[Peter Pallotta]

Something Mike Young wrote on the USGA greens thread brought this question to mind. I don't know if it's a dumb one or not:

Does it ever happen that architects and superintendents form a team on a per-project basis?

What I mean is, in designing a new course, might an architect have the clout to bring on board (i.e. work with, and then have the owner hire) a superintendent of his choice, one with whom the architect shares a vision/understanding of how the course should be maintained to maximize the playability of the design?

Is this an outlandish idea? Is it an impractical one, given how the business works? If so, but if that wasn't the case, would it be a good thing for all involved?

Peter  

[Jeff_Mingay]

Peter,

In my view, the scenario is ideal.

In fact, we're signed up for a project where there's a good chance we'll bring in a superintendent of our choice, with the owners blessing.

I look forward to it.

Trust that answers your question, albeit in brief  

[Tom_Doak]

Peter:

I think Nicklaus' organization brings in a superintendent they are familiar with more often than not.

We nearly always have some say in the hiring process nowadays, but we still don't get to spec the superintendent of our choice.  I wish we could take with us some of the guys we've worked with in the past, but I don't feel like we should take them away from our previous clients ... I guess Nicklaus doesn't feel the same way about that, or else he's found guys who are happy to keep moving around.  

We tend to focus on finding guys who will want to stay and take care of the course after they've worked with us.  I remember it used to drive Pete Dye crazy that all the best superintendents who worked with him wanted to stay in construction instead of taking care of the course they'd built.  (Of course, one of them was Bobby Weed, who had positions other than superintendent in mind.)

[Peter Pallotta]

Tom - thanks.

I hope this isn't an awkward question, but when you say "nowadays" do you mean "it's become more of the standard practice in the golf design business, in general" or "I'm now at a place in my career that clients are giving me more say in this area"?

Peter

[TEPaul]

Peter:

Your initial post and question is not dumb at all. Very far from it, in fact. This thread is capable of legitimately going in all kinds of directions vis-a-vis both today and historically.

A good example would be my own golf club, Gulph Mills in Philadelphia. There is a letter in the archives of my club from Donald Ross shortly after he was hired to design the course recommending that the recently started club virtually steal the best superintendent in town who Ross felt was at Philadelphia Cricket Club.

Ross envisioned this man as serving as basically the foreman for the construction of the course as well as what we today call the "grow-in" guy.

That was in 1916.

[Mike Nuzzo]

I think it would be a stretch to think that an architect could best select a super for a particular project given.
How many supers can an architect know well enough to fit into an organization.
Of course they may know much more than many owners.

That said - it sure has worked out great for me, Don and our client.  

[Mike_Young]

Tom,
I try to bring one I know whenever I have the chance.....it works great for me.....I don't kno how to say this in a politically correct way BUT....the supt will see the oner much more than the architect over the first two years of the project and if he doesn't have the same vision as the architect problems can arise......

[Peter Pallotta]

TE - thanks.

Just reading various posts over the months here, it struck me that so many of them involve playability and/or maintenance in one way or another, e.g. classic courses that aren't being maintained in an ideal way; or new courses that are suffering from turf issues, including in terms of the adverse affects on playability; or the agronomy (and business) issues involved in transitioning to fast and firm conditions; or Patrick Mucci's "golf design in an era of water restrictions" thread; or most recently the USGA-greens thread, and Mike Young's post about how much a super can affect how well ANY green 'works'. The architect-superintendent relationship seemed clear to me; but I was worried it was a dumb question because I simply didn't know if what I was asking about happened all the time, or never.

By the way: I would never have thought that as early as 1916, architects (or at least one, Ross) saw so clearly the important role of the superintendent in the course's (and the design's) overall success. I probably mentioned this to you before: the more I read about that era, the more I realize how very little I know....or at least how careful I should be about drawing the big conclusions and theories I'm so fond of trying to draw.

Mike(s) - thanks.
Is there a 'common thread' that you found in terms of the times you DID get a chance to bring in your choice of supers? Is it, for example, a specific kind of owner, or a certain kind of course (e.g. residential vs resort etc)?

Peter  

[Mike Nuzzo]

Peter,
This was my first new solo project.

In my situation I was far more educated as to the selection of the super when compared to my client - which is why I made my recommendation.  Originally he had been reading a book on architecture when we first started and the book suggested keeping the architect and super seperate so there would be no finger pointing or some other strange rational.  Thankfully he listend to me.

We brought Don on from the beginning.

I had a very good sense of Don's abilities and style from this forum - we had met at the first putter also.  I went back and re-read all of his posts, and I either agreed or learned something.

To agree with Mike Young, having a super at odds could be very ugly.  I imagine I'd still be explaining many of the features of the course to a typical super - we did things quite differently and Don did far more than understand - we eached pushed the envelope in our own ways.

What we didn't know at the time was that Don would become the project manager and be responsible for most of the construction.  I have definately helped significantly beyond the scope of an architect, more like a developer, and Don obviously way more than a super.  

Did I mention we didn't use a golf general contractor too?

[TEPaul]

"By the way: I would never have thought that as early as 1916, architects (or at least one, Ross) saw so clearly the important role of the superintendent in the course's (and the design's) overall success. I probably mentioned this to you before: the more I read about that era, the more I realize how very little I know....or at least how careful I should be about drawing the big conclusions and theories I'm so fond of trying to draw."

Peter:

I don't want to leave you with the wrong impression about why Ross tended to do that kind of thing back then (it was not uncommon for him to ask a club to hire (steal) a really good greenkeeper before the project started).

Donald Ross was a remarkably high production architect and a man like that could and did serve not only as what we today call a "grown-in" guy but he also could serve as Ross's on-site construction foreman because Ross was never on many sites for long. Later in Ross's career he had 2-3 full-time foremen for his courses such as Hatch, McGovern or perhaps even Maples.

Flynn had a number of good full-time foremen too throughout most of his career such as William Gordon, Red Lawrence and Dick Wilson all who went on to be good architects on their own later.

[Sean Remington (SBR)]

   Dick Watson was from Scotland. Came to US to build and grow-in golf courses for D. Ross. I know of him because he was the Green Keeper/ Superintendent at Chevy Chase Club from 1932 - 1964. I guess the full-time maintenance work was better when the Depression hit and then he stuck with it. As I understood the stories, at one time Mr. Watson over saw the maintenance at Chevy Chase Club, Burning Tree Club and Columbia simultaniously. If this was true I'm sure it was for only a short period.

    I do agree that a Superintendent can work well with an Architect and the earlier involved in a project the better. I believe Doug Petersan left Five Farms to work with Crenshaw and Coore on a project in Austin. He was there in the very early stages.  I am sure there are other great examples.

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