Great greens and detailed plans???

[Forrest Richardson]

Perhaps sharing a soon-to-begin project will shed light on how we manage this question:

We are about to begin work on the Short Course at Promontory, Utah. As background, the course is 4,500-yards, par-60. It is a core routing. It will join the already opened Dye Course and the 2006 opening of The Nicklaus Course.

All of the green sites at my course, except four, are in natural settings chosen based on their tremendous topo and "fit" to the routing. The four odd-balls are not totally forced...but work needs to be done to make them integrate.

Early on we decided to go with very detailed plans. The reason was to have streamlined communication with our shaper. While I will be there weekly, we are pressed to complete this work this summer so we can seed. The shaper will be making many decisions in my absence...and while I can overrule him, I want to avoid that.

Now...for the logistics. We now have the ability to get very, very, very accuate topographical surveys. We are talking really, really accurate surveys. With this in mind...and a lot of advance work siting greens and working in the field with the routing, the ability to know what we are intending to do is much more realistic than in past eras.

So...what we have at Promontory is a set of detailed greens plans that have been carefully tweaked to match the precise field conditions. This will enable communication of the highest level between shaper and architect.

Does it preclude changes and fine-tuning? Of course not. If we feel the need, we can change a green site 100%. This may involve budget contingencies, but the point is that is can still be accommodated. However, the goal is to implement our intentions and concepts. The detailed plans are a means toward that goal. My experience tells me that this approach — in this case — will assist in several regards as we work to meet a schedule, get great greens, and stay within budget for shaping.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Forrest,You can actually change a green site more than 100% - you can change it 100% three or four times over!  I understand some of the field only guys are famous for that, costing lots of time and money.

That is the value of plans - you think it out over time rather than while there is pressure to build with the dozer.  Also, we all tend to be repetitive beings.The other value o f plans is that it is simpler to balance out design concepts on paper - left, right, long skinny, fat wide, etc.  In the field you tend to look at what you have.

[Forrest Richardson]

I have heard of multiple changes...

...architect gives direction
...shaper works the dirt
...field super changes direction
...architect arrives after 2 months and changes it all
...field super tries his best
...shaper does what he wants
...architect comes back and changes his mind

etc., etc.

[TEPaul]

PhilipY:

Two courses that in my opinion have about the best set of greens I know of, Merion East and Pine Valley, sure as shootin' didn't design and build their greens from the development and use of detailed plans.

[Forrest Richardson]

But Tom — Wouldn't you agree that the greens at these two courses are significantly changed from what was likely there in the beginning? That it probably does not matter so much now how they were detailed, or not? That the changes of time account for much of what you like about them?

Besides, it is likely that a detailed plan didexist — even if in the mind instead of the printed page.

[wsmorrison]

"Two courses that in my opinion have about the best set of greens I know of, Merion East and Pine Valley, sure as shootin' didn't design and build their greens from the development and use of detailed plans."

I don't think that is entirely true as regards Merion East, Tom.  Given the changes to greens made prior to the Amateurs in 1924 (holes 10,11,12 and 13) and 1930 (1 and 14) and the 1934 Open (2) I think it likely these were done according detailed plans.

How detailed were Alison's and Maxwell's plans for their greens at Pine Valley?  I haven't seen any of Maxwell's green plans, say for the redoing of several greens at Philadelphia Country Club for instance.  There aren't any Maxwell plans for the changes he made at Gulph Mills are there, Tom?

[wsmorrison]

Phil,

How accurate were the plasticine models?  Were they done exactly to scale?  How accurately were they translated in the field?  It would appear this would not be the best procedure to follow to get exactly what you want on the ground.  Surely not the same as a set of detailed plans with accurate stake heights indicated at specific locations along with detailed construction instructions (maximum slopes, etc).

[paul cowley]

I will say that generally whatever detail might be missing from our plans is offset by a decision to supply that information in the field........and that every green I have been involved with is directed on site, regardless of how confident or detailed my plans were.
That in my opinion is the only way to manage the job and budget for the clients benefit....and why things generally get done right the first time to avoid the train wreck scenarios that Forrest describes [and really do happen  in this business].

[Tom_Doak]

Forrest:

In the "train wreck" scenario you describe above, do you really believe the architect in question would have gotten it right in one shot by drawing a plan?  And that the green in question would have been an excellent green?

Efficiency is to be heralded, but you could reshape every green on a golf course if you needed to, for about the cost of one month's dozer time -- about five thousand dollars.  In most cases that cost would be paid for out of the contractor's total bid so it would cost the owner of the course nothing.  But even if it cost him $5000, out of a total budget of $2 million or more, in order to get better greens, don't you think it would be worth it?

Even more efficient is if the architect is actually on site at the start of building the green, in which case I believe the odds are much better that he would start at the right elevation and produce something great, than if he tried to pick the elevation on a plan or on the computer in his office.  I know this is how we produce our best greens; in fact it is how we produce all of them.

[Bill_McBride]

Ed, I appreciate the compliment, and I'll bet the others you listed do too, but there is just WAY too much technical knowledge of golf course design and construction required for an untrained person to be able to do more than stick routings and two-plane drawings.

I am currently on the committee overseeing the reconstruction of old Pensacola Country Club - 1902/1925.  Jerry Pate Golf Design's Steve Dana did the bulk of the design, and Jerry's brother Scott, owner of Seaside Golf Construction, is doing the work.

