The Backstory of Flaghunting.com Yardage Books

My first foray into making yardage books started out while sketching on blank pieces of paper while I was bored at my 9 to 5. As an amateur golfer, I had come to the early realization that eliminating the blowup holes would allow me to shoot lower scores, and enjoy the experience more with my family and friends.

As I worked on my swing and began to know the general vicinity of where my ball would be going, these sketches turned into detailed drawings of the courses I played from the previous weekend.

I would spend significant time on the holes that gave me the most trouble so that I could brainstorm ways to lower the risk of writing down the dreaded "8" on my scorecard.These sketches were giving me my first glimpse into golf course design, and as I started looking at satellite images of great courses, it allowed me to peek into the minds of great architects such as Mackenzie,

Crenshaw, Fazio, Dye, Jones, and Ross.

As I began to sketch overhead views of these courses, I began to realize specific areas of the course where a good architect would cleverly place a bailout area, a fairway bunker, or why the green complex sloped one way versus the other. I began to visualize the perfect shot on every hole of the course, which, if I executed this shot would allow me to eliminate the large numbers and increase my chance of scoring well.

These sketches turned into rudimentary, handmade, yardage books that I would bring with me to the courses I played on a regular basis. Most courses I started playing on, didn't't provide yardage books, and I didn't

have enough skin in the game to purchase a laser rangefinder, a GPS, etc...

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