Stephenson]

Thanks, Adam - that's an excellent description (and explanation i.e. the ground movements so well done). The 100 year old, 9-hole Guelph Country Club also surprises: yes, in playing it I'm struck by how few bunkers and water features one encounters, and then indeed the aerial confirms that there are only 14 bunkers and 1 pond. But on the other hand, the aerial shows a compact site/routing on a small piece of tree-lined land, but in the playing I feel anything but cramped, and the fairways are wide, and the trees do not impinge on play at all; and the constant and relatively dramatic elevation changes makes the playing a much different experience than I'd expect from the aerial.
Peter

That looks like a nice course.  Will have to try it when we visit the in-laws next.  They're about 10 minutes from there.