Restorations Most Elusive Element- Maintaining the Vision

[Ed_Baker]

Great responses Gentlemen,

There are certainly many moving parts to synchronize, keeping them all oiled and moving forward together is very difficult.

Tom Doak's timeframe is right on the money from my experiences, strange deja-vu starts at about the 7 year mark and by year 10 there are several problems that were "fixed" and argued over originally.

It does help when the documentation of the original project is detailed enough to show the incumbent "power base" that they have "allowed" a golf course problem to re-occur, and had they just followed the guidelines from the plan that they had paid for several years ago, discussion and additional expenditure would be needless. They are amazed that these are not "new" problems.

Every club that I have personal knowledge or experience with that has completed a restoration project came out of that process with a dramatically increased Green budget. Much of the increased annual expenditure was supposed to address the gradual processes of green and fairway expansions, additional annual bunker maintainence ie; maintaining the restored footprints and depths, tree pruning/removal ect. It is amazing how over time the money just disappears in to the hazy abyss, and line item (task and area) accounting is ignored and the increase is explained away with the time honored "labor hours are more expensive" shuffle.

While restoration seems to educate memberships on a variety of issues, the lessons learned are fleeting.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Ed Baker,

I've seen less then a handful of people view a restoration, renovation or modernization from the perspective of the ongoing green budget.

It's frequently the hangover they have to confront the morning after.

[Mark_Fine]

Pat,
Maintenace budgets actually DO play a role in restorations and renovations.  You might be surprised how much attention is paid to them, e.g. "what will the anticipated change be to course maintenance costs when the Master Plan is completed"?  This is a very common question and one that needs a good answer!
Mark

[Patrick_Mucci]

Mark Fine,

I've been involved, directly or tangentially with more then 20 projects, and never once did a green committee question the impact of the project on the maintainance budget.

The only words uttered in that direction were the generality that the project would result in lower maintainance costs, but, noone, on any green committee, ever offered how those savings would be derived.

But, perhaps your experience with green committees differs.

[Mark_Fine]

Pat,
I am quite surprised, frankly amazed, that in those 20 projects most people were talking about "lower" maintenance costs?  Of course there are trade offs, but more fairway, larger expanded greens that are often less triplex friendly, deeper bunkers that are often expanded/moved tighter to the greens with more hand raking required, and other design features that were lost in the trees that are now brought back into the playing field,...I don't know?  

Did you ever hear the phrase that golf courses "tend to shrink" as they get older.  Usually when you expand them back to "full size" and/or add some length (where elasticity permits), costs are impacted.  If someone is telling you that costs are going down, I'd ask a few pointed questions  

Anyway, my experiences have been the opposite in that I can't think of one project where the question of maintenance costs/practices associated with implementation of the Master Plan/golf course changes have not been discussed extensively.  

I'd be curious if others feel the same?
Mark

[Bill_McBride]

Pat, in post # 28, when you say that, over 20 renovation projects, no one on the greens committee ever offered any ideas on how the savings in maintenance would be realized, did you mean no one ever "asked" how savings would be realized?  I would think there would have been expert advice on what the net financial impact would be of the restoration.

[TEPaul]

I've only been involved in one restoration directly but I have spent time at plenty of other restoration projects with architects and green chairmen and green committee people I seem to know so many of them these days. I doubt I've seen a single one when maintenance costs to do with a restoration and the multiplicity of decisions to be made about a restoration were not discussed. Most competent golf clubs have competent maintenance operating budgets and they try to stick to them. How in the world can you do that if you don't ask competent questions and get competent answers as to how a restoration or master plan project will affect your annual maintenance budget?

There're probably a good number of golf architectural purists on here who don't like to hear that or choose not to consider it but they should because all kinds of decisions on restoration projects need to be made on how restoration decisions effect on-going maintenance costs and maintenance budgets. If they don't belong to these clubs they probably think they have some luxury of being critical of decisions that are made in the name of annual operating budgets. I guess I can understand that because they have no responsibility to pay for it and they have no responsibilty to memberships who do have to pay for it.

Pat:

You say you've been involve directly or tangentially on about 20 projects and not a single one of them asked or considered the impact of the project on annual maintenance budgets? My God, man, I know you're rich and you've got a ton of rich friends but that's pretty amazing. Don't you think you might want to change your thinking in the future and perhaps ask those you're involved with in these projects to do the same? How do you think you're going to 'maintain the vision' if you have no idea what it costs to maintain the vision?

