A golf fantasy

[Don_Mahaffey]

Please indulge a fantasy…

What if building a golf course was more like painting or sculpting a work of art. What if a golf architect, with help from apprentices, interns, and trusted associates built the golf course first with no client involvement, then sold it off to the highest bidder? If this wild idea had been the norm for the last 150 years, how would our golf courses be different? 

Obviously, to indulge this fantasy one has to look at golf in a completely different way. If you can do that, please assume there was some sort of code among golf architects that prevented them from having any contact with potential owners of their art prior to completion. Any outside influence at all is viewed as a major sin and greatly reduces the market for the “stained” art.

The architect would be aware of what might sell and for how much, but he would also know that uniqueness, innovation, separation from other art would be critical as too much of the same thing would surely drive down the price bidders would be willing to pay. 
What would we see different if golf architecture was more art than business?  If following trends might actually be bad business, and more importantly, bad art?

[Don_Mahaffey]

In my fantasy world, the first big difference between fantasy and reality is:
Designers would be selecting their own sites. We may have a few in the real world who occasionally refuse a site, but who out there is actually looking for their next site? No more, “it was the best I could do with the constraints I had” sort of talk. Designers would select their own canvas; the precise ground needed to showcase the golf course art they design/build and eventually market.

[JESII]

1) There would be a fraction of the total number of courses we now have
2) Architects WOULD copy the latest trends more so than now because THE SALE is still in front of them as opposed to behind them.
3) Courses would cost less to build and almost definitely less to maintain


I'll do a little more thinking...

[George Pazin]

If you think about some of the most revered US courses - places like Pine Valley, Oakmont, NGLA, Augusta - they almost followed your fantasy.

Coincidence? Maybe not. Who is going to put more effort into getting the most out of a site than the owner?

Land cost is the obvious reason why this approach doesn't work as well today. But it is fun to fantasize...

[Peter Pallotta]

Don - if it was more an art than a business AND it drew to the profession the same kind of people it currently does it might be great.  If on the other hand it starting drawing ARTISTS to the table it would be a disaster.  The interactive and 'communicative' and participatory nature of the art-craft that is golf course architecture requires a willingness and openess to 'the other' -- and whether one likes it or not, the FIRST other is the client.  If you were to say that the golfing public is the TRUE client, I wouldn't argue with you -- but I think that, as has been demonstrated in the various arts over the decades, few artists who are inclined not to think of clients are any more inclined to think of the public as an audience they are meant to SERVE. 

A poor analogy:  imagine if there were no politicians, only technocrats and civil servants running the country. For those who think all (or at least HALF) the politicians are liars and cheats, it seems great -- but remember, if there were only 'bureaucrats' running the place we'd be the Soviet Union!

Peter

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

Well the architect would have to die before the project became really worth anything, so that would be a major downer!!
Hard to know which way this could go..in the US my guess somethung very green, with lots of big white bunkers and water.....ala what the Chinese Market Currently wants....in order to get the biggest price...
or..
an avant gard architect who decides that major profit is not of primary concern and carries out his project out of love....then we might end up with a Pine Valley, or a Ballyneal or a Sand Hills or a Banbougle or an Old Mac ..all of thsoe places give me the feeling that this is sort of what happened anyway.

[Don_Mahaffey]

Michael,
I would agree with your choices of golf courses.
I question the lush green, lots of water and sand idea though. The only people who have ever talked to me in those terms were owners, or wanna be golf course owners. I'm not convinced the golf "industry" really knows what golfers want. I think I'd listen to Mike Kaiser before many other industry folks.

Peter,
I don't know if artist is the right word. Probably more like golf course builder. The key idea being the designer is the creator, fundraiser, marketer, and seller, all with the impossible notion that he did it his way without outside influence. Of course, he's going to be influenced by what sells and what doesn't.

My analogy would be the romantic notion of a movie maker who comes up with a script and finds a way to eventually get it on the big screen.

[Mike_Young]

Don,
I think the only flaw in the theory is golf architects themselves.  There are a lot of golf architects out there that really don't know that much about golf.  Some don't even play.   

[Mac Plumart]

If you think about some of the most revered US courses - places like Pine Valley, Oakmont, NGLA, Augusta - they almost followed your fantasy.

Coincidence? Maybe not. Who is going to put more effort into getting the most out of a site than the owner?

George...EXACTLY!!!!  Many of the gems in the world of golf were designed as one person fantasy...along the lines of Don's thread.  I've said tihs before, so pardon my repeating myself.  But think of NGLA...MacDonald's ultimate fantasy/ideal course.  Augusta National...Bobby Jones' dream course.  The Golf Club...Fred Jones' escape.  We could go on and on.  I think this is the ultimate in golf course design...one man, in control, with the means and the desire to make something great.

To me what is unique about this type of stuff, is that everyone's fantasy seems to have a different twist.  Don's thread is focused on design and trends.  I think we have two distinct philosophies along those lines...I'll summarize and say the MacDonald way that is create something...and the MacKenzie way and that is find something.  Perhaps two modern archies that fall in to thost categories would be Fazio and his Shadow Creek, which is probably akin to MacDonalds' Lido.  And Doak with Ballyneal, Pac Dunes, and hopefully the new Dismal course which certainly espouse the Mackenzie way.

