[Chip Gaskins]

This is the best thread in a while.  Mike and Tom have really added some very good insight on why the economics of golf courses are out of whack.  I certainly understand now why and what needs to change to make golf course development remotely profitable again.  Thanks!

[Sean_A]

I think a lot of this talk is hot air.  First there needs to be a cultural shift in people's attitudes about conservation - this conversation is part and parcel of the same concepts.  This is slowly happening.  I can recall when paper recycling started, most Americans thought it was a waste of time - I bet the consensus on this has changed.  Second, folks must drop the "not in my back yard" attitude.  A lot of people are all for these great money/resource saving ideas/methods, but they want their course to be perfect.  Why?  Because it can be and monmey doesn't matter to these types.  Finally, if a developer does manage to build something of a high standard which is more easily sustanable than its competitors, he has to be willing to reduce his profit share - in other words pass on the savings to the customer.  Other factors than good sense come into play which often have little relationship between costs and prices.  In time, I believe people will see the total green light about conservation, unfortunately, the US tends to lag in this area and that is where most of the courses area, but it will happen because it makes sense.  Americans are not stupid.

Ciao

[Grant Saunders]

This is a very interesting thread.

There is a lot of talk about keeping costs down in order to achieve the holy grail that is affordable golf. I would love to hear from people on here just what their concept of affordable golf really is. Im betting that it differs pretty widely dependent on a number of factors. If possible, could people maybe assign a numerical value to what they feel is a realistic amount they would be prepared to pay for a single round or membership. In other words, lets define affordable golf.

To kick things off, I give an outline of New Zealand golf:

With the exception of Kauri Cliffs, Cape Kidnappers and Kinloch I can not think of another course in the country with greenfees of greater than $80nz (thats 53US, 32GBP).  That leaves 99% or more of our courses under that $80 amount. Most are in fact significantly lower than $80 with a countrywide average of perhaps $40NZ (26.85US, 16GBP).

Yearly memberships in NZ are around $450NZ (301US, 180GBP) average with a range of $3000 (2013US, 1202GBP) at the highest end to $150NZ (100US, 60GBP) at the low end.

Therefore, based on these numbers, golf here is incredibly cheap compared to other parts of the world. These numbers also make it difficult for any new project to succeed financially as recouping construction and associated costs necessitate fees well above what is considered the norm here.

I do feel that many countries could look to NZ in finding ways to provide good quality surfaces with much lower inputs as the greenkeepers here are very skilled at working with the minimal resources.

Perhaps the notion of defining affordable golf is worthy of its own thread.

[Don_Mahaffey]

This is a great thread with some very good insight from Mike and Tom. My .02.
So often we read about all the great advances in science, like the science of turfgrass management. The problem with all the advancements is academics use the results of scientific experiments to try and create standardized methods of management and construction. So we end up where we are today where everything has to be perfect; greens sand, bunkers sand, rootzones...and on and on. Turfgrass management is all about managing the relationships between expectations, water, soil, grass....Those items are never the same from course to course, but it is the desire of many to try and make them the same, as if that's the best way. I disagree, strongly.

It is my firm belief that a golf course, and all "landscaping" for that matter, should be representative of the region and climate it sits within. Grasses that exist within that climate should be used, not grasses that require all kinds of crazy inputs like subterranean systems, expensive water treatments...etc. I also believe that golf courses should be constructed with local materials and local labor. If the materials don't meet some sort of spec, learn what you have to adjust to make them work, if the labor is not skilled, train them.

I know some of you are probably tired of hearing about Wolf Point, but that is exactly what we did here. We did it because we had a client who believed in us, and who also believed in being practical. I played the course on Thursday and I guarantee you most here would have loved the conditions. If you take away utility runs, road construction, and vertical structures, this course was built for less than $3Million. And that includes an extensive storm drainage system and 99 acres of turf. It can be done, but as long as banks require certified builders and colleges continue to crank out turf managers who can only manage grass grown on perfectly specified and uniform rootzones, I don't expect things to change anytime soon nor do I expect to see many courses built. 

