Which are the greatest courses built on the least promising soil?

[Tom_Doak]

Tom:

I knew that you worked on Long Cove from your book, which had to be another difficult project. 

Thanks for your reply.  "Anatomy of a Golf Course" is what got me hooked on golf design.

Michael:

Long Cove was an interesting soils topic.  Mr. Dye did something there called "flip-flopping", where they would go down the hole corridors with excavators, dig down 8-10 feet, and bring that pure sand up to the surface ... for the whole 80 acres or so that was cleared!  So, that course was built out of pure sand.  The only "difficulty" was working every day in 95 degree heat and 90 percent humidity on an entirely sandy site ... it was like working in an oven!  My crew at Streamsong are having the same introduction to the south over the past month or so.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Tom Doak,

That's fascinating info about Sebonack.

And that's an amazing amount of soil you accumulated through that process.

It seems very efficient, very frugal, almost like the old Scots

[Bart Bradley]

Tom:

After visiting my close friend in Lubbock on a couple of occassions and seeing first hand the "soil" in Lubbock, I doubt any architect would have a bigger challenge than dealing with the soil in W. Texas.  I know that you've shared a bit about your work at the Rawls course but could you explain that soil and the difficulties it created.

Thanks for the education,

Bart

[Jamie Van Gisbergen]

Just wondered... 20 percent of the top 20 are not on sand and 10 percent are bermuda. 
I love bermuda fairways and really like the new bermuda greens but I have a theory:  Subconsciously we play better golf in the type of weather where cool season grasses thrive.  It just fits better with golf.  Playing a great golf course in the middle of summer in 95 degree heat has an affect on how great one thinks it is.  JMO.

I would agree with you there.  It seems you travel north to play most of your golf.  Also, I believe that the enjoyment of a course has something to do with being able to walk it relatively easily ... and that's a chore when it's 95.

Depends on the person. I've walked 36 in a day when the morning temp was about 80 and the afternoon high got up to like 101, down South, in humidity. So, all depends on the person.

Jud: The maintenance budget thing doesn't really hold water with Augusta and Oakmont. ALL the top 100 have well above average maintenance budgets. Augusta is an outlier to be sure, but among the others, I'd say that Oakmont is probably not much above other top 10 courses, if above them at all.

[Tom_Doak]

Tom:

After visiting my close friend in Lubbock on a couple of occassions and seeing first hand the "soil" in Lubbock, I doubt any architect would have a bigger challenge than dealing with the soil in W. Texas.  I know that you've shared a bit about your work at the Rawls course but could you explain that soil and the difficulties it created.

Bart:

The soils at Texas Tech were pretty tough.  There was a good layer of topsoil -- the site was a research cotton field before it was dedicated to golf -- so we saved a foot of that throughout the site and put it back down one section at a time.  [That was an interesting process ... we opened up about six holes and stockpiled all of the topsoil, but then when those holes were shaped, we stripped the next six holes and put that topsoil right onto the first six, and saved the topsoil from the first six for the last six.]

Underneath, there was everything -- hard clay, some stone in places, there was just no telling.  We just dealt with whatever we had, and as long as we had a foot of topsoil to put back over it at the end, it was okay.

Incidentally, we stripped a bit over 200 acres to build the course ... so that's 350,000 cubic yards of topsoil we had to strip, and 350,000 cubic yards we had to replace, in addition to moving 750,000 cubic yards of the earth underneath it.

[David_Elvins]

Jud: The maintenance budget thing doesn't really hold water with Augusta and Oakmont. ALL the top 100 have well above average maintenance budgets. Augusta is an outlier to be sure, but among the others, I'd say that Oakmont is probably not much above other top 10 courses, if above them at all.

Jamie,

I can't agree with that at all.  Last time I checked, the australian courses in the world top 100 have a maintenance budget of between 25% and 40% of merion's east course despite having a golf season that is almost twice as long and far higher labour costs.