But we could take another turn on the fantasy golf course...Fred Jones didn't want a country club, he wanted a golf club and was bothered by non-committed golfers clogging up his course.  So he created an oasis for the serious male golfer to retreat to.  Oakmont was designed to be one of the most challenging courses in the world and it seems that the membership today still loves that aura of difficulty.

On the design side again...Muirhead seemed to go way out of the box with his artistic ideas.  I don't know if his ideas would sell in the spirit of Don's thread...but he certainly would cook up some unique things.

I think in the end things that would "sell" would be right along the lines of classic golf architectural principles...use the land that the course is going to be built on to its fullest and use those features to give the course its own unique sense of place.  This, in the end, is what should sell and take the art form to its highest level.

  

[Lou_Duran]

Don,

Are you also abolishing the laws of supply and demand?

Regardless, the architects would have to be ultra-rich, and I mean more like in the top 1% of the 1% our good president is trying to obliterate.  I've known few developers who risk their own money, and I am unware of many spec properties that have done well either financially or aesthetically.

And as Mike Young notes, it they are trying to create based on personal experience rather than demand (or consumer preference), who knows what they might come up with.  Perhaps Desmond Muirhead's work during his more artsy period informs.

An interesting question might be what would you do if money was no object for neither, building or operating the course?  And as a follow-up, is Wolf Point in this genre?

[Don_Mahaffey]

Lou,
for the sake of my fantasy I'm assuming there is  demand for something unique and good.
But, as I suspected, I'm getting pulled into reality. So here is a real question. Where does the money come from in the future for golf development? Will we see more developments funded by pension funds, banks, brokerage houses, or other large lenders? I'm thinking that stream is drying up. I'm thinking the next wave (or tiny ripple) of golf development comes from people who write checks where the pre printed name at the top has some resemblance to the hand written signature at the bottom. If I’m right, what now? Same old way? I think not.

I can never answer that question, the money is no object one, because I can’t think that way, probably to a fault. While WP would seem extravagant to many, money here has always been a big deal, some of that as a result of me.  We just added two triplex mowers to our fleet. Cost us $2,300. A course was upgrading and we took a couple of used pieces after picking thru their lot.

If I could do whatever I wanted? I’d be happy to grow old running an old fashioned golf club. Location isn’t that big of a deal to me as long as the course is good, we can take care of it properly, and we’re stable enough to run off the knuckleheads.

[Mac Plumart]

Don...

In your scenario, the money would have to come from the architects pocket...or from his backers.

[Jaeger Kovich]

This sounds fabulous in theory because of the unlimited potential of those supremely talent artists. However, if you think there are a lot of failed golf courses are out there now, just think about all the merchandise that would be left on the shelves if it were done this way. There are tons of good golf courses for sale now that nobody wants to buy.

[Mac Plumart]

Don...sorry for posting so much on your thread...this is my hot button however as I see so much potential is sceanrios like this...and the naysayers drive me nuts because I see somethings they don't.    Oh how wonderful it is to be clinically delusional!!  

Here is the issue with thinking inside the box of today's norms.  All people can think of is the standard stuff...18 hole course...preferably near a metro area...clubhouse...things like that.

But let's really put some meat on these bones...

Sure if you are rich, you can do the 18 holes, nice clubhouse, golf club or country club.  And I rich, I mean liquid for maybe $50 million with some other non-liquid assets as well.  If done right with that amount of money, this idea could be a freakin' home run.  Golf course, club, business...all of it...you could make it work soup to nuts.

But along the lines of this thread, a struggling artist/archie won't be that liquid...probably not even close.  But what if he does have the talent, vision, and passion to really make something special.  What can he do?  

First and foremost, find the land.  How long did CBM look for land (or Keiser for that matter)?  How important is the right land?  This step is vital and the struggling artist could travel around the world/country looking for the right land for years.  

But then finding the ideal piece of land, he could begin to work his magic.  One hole at a time until that hole is perfected...then move on.  Actually Mackenzie recommended this process for clubs that don't have enough money to develop an entire 18 hole course.  This little bit at a time approach could work and will save upfront costs to the artists/archie perhaps until he is "discovered".

But even if he isn't and this is his passion, what better way to live than piecing together an eventual masterpiece one hole at a time.

Anyway, that is just one idea...I got a million of them.  

I'm sure people will say this idea is stupid...and maybe it is...but to me golf isn't the best of business models...so perhaps many of these ideas are not good ones.  Like highly levered golf course/neighborhood developments...just like the one down the street.

Okay...no more from me on this thread for at leat 15 minutes!

[Mac Plumart]

Whew...15 minutes is up.

For the record, that is one idea of how I could see someone building their fantasy course.

If someone needed the ideal or fantasy golf course architectural gig in the US to faciliate said chasing of dream, I've got to believe the restoration expert avenue of approach is the winner now.

I'm out for the night...I promise.

