Are the minimalist courses any more budget friendly?

[Brian_Gracely]

We're going through this period right now where many rugged, "minimalist", strategic courses are being built by C&C, Doak, Hanse, Stranz, Farris, Shackleford, etc.  And while people think it's great that the courses look natural and rugged, I'm wondering how long it'll be before we starting seeing threads about those courses having trimmed bunkers, narrower fairways, smaller bunkers, etc. because the maintenance costs of the rugged look are no cheaper than any other course.

I'm sure somebody is going to tell me that Sebonac or Friar's Head will never have that problem because they were smart enough to plant an orchard of money trees off to the side, but has anyone looked at any of the maintenance budgets of those courses to see how they fall in line with more traditional courses?  Even compared to golden-age courses maintained today?

How long will it be before the rugged look of many of these places starts to become like CPC, where native grasses have grown over the sand dunes, and the bunkers eventually became less wild and rugged (although CPC just redid them)?

[Tom_Doak]

Brian:

That depends more upon the will of the membership than upon the design of the golf course.

A lot of those "minimalist" designs have pretty high maintenance budgets.  Sometimes it's necessary because of wear and tear; other times it's just that the members want everything immaculately groomed.

"Scruffy" areas are not necessarily low-maintenance, either.  I know that when I first saw Pine Valley, they spent more of their budget on the "unmaintained" area than on the turf.  That might not be true nowadays, because they are spending a lot more on the turf; but the cost of keeping the plants pruned back and the bunkers fixed from washouts and so forth, is much more than you have been led to believe.

Also, a lot of minimalist designs include a lot of fairway acreage ... which doesn't help the maintenance costs any.

[PThomas]

for some reason I had it in my head that a minimalist design
would not be groomed, but I guess that's not always

[TEPaul]

Tom Doak:

PVGC spends more on the "unmaintained areas" than they used to for the simple reason that those areas are more "maintained" looking than they used to be.

But this is an excellent question. Do you think it would be easy or low maintenance to keep CPC looking the way it did around its opening (photos in GeoffShac's book) or a Friar's Head looking the way it did in some of those gorgeous B&W photos Ran took that are on here in the course review? Hell no it wouldn't, and frankly I feel Friar's and Bakst is more than well aware of that and probably has a massive master plan in the back of his head to deal with that. We can talk about the demands of membership wanting the immaculate but that's probably nothing compared to the evolutionary way of Mother Nature herself. Just the subject of un-maintained "vegetating over" is massive if not understood and dealt with in maintenance plans. The examples are endless----just look at Shinnecock, a course that was never much maintained---just sort of left alone to a relatively large extent. Look at what happened to Flynn's carefully designed and constructed "undulating waste" areas---today they're practically all vegetated over. Why? Basically because the club probably never really understood them and what they were or that to keep them as they were designed to be required a maintenance program against neglect---eg the evolutionary effects of Mother Nature!

[Don_Mahaffey]

Just keep in mind that the "wild" look can only be maintained by hand and it usually requires a fair amount of training and supervision. A sharp edged bunker is pretty simple to mow, edge, and train people to maintain. A scruffy bunker will require some maintenance and that work is a little more advanced then simply edging and hanging a reel over the edge.

How a golf course architect inserts design features into site specific environmental conditions is going to dictate how much money is needed to construct and care for the course.

[astavrides]

Brian,

This is a good question you pose, but is Stranz really a minimalist?

Also, I would ask the question, are minimalist courses cheaper to build?

[Brian_Gracely]

Alex,

You're right that Strantz might not be considered a minimalist in terms of earth-movement, but many people like to lump all courses or architects that have hairy-edged bunkers into the "minimalist" category.  

In fact, I'd love to have someone from Tobacco Road come talk at the GCA event in the Fall (Dixie Cup II) about what it takes to maintain a course like TR.  I suspect alot of people just assume that you only need to mow the tees, fairways and greens and the rough edges will just stay rough from year to year.  

[Jeff_Brauer]

I doubt any super looks at the design style. They probably look at the amount of hand work, number of bunkers to rake, and then the amount of steep slope to maintain, since those tend to cut into his most efficient operations - production mowing.  (Let's not forget that there is a reason turfgrass has become the prevalent ground cover in the US - it is generally very easy to keep alive.  As Tom Doak notes, keeping it to a certain prescribed level isn't as easy!)

Thus, if a minimalist design like Wildhorse, which has gentle slopes and doesn't add to them would be more budget friendly as opposed to Tobacco Road, or any more typically created mounds and slopes. However, a minimalist design on flat ground, with poorly drained soils could be a maintenance nightmare versus a course with well shaped fairways and a minimalist design on steep ground, where the designer left steep slopes, rather than modify them would also be tough.  

Also in the mix are green and tee sites in shade or still areas, marginal turf types, which might be more associated with minimalism, and amount of landscape areas to maintain, which probably wouldn't.  

Net, net, I doubt the design style label means much.  Its whats out there on the ground.

[Tom_Doak]

Alex:

I do think "minimalist" courses are less costly to construct.  The savings come mostly from earthmoving and drainage costs:  some projects spend $1 million or more on each of those line items, while others spend very little.

However, clearing, shaping, greens construction, irrigation, finish and seeding budgets are about the same for either style, so if you're out west, the savings from earthmoving and drainage are only perhaps 10-15% of the total construction cost.  

A million dollars is still nothing to sneeze at, but you would be surprised how few of our clients seem to care!

[mikes1160]

Brian,

Having spent a considerable amount of time with Perry Payne and Morgan Stephenson at Tobacco Road and having been to their maintenance facility many times, I would hazard a guess that the TR crew spends at least a quarter of their time on "non-turf" areas (sand, slopes, mounds, etc.) TR has approximately 16 acres of sandy waste areas/pot hole bunkers. On the other hand, their maintenance equipment needs are quite minimal - given the stature of their facility, it's amazing to see how little they get by on.

   

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