Help! Master Plan Vote Information Needed!!

[Paul Richards]

The vote on Beverly's Master Plan is scheduled for July 20th.  

Am basically asking for all you fellow GCAer's to share your
experiences with us.

What did your sample ballots look like?  What type of financing did you use?  What questions did you ask? Any words of wisdom for us?

We plan to incorporate Ron Prichard's plan into our by-laws.  What wording did those of you that did this use?  

If you have a copy of your sample ballot and your by-law wording, could you please fax it to me at (312)225-4487?  

Please share your experiences, good and bad, and offer any
advice you think might come in handy.

[Paul Richards]

So we have 100 views and no responses?
 
No one here on GCA has gotten a Master Plan put into their
by-laws?
 
No one here has gotten a Master Plan even passed?
 

[JF1]

Paul,

I don't have any info to help you out with your upcoming vote; however, I do have a couple of questions re: the process of informing your membership about the specifics of the plan and "pre-selling" it prior to the vote.

Is this master plan a restoration effort?

How have you shared information with your membership?  Meetings, newsletters, word-of-mouth, etc.

Do you have a time frame included for implementing the plan and any financing options?

Any insights about your experiences would be helpful as we are at the begining stage of getting a restoration plan in place and will be looking for membership approval later this year.

Thanks for any info you can share.

[Paul Richards]

John:

Will be more than happy to start a new thread that describes
the actions we took, at a later date.  I'm sure you will find
them helpful.  

However, at this time, since our vote is fast approaching, I
would appreciate any input I can get from any of you out
there who have gotten to this stage.

Like it or not, my Committee will get a lesson here from GCA
and, hopefully, become participants as well!

[Mike_Young]

Paul,
Everytime that I have done a masterplan the plan was approved by the board of the club after being brought before them by the green comm.  The  document that I use and have seen used at other places requires a vote of the membership to change the plan in the future but not to initiate it.  I would think having to get approval from an overall membership vs. a board would be a very difficult and frustrating experience.  Good luck.
Mike

[mark studer]

Paul-Mike is on the money. Typically, the green committee studies the possible master plan architects and recommends board action. Sounds to me like you may have a much larger governance problem that has nothing to do with master plans.Ron does excellent work...hope you can get the action plan approved as Mike suggests.

[Doug Wright]

Paul,

My response to you re Minikahda is in your email.

[Rick Mungeam]

Our club, Perry Park Country Club here in Colorado recently used our original architect , Dick Phelps to produce a master plan for our facility.

The master plan is just that, a master plan. It is used as suggested improvements for long term planning process. Some of the suggestions may be adopted some may not. It was not intended to be used as a definet restoration or redesign documnet.

The membership bylaws require vote approval for expendatures exceeding 30K. Each area of proposed improvements requires membership approval.
The masterplan was presented to the membership by the board and the architect, but the membership has the control on what is eventually approved and constructed.

We have another item on our pallet or should I say ballot, which is a need for a new sprinkler system. Our thirty plus year old system here in the mountains is on its final legs. Have any other CGS's been though this type of renovation?

Thanks Rick

[Ed_Baker]

Paul,

I am assuming this is the membership vote to FINANCE the implementation of a Master Plan already produced by Mr. Prichard.

The order of events at my club was:
Contact Ron Prichard, arrange for site visit,walk site with architect,discuss fees and contracts to produce master plan and bid documents for contractors.

Series of informational meetings open to all concerned members regarding a need for a Master plan, this was done by the green committee to "test waters" for a groundswell for support(or opposition)

The green committee then submitted its recomendation to the board for approval of the initial funding to hire the architect,produce the master plan and bid documents,prioritize the scope of work for the major restoration play intrusion elements, and complete the bidding process for the major construction elements, prepare a budget and time line with scope of work and cost of phase 1 .

Distribute copies of the master plan to all voting members. Five more informational meetings for specific elements of the board approved master plan to be clarified to concerned members.

Incorporate the needed capital in to the budget for the next fiscal year and present to the membership at the annual meeting for approval.

