By Steve West #23616
If you aren't sure about the location of the first tee, don't upload a guess.
Cut and paste is always preferable to typing.
Always use decimal degrees, NOT degrees, minutes, and seconds.
Be creative when hunting down information sources.
Don't feel you have to follow this method exactly. You may find better ways.
1) Open up windows for:
The PDGA courses page.
Google
Earth. Make sure the View Status Bar is on, and the layers "Roads",
"Borders and Labels" and "Park and Recreation Areas" (under "Places of
Interest") are visible.
A search engine, like Google.
2) Pick a course to find. Open up the PDGA page for it.
If there are no coordinates, go to step 3.
If there is already a set of coordinates, verify them.
Cut and paste the coordinates to Google Earth and see where it takes you.
Can you follow the driving directions in the PDGA page and get to the coordinates?
Does this look like a disc golf course? Is the first tee where you would expect based on the description and driving directions?
Common "errors" in coordinates are:
Typos: mistyping a digit, leaving off the negative sign, or switching the Latitude and Longitude.
Using the coordinates of an address or zip code, instead of the coordinates of the first tee.
If
you find coordinates that don't seem right, try to make your best guess
as to where the first tee actually is. Send that list to the Contact
listed in the PDGA web site, and ask the contact if they are correct.
If the coordinates seem OK, move on to another course.
3) Find sites that may have information about where the first tee is.
ÚÂ You may want to first try Greg Koppel's Course Map Tool (still a work in progess).
It
is designed to make course maps but also seems very useful for getting
1st tee coordinates. Play around - get a course you know, sized
properly and CLICK on the 1st tee. Then click on the "Display Marker
Locations" button for the Lat/Long in the needed decimal format.
If Greg's Course Map Tool method is not fruitful, try the following:
If there are any websites referenced on the PDGA page, open them.
Cut
and paste the name of the course, together with the city and zip code
into Google Earth's Fly To box. If you don't get any results, remove
the name of the course, or try just the name of the city, state, and
zip.
Cut and paste the name of the
course, together with the city and zip code into a search engine, like
Google. Add the words "disc golf", and do a search.
Open the "Map Zip Code" link (if any) on the PDGA page.
Use
a search engine to try to find a course map, or an independent
description of the location of the first tee. Be creative in your
search.
Cut and paste the name of the
course, together with the words "course map" into an Image Search
Engine. (This hardly ever works, but pays off big when it does).
Search
for the name of the course, or "disc golf" with the name of city, the
state, and the county. Try various combinations of the name of the
course, the name of the park, the city, state, and zip, and any entity
listed in the description or driving directions (like a YMCA, school,
college, park, business, etc.)
The
landowner (the parks department, the college or school, or resort) may
have a link to a course map. Sometimes maps can be found by clicking on
Directions or Find Us or similar links within the landowner's website.
Regional or local clubs sometimes have collections of course maps.
Other
lists of courses, like Disc Golf Fusion and Disc Golf Review may have
information or links. A word of caution: other lists of courses may
have Latitude and Longitude coordinates, but these may not point to the
first tee. They may point to the zip code, the entrance to the park,
the parking lot, or the place you pay. Never use coordinates from
another list without verifying them.
4) Poke around.
Follow the driving directions on the PDGA page.
Trace the route on either the Mapquest map, or directly in Google Earth.
If the Driving Directions contain a description of the location of the first tee, try to find that on Google Earth.
Sometimes
the Course Description has the location of the first tee. If the
directions to the first tee are clear enough, pick the spot they
describe.
If Google Earth photos are
low resolution, try other sources. Use the Hybrid view on Mapquest.
Sometimes Live Search Maps will have excellent "Bird's Eye" aerial
photos. Some Counties have GIS maps you can access.
If you find a course map, overlay it with the Google Earth aerial photo.
Put
the course map in one full-screen window, with Google Earth in another
full-screen window. Find landmarks in both. Intersections, parking
lots, swimming pools, buildings and tennis courts make good landmarks.
Adjust
the images by zooming in or out, and rotating so at least two landmarks
are aligned. (It's almost always easier to adjust the Google Earth
image.) If you touch your computer screen on a landmark on the course
map, and switch screens, you should be touching the same landmark on
the Google Earth image.
This works OK
even for course maps that are not drawn to scale. If you are good with
image editing, you could stretch the out-of-scale course map to fit
reality.
Touch the first tee on the
course map, switch screens to the Google Earth map, and you should be
pointing to the location of the first tee. Move your cursor there to
read the coordinates.
5) Make a guess and test your coordinates.
Locate
where you think the first tee is, and go back and re-read the PDGA
Driving Directions and Course Description, and look at your other
references to make sure it makes sense. Be especially careful with
directions that are given as "right" or "left". You could be on the
wrong side of town in a park with a similar name. Does the picture of
the area match where the course is supposed to be? If it's a park,
there shouldn't be any houses. If it's an elementary school, there
should be a big building. If it's a college, there should be a bunch of
big buildings and lots of sidewalks. Is there a lake nearby?
Once
you have your best guess, copy the coordinates into a "holding"
document (Word or Excel - to reduce the chance of typos). Use six
decimal places after the decimal point (like 45.123456, -93.654321).
Cut and paste the coordinates back into the Google Earth Fly To box.
Verify that the coordinates point to the place you expect.
6) Evaluate your coordinates on the following scale:
F. No clue where the course is, the directions are crap.
D. Located the right city, but that's it. The course could be anywhere around here.
C.
Could follow the directions for a while, but then they didn't make
sense. Or, used a course map but couldn't match the features to Google
Earth.
B. Found the driveway, or the park entrance, or the parking lot, or the address of the place, but not the actual tee pad.
A.
Narrowed down the location of the first tee pad to a specific area,
within 40 feet or better, or used a course map that wasn't drawn to
scale.
A+. Can see the tee pad on an aerial photo, or got the location from a good course map or precise description.
You'll find that most of the time, your location will be graded a "B". Maybe one out of four will get an A or A+.
7) If the grade is A or A+, update the PDGA directory.
Click on "Update Course Info" on the PDGA page for the course.
Type in your name and email address. Leave everything else as is.
Cut
and paste the coordinates from the holding document into the 1st Tee
Latitude and 1st Tee Longitude boxes. Put the entire number, with all
six decimal places, in the left box for each (leave the Minutes and
Seconds boxes blank).
Check to make sure the Latitude and Longitude are in the right boxes.
You should see that the Latitude and Longitude are close to the City coordinates. Make sure the negative sign carried over.
Click on the "Update Course Info" button.
You're done - the update will go into the editor's queue to approve. Move on to the next course.
8) If the grade you gave your location was B or worse, save your guess, and ask the Contact for help.
Turn
on the View Grid on Google Earth. Fly to your guess. Zoom to an
appropriate scale, depending on how close you think you are.
Screen
capture this image, and send it (along with your guess coordinates) in
an email to the Contact listed on the PDGA page. Explain you are
working to update the directory, how you arrived at your guess, and ask
if it is correct or where the tee actually is.
Correspond back and forth until you get a good location, then update the directory, or allow the Contact to do it.