Step 11 - Custom Stuff
I was planning to do a custom panorama for Whirlpool (changed my mind), and in the process came up with this Test Grid Panorama. It's 16 megs (8 zipped), has an alpha, and the middle blue section acts as a 450 pixel guideline.  Take the guess work out things.  Click on the image to download.
The idea was to use it as a template for where to place certain objects in the panorama based on where the are in the course.  The other thing it does is help with wind direction.  For example, it was important for me to have the wind blow slightly left-to-right and in the face of the golfer for their approach shot to the 2nd hole.  Sort of like 4 o'clock on the wind meter.  I had no idea what direction to set the wind in the APCD, so had to keep fiddling about and reloading the course in Links.  Using this grid, it took me a minute.  It also taught me a few things.  Looking at you course in the top view, north is the top of the screen.  That one I figured was right.  Also, the wind blows in relation to north.  A south blowing wind (from north to south)  is set at 0 degrees.  A north blowing wind (south to north) is set at 180 degrees.  I thought that part would be the other way around.    So, knowing that, you can make a good guess at how to set the wind without this. 
 
To use this grid, go into course properties, select custom and then press the clearly marked and easy to understand "..."  (what the heck is that?).  Browse to where you saved the panorama and click on that.
Open up your course and go to the point of reference for your wind direction.  In this case, I'm worried about the approach shot to the 2nd. green  So I use the perspective view and  in the top view, I move from the landing area to the center of the green. 
Go west young man. I want the wind to come from left to right a little - so now I'll go from the landing area to left of the green.
So I want my wind to come somewhere between 45 and 90 degrees.  That's 67.5 if you don't have a calculator handy.  So I'll go back to my course properties and set the wind to 67.  I'll also set the Direction Variance to 0 in order to make sure the wind blows that direction.  I'll change it later to something like 35% so the wind isn't always the exact same direction.
I'll save and validate, load the course into Links and practice hole number 2.   The wind meter should look like 4 o'clock. 
Perfect.  The other thing you can use this grid for (and more the way I intended to use it) placing objects (like mountains or buildings) in your panorama based on where you want players to see the object on the course.  The other thing about this testgrid panorama is that the blue section is the usable 450 pixels.  Anything above should be sky.  Anything below shouldn't show up.