The above method works pretty good. Rent a sod cutter to remove grass. Makes life way easier. However, still plan on spending a decent amount of time scraping the high side to make level. Took me about 6 hours (1.5 people working) with a sod cutter and hauling sod to pickup and leveling (not much, about an inch of high side--along 1/3-half of circumference). Scraping with shovel, and also using a metal rake to loosen/smooth. I only leveled an are 6 inches or so wider than the width of the pool and that seemed fine--2 feet seems like over kill unless you're laying rock down or something.