[Mike_Young]

OK let's try these numbers and see how it becomes affordable:  2.5 MILLION COURSE
Say a 20 year amortization at 6.25 percent on the golf course and you hope for 25000 rounds.....below is the per round cost:
CONSTRUCTION

land- free
irrigation-700,000-                                                            2.44 per round
shaping- 200,000-                                                                .70 per round
cartpaths- 400,000                                                             1.40 per round
bunkers-200,000                                                                   .70 per round
misc other course cost-1,000,000                                      3.50 per round
grow-in- 350,000-                                                               1.22 per round
TOTAL CONSTRUCTION COST PER ROUND                        9.96 PER ROUND


equipment lease-                                                                4.75 per round
maintenance cost $500,000 budget                                 20.00 per round
4000 sq ft proshop/grill mortgage                                      1.50 per round
operation of shop budget                                                    5.00 per round
TOTAL MIKEY COST                                                           31.25 PER ROUND

TOTAL                                                                                41.21  PER ROUND

ESTIMATE GREEN FEE SHOULD BE ADVERTISED AS $60  w/o cart  (yes, people do use carts)

Now this is if you can get 25,000 rounds and most likely it will take 2 years.....AND THIS IS BREAK EVEN ON AN AFFORDABLE COURSE....... you will hear plenty of appraisals where 40,000 is used.....BS on that.....rare.....what if you get 12000 rounds first year?  
Oh well...just a sat morning breakdown..for your reading enjoyment.....be sure and thank the guy that is having you play for $30 somewhere......

[Mike_Young]

This is a great thread with some very good insight from Mike and Tom. My .02.
So often we read about all the great advances in science, like the science of turfgrass management. The problem with all the advancements is academics use the results of scientific experiments to try and create standardized methods of management and construction. So we end up where we are today where everything has to be perfect; greens sand, bunkers sand, rootzones...and on and on. Turfgrass management is all about managing the relationships between expectations, water, soil, grass....Those items are never the same from course to course, but it is the desire of many to try and make them the same, as if that's the best way. I disagree, strongly.

It is my firm belief that a golf course, and all "landscaping" for that matter, should be representative of the region and climate it sits within. Grasses that exist within that climate should be used, not grasses that require all kinds of crazy inputs like subterranean systems, expensive water treatments...etc. I also believe that golf courses should be constructed with local materials and local labor. If the materials don't meet some sort of spec, learn what you have to adjust to make them work, if the labor is not skilled, train them.

I know some of you are probably tired of hearing about Wolf Point, but that is exactly what we did here. We did it because we had a client who believed in us, and who also believed in being practical. I played the course on Thursday and I guarantee you most here would have loved the conditions. If you take away utility runs, road construction, and vertical structures, this course was built for less than $3Million. And that includes an extensive storm drainage system and 99 acres of turf. It can be done, but as long as banks require certified builders and colleges continue to crank out turf managers who can only manage grass grown on perfectly specified and uniform rootzones, I don't expect things to change anytime soon nor do I expect to see many courses built.  

Don,
How you durin?    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKcNormO-vk
Amen.....
Mike

[Jeff_Brauer]

OK let's try these numbers and see how it becomes affordable:  2.5 MILLION COURSE
Say a 20 year amortization at 6.25 percent on the golf course and you hope for 25000 rounds.....below is the per round cost:
CONSTRUCTION

land- free
irrigation-700,000-                                                            2.44 per round
shaping- 200,000-                                                                .70 per round
cartpaths- 400,000                                                             1.40 per round
bunkers-200,000                                                                   .70 per round
misc other course cost-1,000,000                                      3.50 per round
grow-in- 350,000-                                                               1.22 per round
TOTAL CONSTRUCTION COST PER ROUND                        9.96 PER ROUND


equipment lease-                                                                4.75 per round
maintenance cost $500,000 budget                                 20.00 per round
4000 sq ft proshop/grill mortgage                                      1.50 per round
operation of shop budget                                                    5.00 per round
TOTAL MIKEY COST                                                           31.25 PER ROUND

TOTAL                                                                                41.21  PER ROUND

ESTIMATE GREEN FEE SHOULD BE ADVERTISED AS $60  w/o cart  (yes, people do use carts)

Now this is if you can get 25,000 rounds and most likely it will take 2 years.....AND THIS IS BREAK EVEN ON AN AFFORDABLE COURSE....... you will hear plenty of appraisals where 40,000 is used.....BS on that.....rare.....what if you get 12000 rounds first year?  
Oh well...just a sat morning breakdown..for your reading enjoyment.....be sure and thank the guy that is having you play for $30 somewhere......

I will put up my Sand Creek Station as an example of how to keep costs down, but there are many things there people don't like.  To start with, the city wanted a course that was affordable.  I think some sort of "altruistic" (although they hope to recoup it in tax dollars) motive helps.  The ability to build some things "off budget" like entry roads helps as well.

