# Making a golf course map with the Golf Course Map preset > every green, tee, fairway and bunker of a real course as its own layer, set on Morris Williams Golf Course in Austin, Texas The Golf Course Map draws a course from the golf shapes people have traced into OpenStreetMap: greens, tee boxes, fairways, bunkers, water hazards and paths. Each kind sits on its own layer, so a laser can cut them from separate sheets and stack them, and a printer gets a clean course palette with no road clutter around it. It starts on Morris Williams Golf Course in Austin, Texas, a public course with 18 holes and a creek running through it. The creek and the ponds beside it cut clean through the land sheet to the blue backplate. The [UV Printed Layered Golf Map](/learn/guides/uv-printed-layered-golf-map) opens on the same course, so you can compare the two ways of making it. A sandier course gives the fairway sheet more detail: Merion East in Pennsylvania has more than 120 bunkers. Coverage depends on OpenStreetMap. Famous courses are usually traced down to the last bunker, but a small local club may only have its outline mapped, and then the preset shows land and water with nothing on top. Check your course on the map before you plan a gift around it. ## What you need ### Layered laser cut - The per-layer SVG ZIP export - Any diode or CO2 laser - Four 3 mm sheets: blue for the water, dark green for the land, mid green for fairways, and pale green for greens and tees - Wood glue or [3M tape](https://yxecreations.com/collections/3m-tape) and a frame deep enough for the stack ### UV print / poster - The exported high-res PNG (4096 px) - A UV flatbed printer and light wood, acrylic or white hardboard, or a photo lab for a paper print ## 1. Start from the preset Open [the Golf Course Map preset](/map-designer?preset=golf-course-map). It opens on Morris Williams at zoom 14.9 in a 16:9 frame, with all 18 holes and the driving range in view. To use your own course, search for it by name and zoom until the holes fill the frame, and switch the frame to 1:1 if your course is closer to square. Golf shapes only load from zoom 12 upwards, so if the fairways vanish, zoom back in. ## 2. Understand the layers The preset stacks five layer groups. From the top down: - **Greens & tees**: pale green `#D2EE9E` for putting greens and tee boxes, plus the clubhouse in tan `#D9C4A0`. - **Fairways & bunkers**: fairways and the driving range in mid green `#7DB553`, with sand bunkers in `#F4E8C4` on the same sheet. - **Cart paths**: an engrave layer of cream `#EDE6D3` lines (width 0.9) for cart paths and footpaths. The paths are too thin to cut and glue, so the laser burns them into the Land sheet. - **Land**: a dark green `#3E7442` sheet with every lake, pond and water hazard cut out as a hole. It also covers the rough and the trees around the course. - **Backplate**: solid blue `#4D9CC7`. It shows through the holes in the land sheet as water. Bunkers share the fairway sheet because they sit inside or beside the fairways. In a cut piece you can paint them, or move Bunkers into a layer group of their own and cut them from a sand-coloured sheet. ## 3. Check the course data Look over each hole before you export. If a fairway or green is missing, the course has not been fully traced in OpenStreetMap. You can add it there yourself and the shape will reach the map after the next tile update, or pick a course with complete data. The Holes and Pins features are available in the layer editor under Golf if you want hole lines or flag markers, but they are left off by default because they cut poorly. Backyard swimming pools are part of the Water feature, so a course next to houses gets a few pool-shaped holes about 2 mm across. Glue the offcuts back in, or move the frame so fewer houses are inside it. ## 4. Export - **Laser:** export the per-layer SVG ZIP. You get one file per layer group: four to cut from their own sheets, and Cart paths as an engrave file for the Land sheet. - **UV print or poster:** export the high-res PNG (4096 px) with the Background left on so the water prints blue. ## Laser Cutting & Engraving ### Layered laser cut 1. Cut the backplate from blue acrylic or blue-painted plywood. It only needs the outer frame shape. 2. Cut the Land layer from dark green stock, with the Cart paths file engraved in the same job so the paths line up. The lakes come out as holes, so keep the offcuts aside in case a small pond needs to go back in by hand. 3. Cut Fairways & bunkers from mid green, then Greens & tees from pale green. Greens and tees are small, so use a honeycomb bed or masking tape to stop them dropping through. 4. Where a path crosses a fairway, the fairway sheet covers it, the same as in the print. If you want raised paths instead, switch Cart paths to a cut layer and widen the lines first, since thin strips break when you glue them. 5. Glue from the backplate up, lining each sheet up with the frame edge. Paint the bunkers sand colour before the greens go on top. ## UV & Sublimation Printing ### UV print or poster 1. Export the high-res PNG with the Background on. 2. Print onto light wood, white acrylic or white hardboard so the greens stay bright. On dark stock, lay down a white underbase first. 3. For paper, send the PNG to a photo lab on a matte stock. A wide frame such as 24x13.5 inches suits the 16:9 crop. ## Make it yours - Move the map to a course that means something to the person you are making it for: their home club or the course where they got a hole in one. - Recolour the land sheet to near black and the fairways to gold for a clubhouse trophy piece. - Switch the aspect ratio to portrait and leave room under the course for the club name and a date. - Turn on Holes in the layer editor and engrave them as thin lines so each hole's route from tee to green is visible. - Cut a single hole at high zoom as a small coaster or ornament. A short par 3 fits a round coaster best. --- Open the tool: https://www.mylasertools.com/learn/guides/golf-course-map Read online: https://www.mylasertools.com/learn/guides/golf-course-map