Some tips for actually working in the level editor

Team 17 is obviously cheating:
Official courses have way more detail than your course ever could. just about every hole is the size of a course you can upload. Don't get discouraged when you can't create courses with the same level of detail.

Easy Wall Build: Thanks to herbstwerk for this tip. I saw it posted under a discussion about troubleshooting it.

This was never implemented for all themes. Only Forest, Winter, and Oasis have this option.

Start with either the round Log (WallEndLog_Wall_Forest, WallEndLog_Wall_Winter) or square Oasis analog (Corner_Oasis).

Select the piece from the menu on the left. Before you place it press and hold shift, now place the first copy. While still holding shift move the mouse and place additional copies. Let go of shift before you place the last one so you save on time deleting stuff you don't need.

There are some unintuitive behaviours that you can plan for when designing your levels. Here are some I've found.

Golden Roads
The new Olympus "Golden Road" Tiles allow the player to jump. Unfortunately, normal jumping is much higher than a golden road jumps and cannot be disabled in the level editor. You'll need to upload this level to test in in proper classic mode.

Bouncy Castle Vents:
These tiles do not work in user created levels. Based on bug report feedback, they never will.

The process that made me want to start this guide.

Why do This?

Say you want to upload a different version of a course because for whatever reason they are significantly different. I wanted to do this because I wanted to upload a simpler version of the map with less decor so it would run smoothly on my laptop. You might also want to explore branching ideas or create states you can easily return to on a different computer as part of your workflow.

How to do it

Step 1: Rename the Course and save the renamed course
This step changes the local filename and creates a new file in the local storage folder. This can be done normally in the course settings within GWYF.

Step 2: Find the duplicated file.
This might be obvious to seasoned modders but simply renaming your course will not create a new workshop item. Instead, the Steam Workshop looks for the levels self reported "publishedID".
There's no way that I have found to edit this number from within GWYF. Instead, you'll have to navigate to the course in your file browser.

GWYF stores your levels in
C:\Users\Insert your PC's account username here\AppData\LocalLow\Team17 Digital Ltd\Golf With Your Friends\CustomLevels\

You can easily navigate to your local appdata by typing %appdata% into your system search and navigating up one folder.

Next, navigate to the folder with the same name as the map version you wish to upload.

Step 3: Create a Backup
It's a good idea at this point to save a copy of the folder somewhere else in case some change in the following steps corrupts the original

Step 4: Change the PublishedID
Open the file titled "map" in a barebones text editor such as notepad. It's important that nothing gets reformatted and corrupts the course. Then, scroll or use the control+f hotkey [publishedID] to find the automatically generated ID number.

Step 3.5: Guess a valid PublishedID number
Honestly, I don't really know how these numbers are generated. My guess is that they are somehow self checking with the first digits identify the user and the last digits going up sequentially as you create new items. I was able to change the last 3 digits without issue but I really don't want to get banned for uploading a bunch of invalid workshop items. I don't think it's a very likely outcome but you never know.

Once you have a new number, save the text file and close it.

Step 4: Upload the Course to the Steam Workshop
You can now return to your course in GWYF and publish it normally. A new workshop item will be created/appear in your uploaded items.