So, you want to put in your favorite course? Well, it will take a little time and effort, but, it can be fun along the way as well. Below is a brief run through on how to do it. NOTE: You DO need to have an account and be logged in to edit courses. If you have finished defining a course and want to get it verified, please contact us.

1. Find your course on the map.
To find your course, double click to where you think it is located, and start zooming in (with the zoom tool on the left side of the window). Once you are getting close, you should probably switch to satellite or hybrid mode if you haven't already, so you can start to see the actual course. You can search by name, and we will look up the golf courses in Google Local search in the area you are zoomed in to. If your course is already listed, you can choose it and click "Create Course Definition". If it has already been started to be defined, you can edit it (provided it has not been locked by another user) by clicking "Edit Course Definition". If the course is not shown as being listed, you can zoom into the closest zoom level, and double click on the first tee to add it as a new course.

2. Double click on the first tee.
Once you have found your course, make sure you are at the closest zoom level. Courses can only be laid out and played on at the closest zoom level. Some courses unfortunately are in areas that Google does not yet have good zoom coverage on. At this point, you should find the first tee and double click on it. This will pop up a window where you can enter the basic information about the course. The only mandatory information is the course name; the rest is just nice to have if you can find the information easily enough.

3. Start editing a hole
You are now ready to start editing the first hole. The system will automatically assume that the location that you clicked on to start is one of the first tees, and will center the window to that position.

To make elements, you just double click on a location on the map, and the "add an element" window pops up.

Here are the elements you will use to design the layout of the course:

Tees: The tees are the various tee off points that are at each hole. The most common colors of tee markers are available to use. If you find a course that has a color we don't offer, please let us know by using the contact us link. In some cases, just use a similar color (i.e., a course with a "teal" tee can just use "blue"). When creating a tee, you also set the par from that specific tee. This allows for different pars from different tees (usually a lower par from the ladies tee is the most common use of this).
Hole Placements: The hole placements are the locations of where the holes could be on the green. You can place as many different hole placements as you like, with each marked by a flagstick. Generally, though, most have three different placements, which they rotate every few days. The placements should be numbered uniquely on each hole (placement 1,2,3 on hole 1; 1, 2,3 on hole 2; etc)
Doglegs: The purpose of placing dogleg markers on the holes is simply for accurate measurement of the hole distances. Hole distances are measured automatically by the system starting from the tee teeing off of to the hole placement being used, plus using any doglegs included in between. The order is important on the doglegs, as the measurement will go from the tee to dogleg #1, #2, etc, to the hole placement.
Outlines: The outlines define the boundaries of certain types of terrain on the course. There are six types of boundaries: Bounds, which define where the out of bounds area is on the hole; Fairway which defines areas that are fairway grass; Green which is the green area; Sand defines sand traps; Water defines water hazards; Trees defines areas that are populated by trees, and therefore while in the air the ball might get knocked down or change direction. To begin defining a boundary, you doubleclick the starting point and choose a boundary type to begin. You will get an alert message saying you are starting to define a boundary. You then double click each point around the boundary, and then when you are finish just doubleclick at the point you began with. You may also go back and remove the last line drawn, by clicking the undo button in the upper right hand side of the window. Finally, any area in bounds but not defined with another boundry (green, fairway, sand, water) is considered 'rough'.

4. Editing Hole Elements
You can edit a hole element simply by (single) clicking on it. A window will pop up that lets you change certain things, or delete the item.

5. Switching between Element & Satellite mode
You can click the Elements/Satellite button in the upper right of the window to change between modes. Sometimes the satellite imagery gets a bit in the way of seeing your elements. You can click this button to see the elements on the map background.

6. Changing Holes
Simply click on the drop down to the left of the map window to change which hole you are defining elements on.

7. Course Edit Locks
When you create or edit a course, you receieve a "lock" on that course for editing for 3 days. This allows for people to be able to work on their courses layout for a period of time without another user coming in to change the layout. If you do not make any changes to the course for 3 days, the lock is removed.

GmapGolf.com is willing to extend the lock time (or give a perminant lock) on a course for "trusted" users, and for persons affiliated with a specific course. Please contact the GmapGolf.com staff if you would like to request this for a course.