Building Your Own Golf Simulator Course, From Sketch to Shared File

Custom golf simulator courses are the fastest way to keep a simulator interesting once you have played the built-in layouts a few dozen times. Some people only want new places to play. Others want to rebuild the course they grew up on, or invent something that could never exist on a golf map. The first decision is which of those you are, because it determines whether you need an editor, a library of downloads or a full design project.

Whichever route you take, the program you choose matters more than any single course. A course is a file that only works in the software it was built for, and not every launch monitor works with every program that supports user courses. Settle those two questions before you spend a weekend on terrain.

How we put this together: we compared published developer information, community documentation and owner reports, then applied the criteria below. We don't accept free gear, and links may earn us a commission.

Build one or download one? Decide first

Most people who search for custom courses want one of three things, and each one leads to a different amount of work. Pick the option that fits before you install anything.

• You want variety, not a project. Download community courses from a platform that hosts them. If the goal is simply more places to play, a large library matters more than the editor. Our rundown of simulators with the most courses shows where the biggest collections are.
• You want to play your home club. Search before you build. Someone may already have made a version, and a finished download saves months of tracing satellite images. If nothing exists, you are looking at a recreation project, which takes real planning (covered below).
• You want a creative project. Start with a 9-hole layout in a built-in editor. Nine holes teach you the whole workflow, from tees to textures, without swallowing a winter.

Before any of this, run one check. Does your launch monitor work with a program that supports custom or community courses at all? Not every simulator does. A large course library is no use if your hardware cannot load it, so confirm compatibility first and then pick the course path.

Programs that support user-made courses

Platforms differ in how courses get built, shared and rated. The table is based on developer descriptions and community documentation, and editors and hosting rules change between updates, so treat it as a starting point and confirm current support before you buy.

Program	Build method	How courses are shared	Notes
The Golf Club 2019 (TGC 2019)	In-game designer with terrain, hazard and weather settings	Through the game's community and fan sites, such as TGC Fan Designs	Includes a playtest mode. The user library is very large.
GSPro	Builders usually work in outside 3D tools rather than an in-game editor	Players upload, download and rate courses in a community library	Some submissions are reviewed before release.
E6 Connect	Mainly a licensed commercial course library	Limited user-made content	Smaller community selection than GSPro or TGC 2019.
Creative Golf 3D	Third-party program used with SkyTrak and Mevo+	Files move through forums and cloud drives, with no central hub	Confirm pairing with your monitor before you buy.

The table is organized by build method because that is what decides how much work you take on. A program with an in-game designer, such as TGC 2019, lets you build and test inside one piece of software. A program that expects outside tools, such as GSPro, asks you to learn a second toolset before a single hole plays. A strong library with few builder tools, such as E6 Connect, suits people who want to download rather than design.

Courses also do not travel between programs. Each one stores courses in its own format and sharing system, which is why the software lock-in question matters before you invest hours in a layout. The features that matter beyond course support are covered in our software features guide, and the how golf simulators work overview explains where the software sits relative to the monitor and computer.

The compatibility point is the one that trips people up most often. A program can support custom courses and still lack support for your particular launch monitor, so check the monitor's supported software list before anything else.

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Recreation or fantasy: pick the project type

Once you know you want to build, decide what kind of course you are building. The two types need different reference material and different amounts of planning, and mixing them up is a common reason projects stall.

Rebuilding a real course

A recreation copies a real layout, with or without changes. Many builders start from a close copy and then tweak it. Adding a few extra bunkers, narrowing a fairway or introducing crosswind on a famous hole such as Pebble Beach's 7th turns a copy into a course that plays differently from the original.

Recreations suit people preparing for a real round, playing a familiar course, or wanting a home track that matches a club they belong to. Reference material is plentiful. Satellite images and topographic maps show the shape, and photos show the bunkers and tree lines. Google Earth Pro is free and gives elevation data, which is the difference between a flat copy and one with believable slopes.

