Hello to all.

Pardon the subject title, however it's the only one that came to mind!

I am a new user to your site and I would like to introduce myself and the website where I am an administrator. We are seeking information/knowledge that will help us in our quest. You may need to grab a smoke, as this is a long old post LOL.

There is a video game for the PC, called Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2008, made by EA Sports. In a past issue of this game, the makers included a free course architect program (2006) that enabled fans of the game to design their own courses, for use in the game, whether they are real life recreations or their own fantasy designs.

I am one of these fans and along with many others in the computer gaming world, have been using this program to design both real and fantasy designs.

What I would really like to assure you of straight away, is that we are not designing as part of a commercial or profit making organisation and at no time, do we charge or ask for donations towards the creation of our designs. We are also not affiliated with EA Sports in any way. The course recreations are all freely available via one or more “cyber” golf communities, for the mutual benefit of all. It is simply our hobby and our passion for golf.

Currently, I am on the administration team of a website where we are creating “real life” courses, so that we enhance the fun and sheer excitement of the PC game, whilst also maintaining and creating excitement for the real game of Golf.

In fact, many of our members are real golfers themselves and as there is not 24x7 golf on the TV (especially here in the UK) we turn to the PC game to get our “golf fix” when we are not out on the course! (As a point of interest, Dan Chopra said after his win at Kapalua, that he had played that course on a video game to help learn his way around!)

Our membership has an age range that extends from teenagers right up to retirees and members are situated in all corners of the world, from Japan to the far West coast of Canada! We have a wonderful cross section of golf fans worldwide and it is for them that we design, as I am sure you will understand, many will never have the opportunity for a “real life” round at some of the courses we recreate.

Our current project involves us designing courses that are released freely to members in time to coincide with the real PGA Tour. We then play a weekly online tournament (using EA’s PC game) that attempts to mirror the actual course on the PGA Tour at the time, complete with “life-like” conditions, such as weather and course conditions. It is great fun and we often play partnered up, using various voice communication applications to create extra buzz. It is also great fun playing the PC version of the same course we see on TV that current week, with all the Pro’s playing. Our site is totally free to anyone and you can visit us at http://www.pgax.net

When designing a course, we take great care with regards to detail and use as many research resources as possible, in order to get as close to the real experience as can be possible on a computer game. This will include studying photo’s from the web, reading course notes from both the course website (where available) and the PGA site, using digital elevation models for accurate terrain details and Google earth to locate and recreate the course layout in the architect program.

Amongst our small team of designers, we have people with experience of 3D modelling so we can create structures such as, buildings, grandstands, TV towers etc.

All of this effort is in our own and at our own expense with course designs sometimes taking up to 3 months to complete.

If any of you have the game and play online, chances are that you have already come across the PGAX crew or have downloaded one or more of our courses.

To date, some of our best work includes; Kapalua, The Classic Club (Bob Hope Classic) La Quinta and TPC Scottsdale.

We are always researching and this is one of the main reasons for posting here. We are looking for individuals who may have local knowledge of how a course looks, or maybe they have played the course and can provide some additional thoughts about how the course looks and plays. Maybe some will have photos that they wouldn't mind sharing so that we can do additional research.

For example, we are currently struggling to find sufficient photo coverage of the Tom kite designed golf complex at Coco Beach in Puerto Rico. Does anyone amongst you have any info they wouldn't mind sharing please?

If this post is inappropriate or not in keeping with the norm here, I would of course like to apologise now. However i just wondered if anyone could help out.

Again, we don't sell or charge for anything. We are just a bunch of golfers who are trying something a bit new with a pc version of the beautiful sport.

We can't offer any payment for any help you might be able to supply, however, we would credit your website in the text descriptions of each course and in addition, we could possibly look at a link url for your website to be placed on ours, if that would be of interest.

There may also be the possibility of one of our 3d structures in the game, to carry your website logo, if that would be of interest. We are regarded as the best designers in the cyber community and regularily have over 1500 downloads per course. (Popular courses such as Augusta, will get circa 3,000 downloads!)

Thank you for getting to the end of this post! Please come visit us at http://www.pgax.net and if you see me logged in, say hi!

All the best

Zee