Once the "initial" major construction elements were completed, the more subtle elements of the master plan, tree pruning/removal,green expansions,fairway expansions ect. were to be accomplished through an increase in the yearly green budget and done over several years.

Our Master plan was wrritten in 1996, the bunkers,tees and irrigation upgrades were completed by july 1997, the tree work,green expansions,fairway expansions ect, are largely completed but still considered a work in progress as of this date.

The largest problem was convincing the membership that the initial construction of 96-97 was just the "beginning" of the master plan. Most considered the bunkers and tees to be the whole project.

[Rich Goodale (Guest)]

Paul

My reading of your original post is that you are asking your members to approve more than just the "master plan" and its funding.  Are you not also proposing to effectively enshrine the architectural principles in Ross's(?) design and Pritchard's resoration work into the bylaws?

If not, never mind.  Ed's advice is sound and thorough.

If so, however, you are breaking new ground, in my experience, and I'd be interesting in hearing more.

[Ed_Baker]

Paul,

Our intention was to "write" our Master Plan in to the by-laws as well. Several "drafts" were attempted and what we learned is that it would take a Magna Carta document to really preclude the the type of meddling that we were trying to stop.

In the end the stop gap, and that's all it is, is an amendment to the committee powers that reads:

No member, or groups of members including the board of governors,green committee,chairman, or club President shall deviate from the intent of the Master golf course restoration plan dated.... The interpretation of intent shall be the responsibility of the original Restoration committee (roster listed) a majority opinion rendered by that committee shall be considered the intent of the plan and no plantings,or alterations to the golf course can take place without review and favorable majority vote of the Restoration committee with written consent and scope of work to be rendered to the board of governors prior to any work taking place. The Green committee shall concern itself with the ongoing maintainence of the golf course and any proposed capital improvements to the golf course must be reccomended to the board of governors and in turn approved by the restoration committee before any work can begin. If any ambiguity arises out of discussion of any proposed work to the golf course other than what is now listed as maintainence tasks, it will take a majority vote of the incumbent board of governors and a majority vote of the restoration committee for any work to commence.The proposed work must have the approval of both the board and restoration committee.

This is all very well, but... any by-law or ammendment can be changed or deleted by a majority vote of the membership at an annual meeting or special meeting of the membership.

So five years from now if they want ferris wheels on the tees....

Every club has ever changing "majorities". We had a "Nanny breakroom" narrowly defeated this year! Who knows, next year I might be changing my shoes in the parking lot and the Nannies will have a steam room! Not without surveillance cameras though

[Paul Richards]

Thanks for your help so far!  Here's how Beverly got to this point (from our brochure to the membership):

Both Ron Whitten, Architectural Editor of Golf Digest and Bradley Klein, Architectural Editor of Golfweek and Editor of Superintendent News were invited to tour the course and provided their observations and recommendations.  Their inputs mirrored our list of issues.

In 1999, the Committee invited more than 20 architects to discuss a Master Plan and at least six architects toured the course with the Committee.  Surprisingly, every architect identified the same basic issues at Beverly ... squaring of tees, re-establishment of green pads, poor bunkering and weak turf conditions due to too many trees.  After much discussion and many meetings, the Committee felt Ron Prichard was the best architec for our course.  In the summer of 2000, Mr. Prichard was retained to analyze the issues and the state of the golf course and to make his professional recommendations.

Later in 2000, a comprehensive Golf Course Maintenance Research Study was mailed to the entire Beverly golfing membership.  The survey results confirmed that most of the same issues we had identified were also of concern to the majority of responding members.

In the summer of 2001, after many visits and hundreds of hours on the course, in meetings and in research, Mr. Prichard submitted a comprehensive series of design and improvement recommendations.  In examining Mr. Prichard’s solutions to our issues, we were led to consider and more deeply appreciate the very design foundation of the course.

Rather than addressing problems on an individual basis, we have decided to pursue an overall design concept that will properly unify all the necessary work and re-establish a consistent, classic look and feel to the entire course.  The plan will also eliminate the “stops and starts” and “knee-jerk” course modifications by future, well meaning Grounds Committee and Board of Governor members as the plan will be incorporated into the by-laws of the Club.