I have been tremendously impressed with what these guys are doing to enhance our existing course with judicious shaping, added contouring of fairways, and, to my excitement, throwing in a Redan for good measure!

Just the design of the drainage system -- lakes, underground piping, filter of the outflow, drains -- is extremely technical.

The artistic part -- green siting and design of contours, rough or fine direction of the shaping, how that fits into the drainage -- this is in some ways subordinate to the technical requirements.

In other words, if it doesn't work in practice, it doesn't matter how good it looks to the afficianados like most of us on this site.

In addition to the technical, I never cease to be amazed at how the gifted GCA can look at a heavily wooded site and the topos of what it looks like now, and somehow come up with a routing that fills all the necessary requirements as well as one that most facilitates the technical requirements.

So I have to respectfully disagree with Ed.  But I do greatly enjoy discussing what they did and why with golf architects, particularly those who successfully create natural looking courses (even if they aren't even remotely natural!) that make optimum use of the site's features.

[Forrest Richardson]

Tom D. — Sorry if you gathered that I meant plans would somehow have affected that scenario. I was just commenting on Brauer's comment about changing greens more than 100%.

 

[TEPaul]

"But Tom — Wouldn't you agree that the greens at these two courses are significantly changed from what was likely there in the beginning? That it probably does not matter so much now how they were detailed, or not? That the changes of time account for much of what you like about them?"

Forrest:

Good point. In some ways some of the greens on both courses are quite different than they used to be. In most of those cases that difference is the result of sand splash over time (evolutionary build-up). In other cases I might even say I would've liked some even better the way they used to be---but on that I guess one needs to factor in the change in greenspeed.

"Besides, it is likely that a detailed plan did exist — even if in the mind instead of the printed page."

If you're going to say something like that I don't really know what any distinction would be to discuss then. I mean what green was not produced from either someone's mind or the printed page?  

[TEPaul]

Wayne:

Good point about some of the later or redesigned greens of Merion East and PVGC. Think of the greens at Merion East that were not redesigned though.

I certainly do know that Alison produced his redesigned greens at PVGC from his own plans, drawings and text explanations and for the most part it looks like the constructors followed those plans pretty carefully.

I've never seen or heard of any actual plans for the Maxwell greens at PVGC, GMGC, or any other course where Maxwell redesigned greens. Perhaps Chris Clouser has seen some. And I do know that when Jim Urbina (perhaps one of the best modern green creators) carefully analyzed one of Maxwell's greens at PVGC he surmised they probably just created and floated the whole thing right on the ground and by eye---eg not off a written or drawn plan.

For the remaining greens at PVGC that were not redesigned by either Alison or Maxwell, I do not believe any of them were done from written or drawn green design plans. If they were I've never seen any. There is no question that Colt never left any drawn or written green design plans, and Crump and Govan basically did not draw stuff like that. For the most part anything that Geo Crump tried to draw (like bunkering) looked something like the drawing of a five year old. However, at least six of the greens at PVGC are of the Fredrick Winslow Taylor construction method but I believe that's more the subsurface and drainage construction, and not the tops, but maybe not.

PhilY:

I did not know any of the greens of NGLA were constructed off plasticine models. I do know that a plasticine model or something resembling a plasticine model was made of the golf course after it was constructed.

However, there's little question plasticine models for prototype greens were used early on and then became fairly universally criticized as a design and construction method. The reason is pretty obvious----eg most thought it pretty hard to fit some model from somewhere else onto various landforms which were not suited to receive the models.

[paul cowley]

...you know, with all this talk about greens plans I think I might just experiment on the next course.....there is a new high resolution photographic topo available [very accurate].
I think I will use that to design the course entirely from my home office, never going to the site, never even leaving my office for the entire 9 months or so but emerging the second week of grow in just to check on things.
I'm not going to cut my hair or nails either.

I wonder how much chicken noodle soup I'm going to need?
hmmmm, 9 times 30 times....where the heck is the multiplication key? or are you supposed to just use the x key?
man....I'm getting late for work....

[wsmorrison]

Tom,

Have you been able to determine which greens at Pine Valley were built by the Taylor method?  I think the Wilson-Piper/Oakley letters mentioned that several were by Taylor but I think only the 1st was specifically attributed to Taylor.  It would be interesting to know which are Taylor and which not--I presume none of the Maxwell or Alison greens were built by the Taylor method.  Have any greens been rebuilt since these old guys did their thing?

[Forrest Richardson]

"...what green was not produced from either someone's mind or the printed page?"

Those dwindling few which were simply evolutions of play. Where a post had been stuck in the ground at some favorite place, over and over, until the area became worn and trampled...and eventually a "green."

[ed_getka]

Ace,
  You may be right, but do note that I pointed out that the 3 GCA'ers would be doing the routing/design part and the usual complement of shapers,  irrigation guys, etc.. would be handling the technical aspects. Also keep in mind that I am saying the work of the 3 GCA guys could hold its head up against the average work of most architects, not the creme de la creme.  I still think it could be done, but I've been wrong before.

[Phil_the_Author]

Tom, Wayne & others,

My point wasn't that detailed plans and plasticine models insure the best of greens. I was just answering the question of whether detailed plans could create great greens. A wonderful example is 5 Farms where the plasticene models that tilly produced on site were followed carefully.

As I recently found out they are still wonderful.

[Joe Hancock]

Ed,

How would you say Ward (RIP) did with his little endeavor in the outskirts of Copemish? Was he what you would consider a "studied" person as far as GCA was concerned?

Not that one case makes your point.....

Joe