[John Shimp]

A club I am familiar with is in the process of engaging a well known Ross restoration specialist.  From what I have heard, the membership is somewhat split on how big of a restoration to do mostly over the issue of money.  The younger crowd wants a "full" restoration that could allow the course to rise in prominence and come closer to resembling some old aerial footage, bunker numbers, etc.  Some of the older members don't want a large assessment or much of any work done.  The concern of many of the younger crowd is that the club will choose to fall somewhere in the middle and do a "shortcut restoration".

What really drives the cost of restorations?  Is it adding bunkers, redoing greens, heavy grading?  Obviously the more holes you work on the more money, but if a club were going to do a "shortcut restoration" of the entire course what would you likely lose?  Does anyone have examples of what I am trying to describe at other clubs and how were the results?  Was the shortcut version even worth doing in some of those instances?

[Tom_Doak]

John S:  If a "shortcut restoration" means rebuilding a lot of the bunkers which are there but not restore any of the old ones that might be controversial, then that is just an expensive bit of cosmetics.  Sadly that seems to be what a lot of clubs are after.

Rebuilding greens to USGA specs is by far the most expensive thing you can do to a course.  Expanding them but keeping the native soil mix is one of the cheapest.

Rebuilding bunkers is good money for whoever is doing it.

[John Shimp]

Tom: Thanks for the reply.  

How does adding a lot (~50 are known to be missing) of bunkers stack up costwise to other activities (e.g. restoring existing bunkers or building usga greens)?

[Tom_Doak]

A new or restored bunker costs pretty much the same amount as rebuilding an existing bunker, once you get to the point of resodding around it, the shaping is only maybe 10-20% of the cost.

50 bunkers are going to cost $250,000 to $500,000 depending on the cost of sand and the size of bunkers.  Eighteen new USGA greens are probably going to cost $750,000, maybe even $1 million if you've got to carefully preserve the contours.

P.S.  I am certain there are some other architects who participate here who will tell you it can be done for less.  My numbers may be inflated because a lot of the work we've watched lately is in California and New York where nothing comes cheaply.

[Tags:]

Tags:

[Tags:]

Tags:

Call to undefined function theme_linktree()