Boy, that was a great course to start your designing career, 12 years ago, Squirrely !
With a nice mountainous panorama (Laurel Ridge pano) and a wide lake below, you came up with a beautiful layout, mixing a few challenging holes with some beautiful ones, especially on the tougher front 9.
But what I liked the most was the work you did on the bunkers, quite original with their high mounds of grass all over, not to mention their odd shapes and their tough placements, often combined with a few small pot bunkers near and around the greens...
After the par-4 1st hole, slightly downhill all the way to the green, but not overly difficult, despite its big bunkers, left and right, and its blind shot toward the green, the downhill par-3 2nd is quite nice with its panoramic view as you reach the green, with a small pot bunker in front (to the left) and a wide bunker behind.
I also like the downhill left dogleg par-5 3rd hole, with its blind tee shot over a small mound on the left landing on an undulated and slanted fairway, with bunkers on the right, and a pot bunker in front of the green (to the left), partially hidden by a couple of trees.
The par-4 5th hole is straight and easy, but looks nice with those unique bunkers on both sides of the fairway, unlike the right dogleg par-5 6th, a little bit tougher with trees in the right corner and a big bunker across halfway through.
If the shorter par-4 7th look similar to the previous hole (without the trees), two of my favorite holes are the left dogleg par-4 8th, with a big bunker spread on the left side and the green downhill in a small basin (with a little pot bunker in front), and the scenic, but short (less than 150 yards), par-3 9th, with the green in a downhill basin, with a bunker all around !
The back 9 starts with the right dogleg par-4 10th hole, quite short (less than 340 yards), but you can forget about reaching the green as trees stand in the way on the right corner and an enormous "pulp-like" bunker awaits your risky tee shot on the left side and across, near the green !
The dogleg par-5 12th hole is pretty, with a big lake on the left side, and is followed by two par-3 holes, the 13th, with a couple of trees guarding the entrance of the green, and the signature 15th, with a nice, but wide, peninsula green.
Finally, after the left dogleg par-4 16th hole and the right dogleg par-4 17th, with a big bunker across around the corner, you will finish your round with another one of my favorite holes, the par-5 18th hole, slightly to the left, with a couple of trees, partially hiding the pot bunker behind, in front of the green, and the pond behind it !
This par 72 may not be the most difficult course you will ever play, but it is definitely one of the best first courses ever designed, as you will surely find out for yourself...

Great course squirrely!! Awesome bunker work. Found the course to be challenging, but fair and playable. Its obvious you had alot of fun designing this one, it shows! can't wait for the encore!

I won't lie, this has felt so good to see this course finally here on CDT this last week, and it's a very good feeling to see this for the 1st time ever. Sorry it took so long to make, and sometimes CA had me so frustrated I didn't l think I would ever see this thing to the finish line. You're so right with how much work it takes to learn how to make a course, and now after walking some of this road, I have even more appreciation for it all. I will try to make courses faster in future, but I'm finding CA can be a nightmare for me at times because I'm ate up with OCD to the bone. Thanks for noticing the changes after testing Craigus10, and glad you liked them. I listened to y'all during testing, and I took your ideas to heart, so I could make a course that made players happy. Just wanted to bring good times to others like other designers have given me, and this is one of the main reasons I got into designing in the 1st place. Plus, glad to hear it's playing better than the test version too because I thought all this work would be for not because of bad performance. Experiences designers helped me big time with ideas to make it play better, and this was very crucial part in getting this course finally done.

Thanks again for the feedback, and the constructive criticism that helps us new designers out with what to do or not do in future designs. This experience has made me feel very good inside, and to see others TW players enjoying it makes all the hard times go away. I have started playing around with some ideas for another course, and trying things out in CA so I learn how this game makes views in the game itself. Trying to learn how to get cool views from tee & fairways this last weekend because this is important for the course I'd like to try to make next. I still really want to make a real course very bad, but me having such a hard time grasping the TA program is slowing down my dream of making a real course......

Thanks again for making this experience one I'll never forget
Squirrely

Thought it was never coming Sir! Not to denigrate your effort but I think the amount of time you spent on learning the ropes and designing this course shows how much hard work it takes.

Must be a very nice feeling to see it here on the site at last. For a first effort its very very good. One slight criticism some of the mounds of grass in the bunkers are a bit on the large size?