Not only did the cooperating housing developer donate/swap some land to the City, they paid $500K to the golf course, providing we built our lakes to serve as their detention ponds and routed the course through housing to increase their value.  In essence, the land was less than free and/or construction cost was subsidized.  (This might also occur through bankruptcy sales, where the course owner gets $8M of construction for $2-4M.)

The course wasn't cheap to build ($4.2M course and another $3M for $7.3M overall to opening day) but they offer rounds under $40.

If you look at Mike's numbers, approximately $10 per round comes from construction (and that might be low) and $24.75 comes from maintenance (which is the low end of reasonable in current conditions)  So, looking at the biggest number per round, how do we cut those costs?  

I think it will come from trimming around the edges (oddly, by not trimming around cart path edges and reducing maintenance of the course edges) first.  Then, I think it will come in the form of cutting major costs like labor through robotics and chemicals through genetic engineering of turf before it comes from the expense of "the look" people come to want in the good old US of A.  You have to remember that in this model, we are using the golf course as greenbelt, which most expect to be, well...., green, or reasonably so.

Designs have already started changing to use less sand bunkers, which on a per SF basis are VERY inefficient features.  My typical bunker budget is half what it used to be.  Because rounds are projected to be less, tees can be smaller.  Using the 0.2 SF per round rule I now build tees at 5000 SF rather than 8000 SF, expecting rounds to be 25K rather than 40K, and build more of them as rectangles to maximize space useage.  Ditto with greens to a certain extent.  While I don't eliminate cart paths, I use more shared paths on parallel fw, knowing that they are used mostly for maintenacne vehicles and on the occiasional rainy day, rather than for everyday use (most courses use the 90 degree rule, and most golfers figure they are 90 degrees to something and drive anywhere)

Irrigation is the big sticker shock.  I still believe that you need a head everywhere you have turf, even if you don't turn it on often.  I am seeing more of a return to temporary watering for grow in of natives. But, if we don't provide turf heads where turf is, using quick couplers or a block of heads on a manual valve, labor will go up later to save a little now, so there is no cost savings down the road.  At the same time, I don't see reducing turf much more than the 90 acres currently in vogue for playability reasons and because turf really isn't that expensive to mow and maintain, especially on the outer, lesser maintained areas.  There is some maintenance to "natural areas" that must be performed.

Environmental programs, like Audubon and LEEDS which favors more expensive permeable pavement might be cheaper in the long run, but are not cheap now.  So, there are some conflicting goals that don't save money.  As someone notes, the value of an existing course will go way, way up as the cost to build new gets prohibitive for most.

Most low cost courses have already trimmed the fat out of pro shop operations, but I suspect that someone will have automatic ticket taking, etc. (like ball machines with tokens only for the round of golf) to increase efficiency even more, at the expense of personal service.  Just like gas stations survived moving to self serve, I presume golf will as well.

Just a few more pre-coffee thoughts on a Saturday morning.

[Chip Gaskins]

Pricing 101....you charge what the market with bear.  If the clearing price is vastly above your costs then you have a great business....if the clearing price is below your costs then you don't.  Sounds like you guys are saying the way you price green fees to figure out your cost and then come up with green fees price to cover that?

Don-

It sounds like you were describing the current U.S. health care system :-)  Medical advances have allowed us to live a few years longer, but those extra few years are the years where 90% of the dollars are spent.  Sounds like all the advance in turf research are great, but they sure do cost a lot.  I think back on a thread Tom Doak had a few years ago....Pacific Dunes is built on a big layer of chicken poop all on top of beach sand...not exactly high tech and certainly pretty dog gone good!

[Tom_Doak]

Jeff:

A lot of the argument over the cost of golf course construction comes down to irrigation and where someone is talking about.

None of the courses Grant Saunders referenced in New Zealand have any irrigation in the roughs at all.  Some of them have a row down the fairway, some not even that.  You can get away with that in New Zealand (unless you have an American client), and it will keep the cost of construction AND maintenance way down.  (You don't spend much on maintaining unirrigated areas.)

We used to be able to get away with that in New England and the Great Lakes, too, but not over the last 15 years ... because courses were being built in housing developments, they wanted them green right out to the homes' back yards (and because everybody wanted to win Best New, and didn't want to take a chance the panelists would see their course with dirt roughs).  And of course you are right, that in Kansas or Texas or even Oregon, you have to have irrigation everywhere you want turf, and that standard sort of indirectly crept into places where it wasn't necessarily so.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Chip,

In my post, I presumed that generally, golf has been a crappy business over time and 2) that economics has and will force prices to be reasonable to the average consumer.  There will always be a few resort courses, high end publics, and clubs that can charge a lot, but they are a small part of the market.