A recreation also raises questions that a fantasy course does not. Who owns the layout, and who may publish a replica of it? Those questions are covered in the publishing section below.

Inventing a layout

A fantasy course starts from nothing but an idea. Floating islands, zero-gravity greens, lava pits, moving obstacles and teleport portals all work because the simulator has no physical limits. Themes such as space, castles or wasteland give the course a look that ties the holes together.

Rule twists help too. A time limit per hole, a required shot shape or a hazard that changes between rounds can make casual play more interesting. Fantasy courses are good for rounds with friends. They are less useful as practice for real golf, because the layouts reward skills that do not carry over to a course with real bunkers and greens. Be clear with yourself about which you want, since a course that is fun for friends and a course that prepares you for a club round are different builds.

A first course in seven steps

A first course benefits from a fixed sequence. Jumping ahead to textures before the layout is settled is one of the most common ways to waste a weekend, because every change to the shape of a hole can undo detail work you already did.

1. Pick the platform. Confirm that it runs with your launch monitor and your PC before you start. A finished course that will not load is worth nothing.
2. Choose a style and size. Links, parkland and desert courses each have a distinct feel, with different bunker styles, grass and wind expectations. Start with 9 holes. You can add the back nine once the first set plays well.
3. Sketch on paper. Mark tee boxes, fairway shapes, green locations and a par for each hole. A paper plan is quick to revise, and it forces you to decide how the holes connect before the software makes every change slow.
4. Gather reference. For a recreation, collect satellite images and elevation from Google Earth Pro. For a fantasy course, collect mood images that set the look you want.
5. Shape the terrain. Build elevation, water hazards and bunkers. For complex features such as cliffs, some builders model the piece in Blender or SketchUp first and bring it in, but only if the platform accepts imported models. Check that before you spend an evening on a model.
6. Add detail. Textures for greens, fairways and bunkers come from image editors such as Photoshop or GIMP. Higher-resolution images look more realistic on screen, though they also make files larger and heavier to render. Then set foliage, wind and rain.
7. Playtest, revise, then share. The next two sections cover both.

Add detail gradually. Get the shape right, play it, then add texture. A simple course that plays well beats an ambitious one that never gets finished, and in practice the courses that reach the sharing stage are usually the ones built in this order.

Design rules that keep holes playable

A course can look spectacular and still be miserable to play. Courses that work on a simulator follow a handful of design rules, and the table below turns them into things you can check.

Rule	Why it matters	How to apply it
Mix hole lengths and directions	A course where every hole runs the same way leaves some clubs unused for a whole round	Alternate par 3s, short par 4s and long par 4s, and vary the direction so wind and sun hit different holes
Keep slopes on and around greens gentle	Very steep greens make putting frustrating and turn short putts into guesswork	Shape greens with subtle contours. Save the dramatic terrain for the approach and the fairway
Give forced carries a bail-out	A carry over water with no alternative punishes every miss equally	Add a wider lay-up area or a shorter route for players who cannot clear the hazard
Put playability ahead of looks	A stunning course nobody can finish does not get played or shared	Play every hole to a finish before adding the next layer of detail
Check difficulty against the handicap system	Hole lengths and hazards change how fair a score is	Read the handicap system guide before you label a course as a particular difficulty

Hole length matters more than most builders expect. Make par 3s, par 4s and par 5s distinct enough that a player can tell from the tee what a hole asks for. For real-course recreations, compare your hole lengths against the course's published scorecard rather than eyeballing them, since a hole that looks long on satellite imagery can play shorter than it appears once you use the real yardage.

Playtest before anyone else sees it

Playtesting catches the problems a course looks fine with. Work through this list on every hole before you show the course to anyone, and keep notes on what you change.

