Fly-overs

Each course has a free Google Earth file and an in-browser 3D view. The file includes every hole's line of play, tee and green markers with hole numbers, layup targets, bunkers, water and greens. It also has tours: a full-course fly-over and one per hole. A tour flies from an overview to behind the tee, then shot by shot to each target and the green, and circles the green.

Which should I use? For fully rendered, high-res imagery and 3D, open the KMZ in Google Earth. The in-browser 3D view is a quick, lightweight preview: its imagery and terrain are coarser (free tiles, smoothed slopes), so use it to get the shape of a hole, not fine detail.

How to open a fly-over

Desktop: Google Earth Pro (free, best for tours)

  1. Download the .kmz for the course and double-click it, or use File → Open.
  2. In the Places panel, open Fly-overs and double-click ▶ Full course fly-over or a per-hole tour. Use the tour bar at the bottom-left to pause, rewind or loop.
  3. To look around a hole, double-click its folder under Holes. That flies to a view from behind the tee.

Web browser: Google Earth on the web (Chrome, Edge, Firefox)

  1. Open earth.google.com/web, then go to Projects → Open (or New project) → Import KML file from computer, and pick the downloaded file.
  2. The holes, markers and hazards appear in the project. Click a hole to fly there. Earth on the web plays tours only partly, so use Google Earth Pro or the 3D view button here for the full fly-over.

Phone or tablet: the Google Earth app (Android, iPhone, iPad)

  1. Tap a .kml or .kmz download link. Android: open the file from the download notification and choose Earth. iPhone or iPad: in Safari tap the download (↓) icon, then the file, then Share → Earth. You can also save it to Files and use Projects → Open → Import KML file in the Earth app.
  2. Tap items in the project list to fly to them. For the animated fly-over on a phone, the 3D view button here is the simplest choice.

The files are generated by CourseViz from OpenStreetMap course geometry (© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL). Hole lines, targets and estimated tees are approximations. The tours use the back tees. Google Earth supplies its own imagery and 3D terrain when you open the file; CourseViz doesn't use the Google Earth API.