Tom D,

Something I have pushed is a lot of heads, but not the pump capacity to run each of them every night, but I get no traction.  Everyone (meaning the irrigation designers) are afraid that the super will run his system wrong, tax it, and bust pipe out of the ground.

It seems that pumpstations come out to about 1.5-2GPM per head (i.e., 3-4000 GPM for a 2000 head system, 2250-3000 GPM for a 1500 head system, etc.) and when I started in the business, we had 1100 head systems with 1000-1500 GPM, mostly because they sized pipe and pumps to run fw and rough every other night.  Now, few will take that chance and accelerated grow ins require greater capacity anyway.  It seems a shame to size pumps for a one time grow in (albeit, if undersized, it MIGHT be a two time grow in) and for the ten hottest days of summer, at least to me. 

Twenty years ago, you expected to see sprinklers running on the practice range or outer roughs as you play.  Now, some clients want all maintenance equipment off the course by 7 AM even, meaning irrigation has to be completed in 3-6 hours rather than the 10-12 we used to figure on.  Of course, many local ordiances prevent watering after 10 AM to conserve evaporation, which is overall good practice, but might cause more pipe expense.

I gather all those things will be reexamined in this economy, but we won't go back to exactly how we did things in the 70's/

[Norbert P]

  How much money does using 2-wire irrigation, with coded receiver heads, save?  Anybody have experience with it?

[Don_Mahaffey]

 Slag,
Hard for me to say how much it would save because I've not done a project where two different types of control systems were bid against each other. But, it is my belief that the savings is significant. We have a two-wire decoder system at WP and it's by far the best control system I've worked with. Trouble shooting is as simple as it gets. No controllers for boards to fail in or animals and ants to take over.
We bought all the materials, but hired help to install the system. We have just shy of 800 heads, 4 wire paths, single head control with isolation at every lateral and greens loop, decoder control system with radio/palm, weather station, smart weather, 1880 gpm VFD pump station with two Amiad 1000gpm automated filters, total cost was less than 900K.

[Norbert P]

Thanks Don. Great info. You sound sold on the 2-wire. Do you think the multi-wire with satellite box irrigation system is becoming a thing of the past for new construction?   Why do you suppose 2-wire isn't used more often? Learning curve? New trick for old dog?  What brand did you use at WP?  Are irrigation designers up to speed on this system?  Any pitfalls you've noticed?  Sorry for the barrage.  Where should I go for the brochures, etc?


                    For anyone interested in learning a little bit about 2-wire irrigation, here's a link to an article . . .

                                  http://www.igin.com/article-658-is-two-wire-too-good-to-be-true.html

  

[Don_Mahaffey]

Slag,
I am sold on this type of system.

I do think satellite boxes should become a thing of the past. You can turn on or check out anything you want with a radio, palm, or some other sort of PDA phone type of deal. why anyone wants to run back and forth to a satellite box is beyond me.

Why isn’t it used more? Biggest reason by far IMO, the distributors don't make as much off a decoder system so they are reluctant to recommend. Like so many things, it's about the $$$. Less wire, no satellites, fewer things needing replacing in the future...less profit for distributors. I also think some supers are comfortable with satellites so they are reluctant to change.

We used rainbird.

I don't know about all designers, but Larry Rodgers knows decoders.

Pitfalls? Really need to know how to make excellent spices and how to check your grounding. We’ve had no issues with splices, but we were very diligent during install. Grounding in sandy soils can be tough, but it can be done. Just need to know what the parameters are and stick to them. We probably over did it with our grounding, but we’ve had two lightning strikes, and in both cases we only lost one decoder. Had our system not been grounded properly we could have lost the entire wire path. Not all that different than what can happen to a satellite system, but grounding with decoders is key.   

The best decoder mind I know:
Matthew Mikucki
Golf Central Control Product Manager
Rain Bird Corporation - Golf Division
Phone: (520) 741-6503

[Jeff_Brauer]

Slag,

My courses have used them twice now. My guess is that they both save money and are the wave of the future, but in irrigation, new technology is sometimes slow to be accepted because the irrigation system is so, so important.  It took a long time for plastic pipe to become the norm, and then it was plastic sprinklers. If it wasn't for the movie "the Graduate" we might still be using metal instead of plastic......

[Grant Saunders]

Jeff:

A lot of the argument over the cost of golf course construction comes down to irrigation and where someone is talking about.

