Fazio talks...

[Steve_ Shaffer]

From today's Desert Sun:


Designer returns for more desert course work

 Larry Bohannan
The Desert Sun
February 6, 2005


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Tom Fazio would love to come to the desert to play golf, but his work keeps getting in the way.
"Here I am with all these great places, and I'd love to just stay a week and play golf," Fazio said. "But I have to go home and go to some other projects."

Fazio's visits to the desert may be short, but they tend to result in more golf for other players. One of the busiest and most respected golf architects in the country, Fazio's credits in the desert include both courses at The Vintage Club, the highly ranked Quarry at La Quinta, the popular Canyons Course at Bighorn and the re-design of Eldorado, which rather than a renovation is really a new golf course on the existing routing.

Fazio already has his next course in the area in the works. The Madison Club, developed by Discovery Land, will break ground sometime in March in La Quinta, just east of The Hideaway between Avenue 52 and Avenue 54.

High-end courses

The Madison Club, with 18 holes of golf and about 220 home sites, will be another private, real estate-driven course for Fazio in the desert. While that's all he's done in the desert, he says he's not adverse to doing other kinds of developments, as long as they have the same fundamentals as his other desert courses.
"The common theme with these courses in the desert is that there was the highest commitment for golf, the game of golf," Fazio said. That commitment from the developer, such as Mick Humphries at The Vintage Club and Bill Morrow at The Quarry, allowed Fazio to do the work that turned The Vintage into the desert standard for high-profile private golf, or The Quarry into the desert's only course on Golf Digest's most recent top 100.

With the last of his six children now in college, Fazio allows himself more West Coast work, such as a course he just finished in Las Vegas for developer Steve Wynn.

Even with his reputation well-established by courses like the ones he's done in the desert, Fazio carries the slight anxiety that design is a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately business.

"If I never designed another golf course in this valley, I could retire and live off the laurels of The Vintage Club and the Quarry and Canyons and Eldorado," Fazio said. "That would be great, and I would be satisfied with that. But the minute we put the shovel in the ground at The Madison Club, there's the expectation level. What's that going to be like?"

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Fazio/High-End Course/Dream Project/More Time Since He Kicked The Last Kid Out Of The House/Expectation Level/Product

How much more drivel can this hick produce? He repeats the same stuff at every new course ground breaking and opening. He also has been using that line about the kids being out of the house for about the last 6 years. GIVE IT A REST!

Here Tom, let me write the true story for you:

STAY AT HOME DESIGNER REAPS MASS PROFITS WHILE BOLSTERING EGO

Tom Fazio has no intentions of ever coming to the desert to play golf, because he hates it there, even though it has been a money stream of work for him.

"Here I am with all these places I have designed and built and made a fortune from. I don't care about the desert, I hate it. I only care about being home sitting on the couch watching  Hee Haw."

"As soon as I get off my private jet when arriving in Palm Springs, I'm constantly asking myself when can I get back on it and get the hell out of here. I would rather be home telling the gardener how to cut the lawn."

Fazio's visits to the desert may be short, but they tend to result in more money in his wallet and more fuel for the G4.

Once, one of the most busiest golf architects in the country until Bill Coore and Tom Doak started stealing his thunder by building better and more interesting courses at a 1/4th of the price, Fazio's credits in the desert include both courses at The Vintage Club, the Quarry at La Quinta, the popular Canyons Course at Bighorn and the re-design of Eldorado. All over-rated and hyped to death because that's how you justify spending millions of dollars in the golf business.

With the last of his six children out of the house and in college ten years ago, Fazio allows himself more West Coast work because he makes a wad of money from it. He has a reputation of over-building and over-designing every course he's done in the desert, and doesn't have one bit of remorse for doing so.

"I've made so much money in this business with my usual schtick, I don't ever have to design another golf course in this damn valley," Fazio said. "I could retire and live off the profits of The Vintage Club and the Quarry and Canyons and Eldorado." "Now excuse me, I have to go and design a new course in Pacific Palisades."

[Joel_Stewart]

Tommy:  Post of the year.

[SPDB]

Tommy -
I never realized you were such a Marxist.

I can't say I blame Fazio for not wanting to dwell too long in the desert, can you (don't answer that)?

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Sean,
The Desert is one of Golf's Great Missed Opportunities. It could've been really something special with all of those dunes on towards the North, East and South.

Marxist? Well, I don't know about that, I would say more of a middle of the road kind of guy, and you mght find that somewhat amusing, but its the truth. How would explain the conservative values of purist architecture, yet the freedom for all architects to be open to create?

I just don't want to buy into someone's babbling brook of bullshit, as The Great One is so inclined to do during in these interviews. Its always the same thing. ALWAYS. Even you have to admit that.

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Tommy

I knew this post would get you going.

Steve

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Thanks Steve, I needed it to restore me to my senses!

[W.H. Cosgrove]

Tommy....I can't believe that you think the desert is one of the great missed opportunities?

Come on ......opportunists have been selling naive suckers the golf lifestyle for decades now.  Flatten the terrain, hire a big name architect who sleepwalks through a routing that maximzes the numberof lots available and then sell those lots at super inflated prices.  

Now that is opportunity!

I don't know how they screwed up and actually built a handful of interesting golf courses!

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Bill,
Don Mahaffey will no doubt join me in saying just how good of natural sandy-dune property that used to exist in La Quinta. Some pretty amazing stuff that would have a lot of us gushing for a great course.

One of those sites, The Pate Course at Rancho La Quinta, was some of the best of it. The dunes didn't get higher then 15-17 feet, but there was all sorts of interesting landforms out there. You can still see what's left of it right there on 111, and I still just shriek with horror knowing what was built there.

But its not the only stuff.

Heritage Palms, the Art Hills course was also on great duneland, and so were many others. I remember when they were clearing the land for Mountain View Golf Club of La Quinta--a Palmer course. It was on the very eastern end of those dunes, but there was still some movement out there. Long before the developments, The Citrus Course at La Quinta was on old sand dunes, as was La Quinta-Dunes.

Yes, realistically the houses had to get built, but I look at all of those places and see what they went for and the fact that there isn't a GREAT golf course out there-or at least one that is worth the classification, and it sort of becomes nothing more then a real estate wasteland.

[Tom_Doak]

Stone Eagle isn't sand dunes, but at least you'll never be able to call it "a real estate wasteland."

[Robert Thompson]

Tommy: Interesting note that will certainly make you happy -- apparently one of Fazio's sons has joined the business and is working on a course Tom designed near Toronto.
Can you say 'family dynasty?'
It'll just be like RTJ....
Imagine, Tommy, years of dull golf built in the middle of subdivisons. I know that's exactly what you're looking forward to.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Robert,
Just like the last kid being out of the house and Fazio using that excuse to do more projects abroad and out here in the West, I have heard the constant stories for about the last 8 years of how Logan has followed his Dad into the business. He even has a daughter or daughters working in the business. The next thing you know, he'll have Alice, the family maid, as well as the family dog, Crumbles designing courses too.

I would like to see one of his children beomce the black sheep and go to work for Coore & Crenshaw or Pete Dye or something! Break away from family traditions--revolt!

He really does need to develop a new schtick, The old one is just getting to old and used-up.

 

[Robert Thompson]

Tommy: Sounds like Fazio could offer variable rates, kinda like Nicklaus, where you can inquire about the cost of a "Barbara Nicklaus Signature Design," where she comes and does some baking during the media opening.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Oh yes, The Logan Course; The Tommy Course; The Jim Course all with their own costly price tags and where it looks as if they shared the same brain. Might as well throw the wife in there too!