[Mark_Fine]

Tom Paul - Amen!  I couldn't agree more and am not sure where Pat is coming from!

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul, Mark Fine & Bill McBride,

The impact to maintainance costs weren't a consideration because their focus was universally on the end product, be it a modernization, renovation or restoration.

You're also lumping all 20 projects into one general grouping when each project was entirely different or unique.  
Some were hole or feature specific, others were global in nature.

TEPaul,

While I'm not familiar with the committee discussions, do you thnk that the maintainance costs associated with the Merion bunkers was ever discussed in depth ?

The extra TLC necessary to maintain those rollover grass features ?

I'd venture that NOBODY had a clue as to what the costs to maintain them would be because they were new and noone had any experience with them.  AND, that wasn't their primary focus, the finished product was.

And, even if they were discussed, the attaining of the finished product was THE goal and any increased, ongoing maintainance costs would be viewed as necessary baggage.

[Mark_Fine]

Pat,
The "end product" has to be maintained properly.  That is one of the reasons work is being done in the first place.

Seems many of these projects may have missed the boat by not making this a key issue  
Mark

[Patrick_Mucci]

Mark,

I learned, about 15 years ago, that when everyone walks away from a project, the President, the Board, the Green/project Chairman, the committees, the architect, the contractor and sub-contractors, the superintendent is left to deal with maintaining the work that has been done.

Often, the project results in an inflated maintainance budget where the superintendent inherits the pressure and the blame.

I've seen a good number of projects where tunnel vision, ego, and the desire to push a project through resulted in the ignoring of the future of the maintainance budget, causing it to be an unwanted step-child, and distanced from any mention within the context of the project.

I've seen clubs install irrigation systems, knowing, yet ignoring that an architect was going to present a master plan a year or two down the road and that the irrigation system would have to be reconfigured, at great expense and disruption.
How's that for throwing away $ 300,000 or more of the member's money.  

EGOs, they can be the most costly line or non-line item.

[Mark_Fine]

Pat,
Aren't you stressing the point I am making that ongoing maintenance costs ARE a key issue and need to be discussed up front?  That is why I was shocked when you said this never came up in all your projects.  I couldn't believe it.
Mark

[Patrick_Mucci]

Mark,

You misread my post/s.

I never said that they were MY projects.
I said that they were projects that I was directly or tangentially involved with.

I agree, the impact to future maintainance budgets is a KEY component and should be discussed at great length prior to undertaking any project.

What is the impact on Lehigh's budget with respect to replacing and maintaining the many shrub and flower areas throughout the golf course ?

I would imagine, that over the years, the line item in the green budget for this has grown to where it's noticeable.

Some projects occur over time, others at one time, but all affect budgets, and I think that you're going to see a crunch in the not too distant future.

[TEPaul]

"TEPaul,
While I'm not familiar with the committee discussions, do you thnk that the maintainance costs associated with the Merion bunkers was ever discussed in depth?"

Pat:

what a good question that is!

This is what I do know about that. The purported reason to redo the Merion East bunkers was to cut down on on-going maintenance costs on them. The bunker project was also one of the last projects in about a 12 year general restoration plan of Merion East (this was mentioned at a large forum on restoration by the Merion green chairman).

It's hard to say how much specific maintenance cost research they did and exactly how, how much or if the bunker project would effect maintenance costs but it's no secret the initial maintenance costs of their new bunkers was pretty astronomical as they struggled to get them right for a few years---irrigation problems etc. So, did they meet their initial bunker maintenance cost projections if they even had them? I sure wouldn't think so. I do know what percentage of their overall course maintenance budget the bunkering maintenance cost was a few years ago but no way in hell would I ever mention that on here! Sorry about that!  

"And, even if they were discussed, the attaining of the finished product was THE goal and any increased, ongoing maintainance costs would be viewed as necessary baggage."