Hope you keep it up and give us some more great courses.

Your first course eh!! Nobody likes a show off you know. All kidding aside, this is a super job you have done. Love the layout, the bunkering is amazing and unique, and a great challange to play. You are going to have a tough job topping this one. Masterpiece rating from me.

LOL Sandi, You actually made me cough up my coffee when I read that one, very flattering...... :)

Forgot to mention this beforehand. Munroco made that cool logo, splash, and made the killer Squirrel flag too(My wife just loves the critter on flag). I was tickled pink when he did this, and My wife & I loved it when I seen what he did, and it was very kind to do this for me.

Thanks again everyone for taking the time to leave comments. This has made all this work trying to learn this stuff much more worth the wild when you read others are playing a course you worked on. Please fire away too, so I can get feel for what others don't like so I can improve to become a better designer. Must say this is very cool feeling to finally feel like a real designer after having two courses I help make played by others this last week. I feel like a real designers now than beforehand, and it's a great feeling to reach my goal of seeing a full course through to end, but I still have many more dues to play before reaching where other cool designers have reached by bringing sooooo many cool courses to us TW players. I've enjoyed their courses very much so, and just hope I can bring the same feeling they gave me to others like they have. I really found out just how much work it takes to make a course, and the appreciation I have for what designers do, went even higher than it was beforehand.

Danut, Ok I will remember this for future courses. I tried the last two days to add all kind of different plantings to the perimeter, and even tried mixing a few short style trees on course itself too to mix things up some, but my lack of CA knowledge hurt me when making this course big time. I had to do all kind of things after testing to make it play better for lower end PC's too. Plus, I found trying find happy ground for all playing levels very challenging to do. I did perimeter trees last, and when I added many different trees to perimeter with the big Oak like trees, they took the FPS down to much to keep them. I will surely try harder to get where I can make course that isn't so taxing next time. Your so right too with staying constant, I figured it would be opposite with the greens being more flat on back 9 after I learned what expert players go through when playing TW, but not sure since this course took so long for me to make. I kinda lost the feel with how it flowed, and will have to actual play a real rd on it to see how things are so I can improve with things. Was kinda weird learning new things all the time, and then trying to stay the same throughout the course. I found staying constant one of the hardest parts to do, and hopefully I get better with time. Plus, performance is sometime I going to work on the most for next course I try to make.

Thanks again, and now I'm off to squeeze in 3 tour rds in 15 hrs, should be fun trying to do this.... :O
Squirrely

Squirrely if you are good in bed like your course is good play gr8 job lol all joking aside XX course love Sandi !!!!

A Beautiful course,great job. C:

Squirrely, agh no wonder! I cannot recall which hole but I had a cracking drive of the Tee and when I got there ugh! I found myself staring at a tree bang in front of me. So yes you need to think out the tee shot, ha! no wonder i had soem tricky 2nd shots!

What a great first course, very well made and a lot of thought went into the layout obviously. Many really interesting holes. I started with an 8 and finished 5 over on Expert/very dry/breezy, so a good challenge but not ridiculously hard. Congratulations on a super course.

This is a more than perfect example of how a new designer comes in, reads every tutorial he can find, asks questions, after trying his best to find the answer on his own. Actually listens to what others have to say, processes that and thru trial and error, finds what works best for him. Then having his course tested as many times as he can, helps out others in testing their courses (gr8 for learning). He produces one fine course!! Super Super job Squirrel man, you should be very proud.. Of course it helps to have a natural talent for this stuff, which I know you do bro..
You have blown me away!!!

You should be very proud of this your first course Squirrely. It both looks and plays great! That logo for your course is also very cool. I don't play many fantasy courses but for me this one is a keeper. Thanks so much for sharing this will all of us and great success on the next ones as I'm sure they will be as good or better.
Dale

got it Squirrely...had to just download the course.....cuddnt "create my zip file".........wow...gr8 job, especially 4 first time around........will be anticipating your future efforts 4 sure.....thanks a bunch

Update: Squirrely reuploaded course (v2), problems should be fixed now.

congratulations on a super first course. the bunkers are excellent. elevation changes work very well and the water textures are spot on. IMHO you have set the bar very high for yourself. it will be very hard to top this one but I am sure the course police will find some fault with it. not me!!! great job!!! recommend download to everyone!!! thanks for this one.