This Long Range Master Plan concept has received the unanimous support the Board of Governors and will be submitted for the approval of the membership in the summer of 2002.

As Mr. Prichard outlined in the preface to his plan… “The purpose of this Long Range Master Plan is to record the steps and methods which can be adopted and implemented to improve the agronomic quality (health) of the golf course, and to illustrate and explain the work required to re-establish the classical playing character the master golf architect, Donald Ross, intended.”

We hope you will give careful consideration to this plan.  It creates a pathway of care for our golf course that will ensure its viability and its unique pedigree for decades to come and will re-establish the Beverly Country Club golf course as one of the truly great classic golf courses in the country.

[Ed_Baker]

Well done Paul,

You don't need any help,your methodology may well serve as a "blueprint" for all!

One suggestion, make sure the original committee remains as a standing club committee in the future, the general memberships memory is usually 10 minutes or 10 cocktails whichever comes first.

[Paul Richards]

Ed:

Sound advice about the cocktails!

I see you must have visited Beverly at some point ...

[jim_lewis]

Paul:

Is there anyway you can persuade the Board of Governors to go ahead and make a commitment to the plan without seeking the approval of the entire membership? Few good decisions are made when entire memberships get to vote.

Is there an opportunity for you to use the successful restoration at Skokie by Ron Pritchard as leverage in your case? Surely many of your members have seen the results at Skokie. Maybe an argument about the need to "keep up with the Joneses (Skokie)", will influence some of your members.

[Pete_Pittock]

I hope Beverly does a lot better than my old club did in the early 90s. The financial aspect of the master plan was put to membership vote and it passed by a majority of two, out of about 450 votes.
A 60% super-majority should have been in place. Needless to say, the board elections had two opposing slates of candidates and the anti-redesign slate won after the first phase of the plan had been done, and financial and club warfare ensued. The master plan is only about 3/4 complete and probably never will be done.
Looks like you are on the right track.

[TEPaul]

Paul:

The structure and the process you've described there in your last post is pretty damn awesome--apparently far more so and more comprehensive than some of us at other clubs who might be ahead of Beverly in the process itself and even down the road into implementation! Ed Baker, and his course are done as you can see, I think.

So it seems like you've done more than most of us ever did in the process. What you've all done so far could hardly be improved on, in my opinion! But I can tell this membership vote coming up this summer might be making you nervous anyway.

Why is that? Are there some diverse factions fighting it somehow. And is the memberhip vote coming up this summer and up or down vote for everything you've all done so far? Not sure I understand what this "slate" thing is.

If it is an up or down membership vote this summer you've got reason to be nervous if you think the membership could shoot this down for some reason.

The best way to counteract that now is to point those members that are resisting to the clubs that have pulled this off successfully before you and the best would be those that Ron has already done! Maybe we could help you now with that with maybe even phone calls to those resisting if you think that might help.

Many clubs and memberships look at this entire process as something that they are doing on their own that no one has done before them--it scares them, certainly since nothing like this has ever happened before at Beverly--certainly not in the memory of any member.

It doesn't have to be that way. Show them those that have gone before them that have done this successfully and probably without 1/2 the impressive preparation that you all have done to date.

These Ross restorations are really a "model"--they are very similar from course to course simply because so many of these courses got screwed up in the same ways in the first place.

So if this membership vote is making you nervous because it's an up or down vote, then let any or all of us help you and your membership anyway we can right now. The truism here is the restorations that have gone before you are universally popular with membership and many times most popular with those members that resisted the most along the way!!

If Beverly's membership shot this down this summer and all that you've done so far--it would be a goddamn tragedy--and most of all for Beverly!

[JF1]

Pete,

You paint a grim picture of finncial warfare at your old club.  What was the proposed mode of financing the restoration/improvement plan? (assessments, dues increase, bonds...)

What are the best ways to finance these restoration efforts and how can your scenario be avoided?