Yeah, riight Pat: I wish I could've watched you try to explain that to the membership of Merion that way----eg "all this extra cost and additional unexpected assessment and increased 'baggage' was an intended expectation!"    It took all the savy and persuasiveness of an unbelievably good club new president (who may even have been brought in for that reason) to explain that to the Merion membership. I know an awful lot of them and they were pretty upset about that. But in a way they were fortunate that that item basically got minimized by one of the biggest and most expensive unexpected clubhouse restoration projects you've ever heard of. It was the proverbial opening up of Pandora's box. I think they wanted to look into doing some relatively small project on the clubhouse---and you know the way it goes---the code boys probably came in to look at that small project and as they probably wandered around that really old clubhouse I guess they said; "Aaah guys, I think you'all have some major, major problems with this building." You know the way that goes---when those code boys come in be very careful where you let them go!  

PS

The same thing happened to GMGC's clubhouse---the code boys came in to look at some really small project--it opened Pandora's box---they said we'd virtually need to tear the whole thing down and start again---the membership panicked not knowing what was going to happen to our beloved funky old clubhouse until one of the more savy members said something like---"I'll just call our congressman and have a little chat with him about this." That's the last we heard from those code boys!  

[TEPaul]

Mark:

Is it not truly beautiful and hilarious to watch Pat try to wiggle out of taking any responsibilty for such a dumb remark and dumb modus operandi on about 20 projects he was involved with directly or tangentially and then just end up blaming the cost overruns in maintenance on the membership and the big egos within the membership?

If he was involved both directly and tangentially, what the hell was he and his ego doing----sort of acting the part of an UN Observer or something?    

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

First, you have to understand the remark, which you don't.
Second, it helps if you understand the remark in the context of predicting maintainance costs on features scheduled to be altered.
Third, where I was tangentially involved, I did not interface with the membership.
Fourth, where I was directly involved, but not in charge, decisions were made that I disagreed with.
Fifth, where I was directly involved, and in charge, I was quite pleased with the results, as were the membership and others, although there are a few things that I would do differently.

The long winter season, the snow, ice and cold are conspiring to clould your memory.

Don't you recall our conversation a few years ago as we reviewed all of the bunkers at Merion, shortly after their completion ?

We discussed how difficult and costly it would be to maintain those wrap around, upholstered style bunker tops and surrounds.  How the bunker wol, which was coming to the surface would have to be continually repaired, if not discarded and done all over.

I doubt that ANYONE envisioned those problems prior to the building of those bunkers.

That's what I was referencing.

NOW, do you recall our conversation ?

[ian]

Pat,

I have not worked on a renovation that budget was not rasied on both construction or maintenance following the renovation or restoration of the course. It is discussed on every single project at each club.

[TEPaul]

"TEPaul,
First, you have to understand the remark, which you don't.
Second, it helps if you understand the remark in the context of predicting maintainance costs on features scheduled to be altered.
Third, where I was tangentially involved, I did not interface with the membership.
Fourth, where I was directly involved, but not in charge, decisions were made that I disagreed with.
Fifth, where I was directly involved, and in charge, I was quite pleased with the results, as were the membership and others, although there are a few things that I would do differently."

Is this not one of the best Pat Mucci mumbo-jumbo responses to an initial "off the wall" remark? If all else fails he always falls back on the response that none of us understand what he initially said!!!  

It's not that we don't understand what he said only that we recognize he was wrong again and that it's impossible for him to admit it----hence the mumbo-jumbo and probably some real maintenance cost increases as well. Well, I guess the only good news is none of us had to pay for it did we?  

Pat:

Yes, I do recall our conversation at Merion very well---it was just as you described it. But what's your point here? Do you recall someone on here pointing to the Merion bunker project as the ideal restoration model to follow actually or maintenance cost estimate-wise?

[TEPaul]

"I've been involved, directly or tangentially with more then 20 projects, and never once did a green committee question the impact of the project on the maintainance budget.
The only words uttered in that direction were the generality that the project would result in lower maintainance costs, but, noone, on any green committee, ever offered how those savings would be derived.
But, perhaps your experience with green committees differs."

Pat:

I think you can see now that the experiences of most of us did differ from what you said there. Did you learn anything from what we said on here or are you just going to tell us we didn't understand what you initially said which if you'd like to read your own words were;

"I've been involved, directly or tangentially with more then 20 projects, and never once did a green committee question the impact of the project on the maintainance budget."

So, what do you say--do you want to comment on that or just wiggle out of it again by telling us again we didn't understand what you said?

Did you ever ask any of those green committees if they'd perhaps seriously consider the impact of the project on the maintenance budget? And if so, what did they do, tell you to shut up every time?