[Jamie Van Gisbergen]

Jud: The maintenance budget thing doesn't really hold water with Augusta and Oakmont. ALL the top 100 have well above average maintenance budgets. Augusta is an outlier to be sure, but among the others, I'd say that Oakmont is probably not much above other top 10 courses, if above them at all.

Jamie,

I can't agree with that at all.  Last time I checked, the australian courses in the world top 100 have a maintenance budget of between 25% and 40% of merion's east course despite having a golf season that is almost twice as long and far higher labour costs.

I meant American courses. I've played one course in Australia, I have no idea what their models are. Compare Merion, Oakmont, Pine Valley, CPC, ANGC, Pebble and NGLA and see how much difference there is in them.

[David_Elvins]

Jamie,
I don't believe you at all.  If a course like shinecock or fishers island or pacific dunes or ngla on sandy soil is spending a million bucks a year on bunker maintenance, I would be very surprised.   There are huge cost savings on bunker maintenance, drainage and associatiated issues for courses on sandy soil.  What would they be spending extra money on that a clay based course wouldn't?

[Patrick_Mucci]

David,

NGLA is NOT spending a million dollars a year on bunker maintenance

That's a hugely inflated number

[Tim Martin]

Jud: The maintenance budget thing doesn't really hold water with Augusta and Oakmont. ALL the top 100 have well above average maintenance budgets. Augusta is an outlier to be sure, but among the others, I'd say that Oakmont is probably not much above other top 10 courses, if above them at all.

Jamie,

I can't agree with that at all.  Last time I checked, the australian courses in the world top 100 have a maintenance budget of between 25% and 40% of merion's east course despite having a golf season that is almost twice as long and far higher labour costs.

David- Merion East has a golf season of at least 8 months a year so I`m not clear how Australian courses have a season almost twice as long unless there are 16 months in the Australian calender.

[Ronald Montesano]

Tim,
It's a complicated mathematical formula, developed by Fermat, known as his second-last theorem...you multiply the current value of the Australian dollar by left-handed driving and the 16-month Australian calendar and you get the answer...

[Jamie Van Gisbergen]

Jamie,
I don't believe you at all.  If a course like shinecock or fishers island or pacific dunes or ngla on sandy soil is spending a million bucks a year on bunker maintenance, I would be very surprised.   There are huge cost savings on bunker maintenance, drainage and associatiated issues for courses on sandy soil.  What would they be spending extra money on that a clay based course wouldn't?

Do any courses spend $1 million on bunker maintenance alone? I highly doubt it. I just talked to a friend a little while ago on this subject and he said that at a course where he worked in Southern Pines, on sandy soil, the maintenance budget was $750,000 a year, for an upper-middle class golf course. He estimated that the maintenance budgets at Pinehurst, CCNC and Forest Creek went into 7 figures for each course at the two private facilities and certainly for #2 at the resort and probably #4 and #8.

[David_Elvins]

Do any courses spend $1 million on bunker maintenance alone? I highly doubt it. I just talked to a friend a little while ago on this subject and he said that at a course where he worked in Southern Pines, on sandy soil, the maintenance budget was $750,000 a year, for an upper-middle class golf course. He estimated that the maintenance budgets at Pinehurst, CCNC and Forest Creek went into 7 figures for each course at the two private facilities and certainly for #2 at the resort and probably #4 and #8.

Jamie,

Your low 7 figures as a ballpark figure for a sand based course such as pinehurst sounds reasonable.  

But the figures I am hearing for some of the top clay based courses is in the region of $2.5 million per year.  That is why I strongly disagree with your assertion that all the top 100 courses  have similar maintenance budgets and soil is not a factor.


Patrick,

Sorry, I think you misunderstood me.  I was saying that NGLA would not have a bunker maintenance budget in the region of $1 mil.  Jamie was arguning that all top 100 courses would have a similar maintenance budget.  

Tim,

Thanks    I thought Merion's season was 7 months!