JF

[Pete_Pittock]

We actually had a good financial plan. The 450 members would each be assessed $1,000/year for four years. There was a good offset. Originally a member who resigned received 10% of the current membership ($1000 back on $10000). Each year the percentage increased 10%, so it was essentially a interest free loan, and if the membership value increased the members made a profit.
The split in the membership was mostly age and status quo related, plus those that liked the shortish 75 year old HC Egan course the way it was and didn't want new land which was in 100 year flood plain.
Now the same group which was against  the golf course voted for a new clubhouse and the club is having a real hard time, losing members and added assessments and dues.
I agree that what Beverly has proposed is a very good way to keep design continuity and avoid club politics.

[Paul Richards]

Gents:

Thanks for your help on this.  We are optimistic that it will
pass.

Any other input is appreciated.

[Paul Richards]

Here are the full text of the first two pages of the brochure mailed to the Beverly membership in regards to the July 20th vote.  Comments?

----


BEVERLY COUNTRY CLUB
GOLF COURSE
LONG RANGE MASTER PLAN


The Beverly Country Club membership is blessed with a wonderful, well-maintained Donald Ross golf course!  We are proud of our national tournament history and our own Club tournaments and traditions.  We are recognized as having one of the best tests of golf in the Midwest.  And most important of all, every one of us is fully challenged each time we “tee it up”.
 

So why make changes?
Even though most members are satisfied with the course and the conditions, there are a number of “not so obvious” playability (shot strategy, fairness and challenge), maintenance and design issues that should be addressed.  The Long Range Master Plan Committee has spent the past three years studying these issues and projecting the effect these issues would have on the future of the course and the future of the Club if not addressed.
We do not claim to be experts but we care deeply about the golf course.  We believe in its current form, it falls short of its “real potential” and we have sought the advice and counsel of men who are the experts.  
      Both Ron Whitten, Architectural Editor of Golf Digest and Bradley Klein, Architectural Editor of Golfweek and Editor of Superintendent News were invited to tour the course and provided their observations and recommendations.  Their inputs mirrored our list of issues.
In 1999, the Committee invited more than 20 architects to discuss a Master Plan and at least six architects toured the course with the Committee.  Surprisingly, every architect identified the same basic issues at Beverly…squaring of tees, re-establishment of green pads, poor bunkering and weak turf conditions due to too many trees.  After much discussion and many meetings, the Committee felt Ron Prichard was the best architect for our course.  In the summer of 2000, Mr. Prichard was retained to analyze the issues and the state of the golf course and to make his professional recommendations.
Later in 2000, a comprehensive Golf Course Maintenance Research Study was mailed to the entire Beverly golfing membership.  The survey results confirmed that most of the same course issues were also of concern to the majority of responding members.
In the summer of 2001, after many visits and hundreds of hours on the course, in meetings and in research, Mr. Prichard submitted a comprehensive series of design and improvement recommendations.  In examining Mr. Prichard’s solutions to our issues, we were led to consider and more deeply appreciate the very design foundation of the course.
Rather than addressing problems on an individual basis, we have decided to pursue an overall design concept that will properly unify all the necessary work and re-establish a consistent, classic look and feel to the entire course.  The plan will also eliminate the “stops and starts” and “knee-jerk” course modifications by future, well- meaning Grounds Committee and Board of Governor members as the plan will be incorporated into the by-laws of the Club.
This Long Range Master Plan concept has received the unanimous support of the Board of Governors and will be submitted for the approval of the membership in the summer of 2002.
As Mr. Prichard outlined in the preface to his plan… “The purpose of this Long Range Master Plan is to record the steps and methods which can be adopted and implemented to improve the agronomic quality (health) of the golf course, and to

[W.H. Cosgrove]

I applaud the efforts of your club inthe creation of the plan.  However, I question the sensibilities of enshrining it in the By-laws.  The handcuffs created by the by-laws will cause undue difficulty in making either financial or architectural adjustments as you go forward.  

