The coming impact of stressed green budgets on architecture

[Doug Siebert]

I'm not a super nor do I play one on TV, but I can tell you exactly how to accomplish that 10-25% budget cut.  Two, even three times that if you want.  Leave your million dollar plus per acre as residential lot areas like Long Island and the Bay Area where much of GCA lives and come out here to Iowa and visit a few courses I have within 20 minutes of me, or visit John K in Indiana for similar courses I'm sure he knows of or next time you are going to Sand Hills stop at some random community nine hole course rather than Wild Horse or Dismal River.

These places have small greens and keep them cut higher than we are used to, only cut their fairways and tees a couple times a week, use fewer or no chemicals or fertilizers in the fairways.  Often the only irrigation is on the greens and, if you are lucky, tees.  There are fewer bunkers, and those that do exist are small and only raked if the guy in front of you did the raking.

So what do you get for that?  Slower greens, but if they have more slope, who cares (though it would be nice if they putted truer)  Taller grass in fairways and on tees so you don't get the super tight perfect lies.  Bare spots or even weeds can be found in fairways - hey if Bobby Jones could handle it, so can you.  And the bunkers are true hazards, not the easy to control perfect lie the spoiled pros whine about if they don't get every time.  But as a bonus you get extra roll on all your shots that don't land on the green itself, whether you want it or not!
 
You don't need to go all the way to these cow pasture courses if you want, there is plenty of room in the middle ground.  Though it seems to me that everyone who played Painswick loved it, and I can't imagine their maintenance budget is very high...

Honestly, if labor is 70% of the budget like the supers here are saying, then its clear that you need to have fewer workers, so you need to concentrate on the important stuff and cut back on less important stuff.  So plow under the flowers, use fewer chemicals and fertilizer on the fairways and tees and accept less perfect conditions there, and mow those fairways and tees, and especially rough, less frequently.  Find a couple old guys who live on a fixed income and offer them discount or free golf in exchange for filling the ball washers with soap, swapping the water coolers, and other simple tasks.

[Patrick_Mucci]

With golf club initiation fees crossing $100,000, $250,000 and $500,000, I would imagine convincing the members of those clubs to accept a lower level of course maintenance will be a VERY tough sell.

David,

Initiation fees are rarely used to fund operating budgets.

If one were to examine Sebonack, I don't think that prospective members are looking for Masters type maintainance conditions.[/color]

Hopefully, the trend among some leading clubs in the country to thin out/remove trees (and the success they have had in doing so) has created some ripples that have encouraged other clubs to follow that lead.

Again, that costs money, which I feel will be in diminishing supply in the future.[/color]

Perhaps some leading clubs can demonstrate success in presenting a quality golf experience on a smaller budget and other clubs/course will follow.

I don't think it will be voluntary, I think it will be out of necessity.[/color]

The two events which will cause a significant change in course maintenance are 1) a national depression or 2) a sustained drought.

You can't ignore the changing demographic and rising costs.
They're occuring NOW, and aren't hypothetical.[/color]
   

Brad Klein,

My issue just arrived.
I skimmed through it.
It's a great issue for GCA fans.

I'll respond in depth after I read your articles.

[David_Tepper]

Patrick Mucci -

You may have misread my initial post. I did not state or imply that initiation fees, regardless of size, were used to fund operating budgets. The point I was attempting to make is that the majority of people who pay a six-digit intitiation fee to join a golf club are likely to expect a VERY high level of golf course grooming and maintenance.

I have not seen Sebonack, nor have I met or spoken with anyone who has joined the club. Personally, I do not believe anyone who is joining the club expects the course to be in anything less than first-class playing condition.  

My opinion is that, given the status and prestige that permeates so much of the world of golf, a sizeable number of clubs will choose to raise their dues rather than cut back on their level of maintenance.

DT  

[Patrick_Mucci]

David,

What's interesting is to study the initiation, dues, capital and operating costs in relationship to the conditions at four courses that are adjacent to one another.

Sebonack, NGLA, Shinnecock Hills and Southampton.

Land acquisition and development costs are difficult for a new course to overcome/offset.

[peter_p]

It is already here, Our greens committee discussed the decommissioning of about a dozen bunkers over the next years, filling them with aeration plugs. Sand will be cannibalized. Also savings with the old dump site. Then we inventoried which areas of rough will no longer be mowed, saving manpower, fertilizer, water costs.

[Tom_Doak]

I hope it does not mean more lost-ball "native areas" as Peter suggests.

Cost savings will come from reducing mowing frequency and the labor costs of it; from relying more on the members for daily maintenance of bunkers; and from greatly reduced capital budgets, all as suggested by the superintendents here.  The two most obvious differences between maintenance in the UK and in the US is that the crews are less than half the size, and they go out and walk from hole to hole instead of using a fleet of 20 Cushmans.

What will it mean for architecture?  For one thing, it will probably mean that a lot fewer clubs will pay architects to come in and make suggestions of ways to keep them busy.  I don't think it's worth worrying about or trying to predict whether it will be serious enough to cut business back to nothing, but if there are courses still being built, it's possible those courses will see more strategic design because the lies in the fairways aren't going to be as good.

Good golf architecture will survive because it is built to survive.