Would Controlling Distance Help Control Project Costs?

[Tim_Weiman]

On another thread Jeff Brauer suggested that the desire for additional length may add 50 acres to the land required to a build a modern course. In fairness, Jeff’s remark was somewhat casual and didn’t appear to be the result of a careful, industry wide study.

Nonetheless, it does seem fair to ask about the financial impact of lengthening golf courses.

Does anyone know whether this issue has been carefully studied and documented by an independent entity?  If so, what have been the results?

Finally, does anyone care to speculate the potential savings for the golfing public by calling a halt to the golf technology arms race?

[John_Sheehan]

Tim-
I will check. I know I did see something recently on this - just can't remember where. Quite possibly it was on this site. Per my somewhat questionable memory, between added land costs, construction costs and maintenance costs, there was a direct correlation to added length and the final target price of green fees to cover these costs.  I am sure if I can't find it, someone else on GCA will have this information.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Tim,

Although my remark was casual, it was based on my own experience.  I know the acreages of my courses, and it is a struggle to get one on less than 200 acres these days, whereas 10 years ago, we could get a course on 160 acres. The difference really is in the fact that most sites have an abundance of "off limits" areas. To be fair, if those areas are wetlands, they aren't off limits 100%, because they can be located between holes where distance buffers would exist anyway, or incorporated as forced carries.  Thus, 50 acres of wetlands may just increase the need for land by 25 acres or so.

Assuming no St. Andrews style crossing fairways, most golf holes have a dedicated corridor of 225-300 feet.  Thus, every hundred yards of golf course adds between one and two acres. (300 feet length X 300 feet width = 90,000 S.F., about two acres)

Yes, the corridors are a bit skinnier by the tees, so it may not be a full two acres, but it will be close, so a 7600 yard course will require at least 20 more acres than a 6600 yard course, assuming equally efficient use of the topography.

The financial impact of more land comes usually more in the housing type course.  If you are building more parallel fairways, the irrigation mains and cart paths can be shared in many instances, where there is a direct increase in those quantities when the course is linear.  However, it costs about $2000 per acre to grade, $9000 per acre to irrigate and $2000 per acre to grass, so the costs aren't astronomical, just incremental.

Jeff

[Tim_Weiman]

Jeff Brauer:

I took some liberty in quoting you and just wanted to be sure I didn't take too much.

John Sheehan:

It would be very interesting if data exists on the correlation between length and the final target green fee.  Perhaps this would illuminate what the average guy is paying to accomodate the big boys.

My personal opinion is that a very large percentage of the golfing public really doesn't need more than about 6,200 - 6,300 yards to find adequate challenge.  Take the yardage up to 6,500 - 6,600 and you can probably accomodate more than 95% of the people who play the game.

Nonetheless, recently I spoke to a developer building a 7,100 yard course due to open next year.  Already he fears he didn't build it long enough.

You may recall the famous politcal science essay from the early 1970's "Victims of Group Think".  The essay examined how government policy makers - all very bright people - simply reinforced each other's thinking despite being dead wrong about the utility of their policy recommendations.

I can't help but wonder if the new Titleist ads represent "group think" in the golf industry.  Let's see, we are spending more money to build longer courses, charging more money for golfers to play with their $500 drivers and $50 per dozen golf balls!

Shouldn't the industry be trying to lower the costs for consumers?  Isn't that what we expect of other industries?

[TEPaul]

Yes we did consider controlling distance to control cost. It was during the analysis of the Armand Hammer course inside LA city limits about two years ago. We concluded that if Tiger cut loose with his best drive he may hit the ball a bit past 30yds but that would keep the 65yd par 5 6th hole out of reach in two for even him and therefore we figured the course was not obsolete to  hold its first US Open. Corporate tents and crowd control was deemed not to be an issue either since both are sort of an LA thing anyway!

[Jeff_Mingay]

William Flynn warned of this phenomenon in 1927 when he wrote:

"If, as in the past, the distance to be gotten with the ball continues to increase, it will be necessary to go to 7,500 and even 8,000 yard courses and more yards mean more acres to buy, more course to construct, more fairway to maintain and more money to fork out."

Pretty simple equation, I think.

[aclayman]

One of the realities is that while the AG can't possibly play a 7400 yd course anywhere close to par. An amazing number of these guys still want to, and want their outings to play the bigger and better.(macheesemo?) So, that is where the money will go.

Instead of asking the golfing public to play shorter inorder to lower costs, perhaps the real q is how much will your entity lose if they don't show-up because it's too short?

[Tim_Weiman]

aclayman:

Actually, my experience has been that very few people enjoy playing anywhere near 7,000.

They can't do it.  They know they can't do it.  The vast majority don't do it.

Not many people would turn down the opportunity to play a Crystal Downs at 6,500 yards.  In Ireland, many people love playing Dooks at 6,000 yards.

Why shouldn't we be concerned about lowering costs?  Why should the golf industry be exempt from doing what other industries (e.g., computer hardware/software) are expected to do?

Don't you think building 7,400 yard courses is a waste of resources?  Don't you question incurring the expense of building such courses for the one percent that may be able to play them?

[John_Sheehan]

Tim-
Haven't been able to find that story yet. I thought it might be in GolfWeek, but after checking with Jeff Babineau and Brad Klein, none of us can locate it.  Searched a number of websites to no avail.  If only I could figure out how to use the search engine on this site! Will keep checking!

[aclayman]

Tim- I was only relaying what I see as the criterior planners use to decide where to hold outings.

I couldn't agree more with the point of your post but I do not think that the industry(not all) has anything other than bottomline as their focus.

As a golfer and not an industry representative I think the motto of "why pay more" is a consumers choice. While Bandon And Pac dunes have shown that even if you do control costs of construction and are able to charge reap the reward of retail fees, the projected attitude seems more like 'why charge less?'  

[Tim_Weiman]

aclayman:

Thanks.

I understand the focus of any industry on the bottom line.  Still, for our part, we can do our best to encourage a more consumer oriented point of view.

The technology arms race isn't helping consumers.  It may even be discouraging more people from taking up the game.