Laser cut golf course maps, raised or carved

1. TreesPine-green acrylicCut pieces glued on top
2. GreensLime acrylicCut pieces, the top playing surface
3. Fairways and teesGrass-green acrylicCut pieces under the greens
4. RoughForest-green acrylicBunkers and water cut out, hole numbers at the tees
5. BoardBirchBase with sand and blue water showing in the openings

1. 01Find the courseType two or more letters of the course or club name. Results show the state, whether the holes are mapped, and par when known.
2. 02Pick the lookRaised stands the course up off the board. Carved cuts it down into the board.
3. 03Pick a finishChampionship, Clubhouse or Links. Each sets the material for every surface.
4. 04Set ground, water and treesFlat, contour lines, raised steps or both. Water from 1 to 5 layers deep. Trees from Few to Forest.
5. 05Make it yoursChoose what shows, type the name and par, pick a board size, and build. The course lands as normal layers.

Courses come from OpenStreetMap. A course nobody has mapped won't appear, so search before you quote a customer. The board preview is drawn by the same engine that writes your files, so the trees and numbers you see are the pieces that will be cut.

Raised: rough, then fairways and tees, then greens on top, each cut as its own pieces and glued on the last, with sand in the bunkers and trees standing up. Carved: every playing surface is an opening in the top sheet, with the fairways, sand and water showing from the sheets below.

Championship reads as golf from across the room. Clubhouse is the one members put in an office. Links is quiet and coastal.

Show or hide each part: course name, par, hole numbers, trees, scale bar, north arrow and frame. Each hole number becomes ordinary text after the first build, so you can drag, retype or delete it.

• Ground: None (flat), Lines (hills engraved as contours), Steps (land built up in 2 to 6 layers with the course on top), or Steps + lines. A carved board gets lines, because there is nothing under it to step up.
• Slope sets how far each step reaches past the one above (0 to 20 mm). "Follow the real hills" makes the steps track where the ground actually rises.
• Water goes 1 (engraved) to 5 layers deep. With more than one, Shore sets each step's width (2 to 12 mm) so the pond gets deeper toward the middle.
• Fill the board turns the course to the angle that makes it biggest. North up keeps north at the top.

Pro shops, club members, hole-in-one winners and retirement gifts. One Ohio map maker built a business that sells golf course and hole-in-one maps alongside city and wedding maps, growing to 8 lasers. At the high end, a CNC-carved walnut course map sells for $750 with a 3 to 5 week lead time, and clubhouse course maps from one B2B maker run up to 96 inches wide. A 3-layer basswood course map with stick-on ball markers is a lower-priced take on the same idea.

A golf map is a big board with a lot of glue-ups, so get a yes before the first cut. The Ohio map maker above built an automated email-and-text proof approval system for exactly this reason. Proofing is part of the product.

1. 01Confirm the course dataCheck that every hole is mapped and the bunkers and ponds look right. Map data can be incomplete or out of date.
2. 02Send a 3D snapshotSave a picture from the 3D preview so the customer sees the finish, the trees and the numbers.
3. 03Spell-check the textCourse name, par, the player and the date. Hole numbers can be moved or retyped after the build.
4. 04Cut, then glue bottom upBoard, rough, fairways, greens, then trees. Dry-fit each sheet first.

Course data comes from OpenStreetMap, so credit it on the listing and packaging (how).