GOLF COURSE DESIGN: HOW TO CREATE YOUR OWN SYNTHETIC WATER HAZARD: Who says you have to be a Golf Course or landscape architect to create a stunning water hazard...especially if the water hazard is placed around your schoolyard, park or neighborhood. Here is a quick and easy primer on how to either use the existing water features you have on your almost-golf course or create your own synthetic water hazards to up elevate the course or competition.

USING EXISTING WATER FEATURES: Whenever I go to a campus or park to design a 'golf course' and see that they have build in water hazards like fountains and ponds, its always where my design ideas start. As you can see in the video, people love to both hit over and out of the water. Sometimes shots over water are very straightforward, but sometimes its too long of a shot to carry so we create a hole where you have to cross over part of the water. Then there are times when we just skirt the fairway along the left and right edge of the pond. This makes the hole super hard because even the good players are intimidated with side water. In these situations if we have a lot of first timers I place the fairway downwind of the water so that the wind is blowing back towards the fairway. This makes it more fun for the newbies because they have a better chance of keeping the ball in play.

KIDDIE POOL HAZARDS: A quick, easy and low budget way to doll up a playing field type course is to buy kid's swimming pools. They are a great low budget option to create a visual accent as well, especially for junior events. The street golf and urban golf crowd seem to like them too because you can put them anywhere in a snap. I like using a few of them to guard the greens. Also, when you protect a target or green with a swimming pool you are guaranteed to have a few people hitting out of the water and that always ups the energy of any competition.

CREATING YOUR OWN WATER HAZARD: Creating your own synthetic water hazard is actually pretty easy. We use blue plastic sheeting that comes in any size up to 50x150 feet. (That's a big water hazard.)

   STEP #1: Find a depression in the ground or a flat area for your water hazard

   STEP #2: If you are using a depression, just lay the plastic down, fill it with water, then when it fills to the desired height, take a mat knife and cut around the edges. When your event is over, take a nice swim, then cut a hole in the bottom and let the water drain out (see our LMU video great golf blogs).

   STEP #3: If you need to create walls for your hazard I recommend going to your local mega-hardware store like Home Depot or Lowes and pick up those 10ft long irrigation tubes that snap together. At Home Depot, they are in the plumbing aisle. They are super cheap and give you a nice 6 inch high barrier. Once you've snapped them together you slide them under the plastic tarp, cut the plastic to shape and grommet the plastic to the ground. The tubing will then press up against the grommets as the hazard fills up.

Note that we will discuss this subject more as the sport of off-course golf evolves and grows. This fall should give us new and different ways to create hazards, so I look forward to everyone's tips, tricks and new ideas. Learn more about charity golf events and course design>