None of the courses Grant Saunders referenced in New Zealand have any irrigation in the roughs at all.  Some of them have a row down the fairway, some not even that.  You can get away with that in New Zealand (unless you have an American client), and it will keep the cost of construction AND maintenance way down.  (You don't spend much on maintaining unirrigated areas.)

Tom

I would estimate that maybe 10% of golf courses here have fairway irrigation. Most are simply greens and tees with many only having irrigation to just the greens.

What I was hoping to illustrate was:  if the average greenfee is $40 and you build a new course that necessitates a greefee of $60 - $70 purely to recover the associated construction and running costs then the new course will struggle. $60-70 greenfees may sound affordable if you come here from another country but to the locals it is not. They may play the new course on occasion but never regularly. Therefore, the challenge is to build a course which will cover its costs at a greenfee closer to what the area defines as affordable.

I think that both Kauri Cliffs and Cape Kidnappers would both have most likely failed by now were it not for Mr Robertson and the way he chose to fund and support them both. Neither would have probably built in the first place either. I dont believe I have ever met someone from NZ who has played either course more than once on their own dollar.

Regarding 2-wire irrigation systems

I too prefer the 2-wire from an operational standpoint. They are more flexible in regards to adding extra stations should you choose to and like Don points out, fault finding is relatively easy. I dont know that the difference in price is very dramatic as of the recent courses built that I know of there is maybe a 50-50 split between 2-wire and satellite systems. With 2-wire there is less wire used (approx 80% less) and no need for the satellite boxes (you can still have them if you want I believe). However, for each head you introduce the decoders. A 6-way decoder which will run 6 individual heads costs around $300USD. You still require the same amount of pipework and the installation costs wont be much different as the trenching is done regardless of which control system is used.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Would any new course/developer feel comfortable adopting the irrigation systems in place at Newport and Maidstone, two of the greatest courses in the U.S. ?

Is the ultimate user the real problem ?

[Jed Rammell]

Would any new course/developer feel comfortable adopting the irrigation systems in place at Newport and Maidstone, two of the greatest courses in the U.S. ?

Is the ultimate user the real problem ?

If the ultimate user has two options; affordable golf on limited irrigation, or expensive golf on a see of green, would the ultimate user change his perceptions? It seems like money talks right now, regardless of the color of the fairway. Perhaps a recession is a good time to implement a shift.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Jed,

At the present time, I believe that the ultimate user would opt for the conditions that resemble what he sees on TV every week, and therefore paying the increased incremental fee that produces those conditions.

A golfing "culture" has been developed that prioritizes visual conditions over playing conditions in the U.S..

If, instead of nothing but rain since April 15th, there was a drought, perhaps there would have been a shift in the culture.

Unfortunately, Mother Nature isn't co-operating.

[John Gosselin]

Would any new course/developer feel comfortable adopting the irrigation systems in place at Newport and Maidstone, two of the greatest courses in the U.S. ?

Is the ultimate user the real problem ?

Pat, Still the biggest hurdle for many superintendents. You have to give the paying customer the end product they want or they find someone else who will. There may be a few sups who have enough stability in their jobs to drive change, but not many. These kinds of conversations on reducing maintenance cost through changed perceptions has been going on in super circles for many years.

 

te]

If the ultimate user has two options; affordable golf on limited irrigation, or expensive golf on a see of green, would the ultimate user change his perceptions? It seems like money talks right now, regardless of the color of the fairway. Perhaps a recession is a good time to implement a shift.

[Mike_Young]

John,
You are correct....
It has to be a supt with enough pull to do so....and it is rare.....
Mike

[Norbert P]

  In the quest for affordable yet effective irrigation, has a hybrid use of two wire and valve-at-lateral-junction been theorized to work well?   To clarify, where irrigation control is critical, say around greens, is using two wire appropriate while using lateral valving
(non-valve-in-head) on fairway heads respectable and acceptable design?   

[Todd Bell]

John,
You are correct....
It has to be a supt with enough pull to do so....and it is rare.....
Mike

Mike,

How many years of experience and training do you have as a golf course superintendent? 

[Mike_Young]

John,
You are correct....
It has to be a supt with enough pull to do so....and it is rare.....
Mike

Mike,

How many years of experience and training do you have as a golf course superintendent? 

Well...I guess none...what is your point?

[Todd Bell]

John,
You are correct....
It has to be a supt with enough pull to do so....and it is rare.....
Mike

Mike,

How many years of experience and training do you have as a golf course superintendent? 

Well...I guess none...what is your point?

Sorry Mike.  I misconstrued your comment about the supers role in constructing an affordable golf course. 

Why do you think the super must lead the campaign?

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