Lester,
we could start a thread on how management companies have prostituted the golf industry.
What I know of Whiskey Creek is that 2 of my former associates (1 a project manager for Kemper) and one a design associate did most of the work out there. Both had worked with Ryan Inc on several of our projects, so they were brought in to do the construction work. The superintendent was subsequently brought out to Kemper Lakes after Kemper Sports outted long time grounds maintenance company Claus Brothers (they did the entire corporate complex and built the course). Remember Kemper Sports originally was Sports Marketing Firm. ( Actually, it was the brainchild of my Dad and Bob Spence ( could be Bob Spence or dad of the guy that works with DLIII?) who was the first director of golf at Kemper Lakes when a neighboring Village needed someone to run it's newly acquired 9-hole course but full-time municiple staff would have been too costly.)
As far a the Name thing you guys seemed to have beat to death, my father told me that when he was doing Tucson National (for Robert Bruce Harris) they gave one the first houses built to a movie star (like Bing Crosby) so the sales people could take prospective buyers past it and say "Oh, and that's Bing's house". Naturally, if Bing thought it was such a great place to live... and they might actually get to hang with their new neighbor, well...
Unfortunately for the suckers, they would have a clause in the agrreement to buy the house off the movie star for market value after a certain percentage of the project was sold out.
So, this has been around for as long as developers have been using golf courses to sell houses. When one talks about designers selling their soul, I disagree, they are actully getting paid to produce something. Could it be that the Marquis is selling his soul?
I remember going to a meeting with Dad where a prospective client asked about a fledgling Jack Nichlaus as a designer. Dad replied that he had all the faith in the world that Jack would be a great designer, after all he was already a great tailor. Confused, the client asked for an explaination. Dad opened his blazer and showed him the HART, SHAFTNER and MARX Jack Nichlaus Collection label. Dad got the job.
When I asked him about Pro Golfers lending their names, he said DO THE MATH. It's all marketing. If you need to sell 1,000 homes and Jack (at the time) costs $1 mil, that's only $1,000/house. Since the developer only makes his profit on the last houses sold, the faster he can sell out, the lower his carrying costs, the more profit he sees. The best way to generate marketing is to be able to give the marketers a story to tell. A picture of a well known golfer in an ad will catch the eye. Remember, only about 20% of those who buy in a golf development are golfers and if only a small percentage even know/care about it, they are marketing to the remaining 95+%.
People preceive quality if someone famous is involved - lest their good name become soiled. Fortunately, these projects are plums for contractors and the biggest of them (Wadsworth, Landscapes etc.) tend to get them. They will make the course "better" just with the experience of their personel. They can also take abstract hand waving and turn it into a viable product.
I don't hold any ill-will for Pro designers. To me it just signals to the world when they think the end of their playing career is over. Just like coaching in Pro Sports. - a place for washed-up players who need something to do and never had a real job in their life, to fall back on.
What will be interesting to see in the future is - will the company/brand survive after the Name is dead? What will become of Gary Player Design (although that health nut will probably outlast all of us), Palmer Course Design, Nichlaus Design etc.? Some have tried to bring their sons into the field, ie Jack Nichlaus II but they seem to be 1) overshadowed by their famous fathers, and 2) caught between celebrity and journeyman.
Lester, all this being said, are you really that surprised that a Sports Marketing/Management company would 86 a (sorry for this)- no-name journeyman who doesn't have a story for the marketers to tell - never mind that in all other ways quite competant to perform the work? Kemper should have kept you on but after the decision had been made to spend the big bucks on Ernie, all they needed was to find the cheapest pencil they could find (and he was running the family flea market business in Hutchinson Kansas - no lie). That's why TD was not considered when he wanted as much as Ernie was getting. Face it, by the time people actually got around to playing the course, the developers had better have gotten their money out of it. Most Proformas pencil in the cost of the course as an expense that is absorbed by sales. They don't look at it as a future income producer. Many times there is even a line item to subsidize the course operation to build-out - at which time they can dump it as it becomes a liability. This is how American Golf got so big.