One of the most beloved aspects of the PGA TOUR 2K franchise is the extensive Course Designer mode. PGA TOUR 2K25 makes it even better with new tools, surfaces, and systems that equip you to create even more beautiful courses, faster than ever before. An all-new camera system lets you show off your courses in all their beauty. A higher-res terrain system gives you more precise control than ever—and so much more. Play, publish, and share the courses you create for the entire community to experience!

Course Designer gives players around the world the opportunity to design the course of their dreams. Customize the aesthetics, layout, and difficulty level to add an extra layer of excitement and realism. Course Designer has been designed for both beginners looking for sandbox fun and master architects interested in crafting their magnum opus.

What is really exciting about Course Designer is the endless possibilities and creative freedom it offers to you and the entire community. We have been iterating on Course Designer since the inception of the series. With this iteration we're especially excited with both the increased scope and quality of life improvements for new and veteran creators alike.

What’s New in PGA TOUR 2K25 Course Designer

There is a lot we’ve done with Course Designer in PGA TOUR 2K25, both with new functionality and quality of life improvements.

Camera Tools

This year, we’re excited to deliver on our goal to give you an approachable experience for creating course camera sequences. These are the same camera tools we’ve been using for official courses for the previous two releases—polished and packaged for use on your own courses.

New Spline Tools

PGA TOUR 2K25 Course Designer has new spline tools for lakes and rivers. Making these types of water elements in previous iterations took up a lot of time. Now it’s possible with just a few clicks and adjustments to add some quick, natural beauty to your course.

New Course Surfaces

In PGA TOUR 2K25, Course Designer has two new standard course surface layers in the course designer’s palette. Like the additional surfaces from previous titles, these too can be customized to be used for various kinds of materials, like mulch, pinestraw, cart paths and more. 

Terrain Painting

One of the biggest updates in Course Designer for PGA TOUR 2K25 is our new Surfacing system we call Terrain Painting. When designing a course, you will be able to choose from 4 Terrain Surface Layers: Grass/Topsoil, Two Sub-Soil Layers, and the lowest Bedrock layer. Each layer can have its texture chosen from across various themes and materials—such as Rock, Sand (different from Bunker Sand), Dirt and Natural Area (the default terrain surface). The physics properties on each surface have been accurately modeled so the ball interacts appropriately with each unique texture.

Edge Blending

Sometimes it can be the last 10% of nuance and polish in a course that can make the most difference. Edge Blending is one such feature! You can now create a natural blend when two surfaces meet. Just as you’d see grass slightly grow onto a path in real life, you can now adjust this with a simple slider.

Surface Weathering

While we all dream of picturesque greens with no flaws, in reality that is rarely the case. The Surface Weathering tools can be used to add a slight browning of grass to create realism with a sense of texture and variation in your course.

High Resolution Terrain

New to PGA TOUR 2K25 is the High Resolution Terrain System. Compared to previous titles, the new terrain in PGA TOUR 2K25 now supports a denser mesh. Sculpt finer details with little-to-no unwanted edges in the terrain geometry.

With this new terrain system comes updates to Bunkering, where you can stamp bunkers to customize depth, lip depth, lip start, and lip steepness. Now you can truly choose the bunkering style to go along with your strategic placement.

More Detailed Assets

With our focus on delivering the best experience on the latest gaming platforms, we created higher quality rocks, trees, grasses, and assets. These include new rocks that have varying degrees of wetness applied to them for those detailed cliffsides, and new fescue grasses that adjust their color based on the surfaces they are on.

Course Designer Quality of Life Improvements

Also new for the PGA TOUR 2K25 Course Designer is the updated Cursor Menu. You can now use custom filters to decide what you do and don’t want to see in the designer at any given moment. This improves the functionality of features, such as Area Select, making it easier to select only what you want.

If you’ve ever felt frustration while simply trying to move the placement of an object, this one’s for you! You can now quickly move anything placed by pressing and holding the move button. This removes the need to have to go through menus just to move an object.

How to Get Started in Course Designer

Before you get started, there are two steps which are important to keep in mind: 

• Step One: Have fun.
• Step Two: Practice, practice, practice!

That’s right—simply having fun and familiarizing yourself with the tools will do wonders for your creativity and the quality of your final course. Once you know the tools, you can even use good ol’ pen and paper to help inform your design. Our Measure Tool is also a great option to help you plan out your course, allowing you to check distances and elevation on any point of your plot.

With these first steps in mind, there are instructions below to walk you through creating a simple course in PGA TOUR 2K25. 

Go to Course Designer

• From the Main Menu, navigate to “Design” with R1 / R2 (PlayStation), LB / RB (Xbox) or Q / E (PC).
• Select “New Course” with X (PlayStation), A (Xbox), or Left Click (PC) to start your custom course.

Set the Basics

• Set your course name by selecting the text box and typing your preferred name.
• Set the course options to help your course generate initially: theme, terrain, and layout. When all set, select “Continue” with X (PlayStation), A (Xbox), or Left Click (PC).

Learn the Options

• Once your course has been generated, you will load into the full Course Designer. Use Left Stick (PlayStation / Xbox) or click and hold Middle Mouse Button (PC) to move around your course. On PC, holding Right Click will also let you rotate / tilt the camera. A full list of controls can be seen on the right side of the screen. Use L1 / L2 (PlayStation), LB / RB (Xbox), or Q / E (PC) to cycle between the different editor sections and their associated tools.

Add Terrain and Features

• Variety is the spice of course—add doglegs, elevation changes, and hazards. 
• To quickly change the flow and direction of a particular hole, select the Cursor Tool with L1 / L2 (PlayStation), LB / RB (Xbox), or Q / E (PC). Hover over a waypoint (tee, green, or number) and select it by holding X (PlayStation), A (Xbox) or Left Click (PC), moving the waypoint with Left Stick (PlayStation / Xbox) or by moving your mouse (PC), then releasing the button to set your new placement. 
• Use the Sculpt tools to sculpt the land. Raise or lower the ground for hills, valleys, or cliffs. Flatten areas for fairways and greens. This tool is also where you will create water using the all new spline tools for lakes and rivers.
• Place objects via the Objects menu.
• Placing crowds and course marshals can be found via Edit Holes > Crowd Tools.

Details, Details, Details

• Place additional nature, found in Objects > Nature, to add some beauty and realism.
• In the Objects menu, you can also set additional bridges, buildings, and other props that don’t directly affect play to add additional personality to your course.

Tweak Course Settings

• Fine-tune green speeds, fairway firmness, and rough parameters by selecting any waypoint on a hole, then selecting “Hole Options” on the left menu.
  • Set pin positions for the greens—you can add up to 4 per hole for variety.
• In the Environment Settings Menu, you can adjust environmental conditions including weather, and lighting.

Test Your Course

• Play through your course—playtest for fun and difficulty.
• Check for any unplayable or impossible areas or areas that are vastly more difficult than the rest of your course.

Save Your Course

• To save your course so you can edit later, press Options (PlayStation), Menu (Xbox), or M (PC) and then select either “Save” or “Save and Exit.”

Publish and Share a Course Designer Course

With a created course ready to go, you can publish it online to make it accessible to the entire PGA TOUR 2K25 online community. People around the globe are able to compete on the course you create! 

Publishing your course couldn’t be simpler. All you have to do is select the publish course option in the pause menu. Once your course is published, anyone who searches and finds your course will be able to play on it in an array of different types of matches.

Now that you’ve created a fun, prestigious golf course, why not play it with friends?