Area mapping apparatus

Claim 1

Apparatus for mapping a portion, such as the green, of a land surface area, such as a golf course, onto a sheet of paper comprising: a generally planar board having a bottom and a top and having a plurality of depending supports attached to said bottom, said supports located about the center of said board near the periphery thereof and configured to provide stable support for said board on said land surface area; a unitary, extendible measuring element including an inner, realtively stiff, proportional measuring segment and an outer, full scale, flexible tape measuring segment, said inner measuring segment attached at its outer end to an inner end of said flexible measuring segment providing a common measurement axis for said measuring segments of said measuring element when said measuring element is pulled taut during use, said inner measuring segment having a pivot point at is inner end, said inner and outer measuring segments having respective distance scales marked thereon, said distance scales having generally coincident zero points at the pivot point of said inner measuring segments; and means for pivotally attaching said inner measuring segment at said pivot point thereof to a central portion of said top for movement of said inner and outer measuring segments about said pivot point in a plane generally parallel with said top; whereby the outline of the surface area portion can be mapped onto the sheet of paper mounted to the board by transferring actual surface measurements from said outer full-scale measuring segment to the paper at a reduced scale using said inner, proportional measuring segment.