It is my experience that long range plans are NEVER completed on total.  Peter Pittocks story would seem to be the rule rather than the exception.  

Watch putting to much in those by-laws!

[Paul Richards]

Cos:

Why do you say that?  Have you had some (bad) experience
with your club putting its Master Plan in its by-laws?

[TEPaul]

Paul:

If Beverly has changing administrations (Boards of Governors or whatever) by this "slate" system you referred to, the master plan into the by-laws might be the best way for Beverly to go.

If the master plan is "enshrined" some other way I suppose its possible that it could be forgotten about by a future administration. Only you know how your club works in this way; it's difficult for people such as us to make the best recommendations of how to handle the master plan in the future if we don't really understand the "dynamics" of your club.

But the key is to "enshrine" the master plan in such a way that it does not become forgotten about in the future and willy nilly committee tampering returns (the flip side of a master plan is to protect the course from this) and at the same time does not become a document and concept that becomes so "written in stone" that it becomes impossible to work with it for the greatest benefit of the course in the future.

Perhaps the best way to handle the master plan in the future is to do what we might do with our Gil Hanse master plan and that is to make Gil part of it into the future. Gil thereby becomes sort of the "editor" of it if something needs to be amended in the future. This gets rid of committees acting on their own, but it doesn't cast the document in stone either.

[Paul Richards]

As Mr. Prichard outlined in the preface to his plan… “The purpose of this Long Range Master Plan is to record the steps and methods which can be adopted and implemented to improve the agronomic quality (health) of the golf course, and
to illustrate and explain the work required to re-establish the classical playing character the master golf architect, Donald Ross, intended.”

We hope you will give careful consideration to this plan.  It creates a pathway of care for our golf course that will ensure its viability and its unique pedigree for decades to come and will re-establish the Beverly Country Club golf course as one of the truly great classic courses in the country.

All interested members should read Mr. Prichard’s plan in its entirety (more than 100 pages).  Copies of the complete plan are available in the Club office as are documents containing detailed descriptions of the work to be done on each hole.
We have also developed the following questions and answers, which cover the rationale and many of the details and specifics of the plan.

 
Why do our teeing surfaces need attention?

1.   Most of our tees have lost their
shape over the years due to varying
maintenance practices and in many cases, the settling of the ground.  They were originally square and should be returned to that state.

2.      Many of our tees are too small
and/or too narrow to “spread the wear” and to change the “personality” of the hole from time to time as Donald Ross intended.

3.      Many need to be realigned
properly and a good number require re-
grading and leveling.

4.      Our forward tees do not properly
serve the people who use them.  The lack of space and their poor condition contribute to the reluctance to play from there.  In general, they are entirely too small, poorly positioned and on some holes, non-existent.
 


Why should we do anything to our great greens except keep ‘em fast?
 
1.      Over the years, due primarily to
mowing practices, our putting surfaces have shrunk in size.  Priority must be placed on reclaiming the lost putting areas and the lost pin positions originally created by Donald Ross.

2.      The green expansion program will
enhance shot-making demands, reduce wear
and tear on the green surfaces, and improve the visibility of putting surfaces which currently require “blind” shots from many fairways (#5 for example).

3.      Expansion of our green surfaces
began in the fall of 2001 on holes #5, #9 and #17, with excellent results and very positive membership response.
 


Why are we considering changes to the fairways?
 
1.      Donald Ross believed in providing
generous fairways so that golfers of all skill levels have a chance to set up the proper angle for the approach shot to the green (depending upon the pin position).

2.      To a very large degree, we have
lost many of these strategic and shot-making options at Beverly because players are forced to follow a fairly narrow, straight path from tee to green.

3.      Mr. Prichard’s plan will “give us
back” many of the options and shot choices we currently lack.  Although many of the fairways will be expanded and appear wider, they will not necessarily “play wider”.  With the addition of other strategic elements and slight fairway routing changes, we will gain multiple routes to a hole.  However, each day, depending upon the pin position, there will be but one optimum route.  “Straight down the middle” will no longer be the best way to play every hole at Beverly.