• Walk every hole in the editor's playtest or simulation mode. TGC 2019 includes one.
• Play each hole from every tee set, not only the one you designed it for.
• Check for invisible walls, floating objects, misaligned greens and holes, and seams in the terrain that stop the ball.
• Confirm that hazard and out-of-bounds markings behave the way you intended.
• Hit a full round with a launch monitor, not only the editor's virtual shots. The editor cannot show how your own swing interacts with the terrain, and that is where a green that looks right can play wrong.
• Ask a friend who has not seen the course to play it and note where they get stuck.

Common bugs are the ones this checklist targets. Invisible walls trap balls and players, and misaligned greens and holes make putting feel unfair. The common mistakes in a first build are overcomplicating the layout, ignoring playability and skipping the playtest entirely. The last one is the most expensive, because a bug that someone else finds after publishing means a file update and a stream of comments.

Publishing, permissions and feedback

Before you upload anything, read the platform's rules. Most ask for original content, proper licensing for replicas of real courses and no offensive designs, and some review submissions before they go live. Those rules are the first filter. A course that breaks them can be pulled from the library, even after people have downloaded it.

Recreating a real club deserves its own step. Ask the club for permission before you publish, since the layout, the name and the imagery may all belong to them. Permission requirements vary by platform, so check each one's terms rather than assuming a private build is safe to share.

A clear listing helps people decide whether to download. Give the hole count, the difficulty, any special features such as water-heavy holes or wind settings, and whether the course is a recreation or a fantasy layout. Players skip listings that leave those details out.

Feedback comes from a few places. Ratings and comments on the platform show what players actually experienced. Discord servers and Reddit's r/golfsimulator are where builders trade tips and get quick reactions. Video walkthroughs on YouTube let people see a course played rather than read about it. When you find a bug in someone else's course, report it to the designer, who can fix the file and republish it.

Community habits matter too. Some platforms run design contests around themes, though check which contests are running now, since they change. Designers sometimes team up on 18-hole projects, splitting terrain, textures and testing among them. Players tend to follow designers they trust, so consistent quality counts for more than one standout course.

Online tours and leagues sometimes use community courses, and Simulator Golf Tour is one to check. The virtual leagues guide explains how these competitions run. Confirm whether a league is using a particular course before you build with it in mind.

Hardware for course building

Designing is heavier than playing. A course that runs smoothly on a simulator can still stutter in the editor, because detailed editors and 3D tools need a strong graphics card and processor to render landscapes without lag. Budget for the editing workload separately from the playing workload.

Laptops can run many courses for play but may struggle with large editing sessions, especially once textures and foliage pile up. If you plan to build seriously, a desktop with a capable graphics card is the safer choice. Our computer guide and PC requirements article cover the specifics for simulator use.

Storage is the other surprise. High-resolution textures and imagery take up a lot of space, and a single course with detailed terrain can grow faster than you expect. Keep course assets in their own folder or drive, and back up your sketches and source textures, not only the finished course file.

Course designer questions

Can I recreate my home club as a simulator course?

Yes, technically. Use satellite imagery, topographic maps, photos and Google Earth Pro elevation data to get the shape close. For sharing, though, platforms generally require proper licensing for replicas of real courses, so ask the club first. For private use, the rules differ by platform, so read the terms of the program you use.

Do I need 3D modeling skills to make a course?

Not with an in-game designer such as the one in TGC 2019. Advanced builders bring in Blender or SketchUp for terrain and models, and image editors like GIMP or Photoshop for textures. Some platforms expect outside tools, so confirm what GSPro builders currently use before you start.

Will a course built in one program run in another?

Generally no. Each program uses its own course format and sharing system, so a TGC 2019 course will not simply load in GSPro or E6 Connect. Pick the platform you plan to keep using before you invest hours in a layout.

Which launch monitors can play community-made courses?

That depends on the program's software support more than on the course file. Check the launch monitor's supported software list, since a course library is only useful if your monitor can load it. Creative Golf 3D is reported to work with SkyTrak and Mevo+, but confirm that before buying.

Are community courses free to download?

Many community courses are shared at no cost, but the simulator program itself may need a license or subscription. Costs vary by platform, so check the terms before you assume a download is free to play.