[Tom_Doak]

Don:

The problem with your fantasy is that nobody really wants to buy someone else's golf course.  Golf courses only turn over for lower and lower prices, in distress sales.  And all the good golf courses of the modern era have come about because people like Mike Keiser or Mark Parsinen want to CREATE something special ... not to buy it.

Mr. Keiser's model comes closest to your fantasy because he realized that the ultimate buyers of golf art are his "retail golfers."  Nearly everyone else aims their business model at the private-club market, where you try to sell a few large-dollar memberships to make your money back.  But Mike understood that the way to make the most money as a developer, if you really believe you're going to have a great product, was to wait until the course was finished and then sell tee times at retail. 

When you pre-sell memberships, you have to sell them for a discount, because nobody really believes the course will be as good as the press releases say.  Dick Youngscap was unique in that he only had a handful of investors to bankroll the project, and otherwise he waited to sell any memberships until the course was finished because he didn't want to cater to what his members thought, but instead wanted members who loved what he'd built.

So, what you're really saying is that architects should go out and develop a course of their own and then spend the rest of their lives running it.  I wish I could do that, but I don't know if I would have been able to build the team I have that way, to get to where we could do really great work.  All those "apprentices and interns and trusted associates" you mention didn't just arrive on the scene out of nowhere -- they all got better with experience, too.

[Don_Mahaffey]

I wasn't saying architects should build and then operate their own courses. What I was really trying to find was some sort of scenario to open a discussion about how architecture may have evolved if the craft was driven solely by architects building what they loved to build...minus clients, raters, magazines, GCA...removing all influences other then one's own desire to create something cool, and then share it with the world. That's not reality, and never will be so any discussion about it is pure fantasy, hence my title.

 

[Mac Plumart]

What I was really trying to find was some sort of scenario to open a discussion about how architecture may have evolved if the craft was driven solely by architects building what they loved to build...

That is where I thought you were going and then the thread focused on money...ruinining the fantasy part of it...but I thought the crux of what you were getting at was how would the architecture develop, change, grow.

I'd love to hear that as well.

The best I could come up with was my first post and the closing part of it was this, "I think in the end things that would "sell" would be right along the lines of classic golf architectural principles...use the land that the course is going to be built on to its fullest and use those features to give the course its own unique sense of place.  This, in the end, is what should sell and take the art form to its highest level."

[Tom_Doak]

I wasn't saying architects should build and then operate their own courses. What I was really trying to find was some sort of scenario to open a discussion about how architecture may have evolved if the craft was driven solely by architects building what they loved to build...minus clients, raters, magazines, GCA...removing all influences other then one's own desire to create something cool, and then share it with the world. That's not reality, and never will be so any discussion about it is pure fantasy, hence my title.
 

Don:

It is pure fantasy, because none of those other influences would go away.  There would still be magazines and raters and Golf Club Atlas, and it would still be up to each architect to decide how much he cared about what any of them were going to think.  And if you're not going to operate the course yourself, then you'd still have to consider the client who you'd eventually be selling to.

The only way I would build something 100% different than what I've been doing is if a client asked me to, or if I really was going to own and operate the course myself.

[jeffwarne]

Tom,
Can you explain what you'd do 100% differently if you were going to own and operate yourself?
Thanks

[Mark Johnson]

So tom,

If I won the lottery and bought another 300 acres of southern Oregon coastline real estate and said , " Tom,  build me the best golf course in the world.  I trust you completely. Let me know when it's  done. "

How different would this course be from Pac dunes or ballyneal?

[Tom_Doak]

So tom,

If I won the lottery and bought another 300 acres of southern Oregon coastline real estate and said , " Tom,  build me the best golf course in the world.  I trust you completely. Let me know when it's  done. "

How different would this course be from Pac dunes or ballyneal?

Mark:

I would be very wary of that particular set of instructions.  It's still going to be your course, not mine, so I would have to anticipate what  "the best course in the world" meant to you.

However, that is pretty close to the assignment for our new project in New Zealand, so maybe in a year or two I will be able to show you the answer.


Jeff W.:

I've said before that it's hard to know exactly what I would do differently.  In the end, no matter what one's ideals are, I'm always going to a build a golf course that's the product of a particular piece of ground.

In general, though, I would try 200% harder to build a course where you wanted to play a lot of approach shots across the ground, and the greens contouring would not be like anything you've seen before.

[Lou_Duran]

Lou,
for the sake of my fantasy I'm assuming there is  demand for something unique and good.
But, as I suspected, I'm getting pulled into reality. So here is a real question. Where does the money come from in the future for golf development? Will we see more developments funded by pension funds, banks, brokerage houses, or other large lenders? I'm thinking that stream is drying up. I'm thinking the next wave (or tiny ripple) of golf development comes from people who write checks where the pre printed name at the top has some resemblance to the hand written signature at the bottom. If I’m right, what now? Same old way? I think not.

I can never answer that question, the money is no object one, because I can’t think that way, probably to a fault. While WP would seem extravagant to many, money here has always been a big deal, some of that as a result of me.  

If I could do whatever I wanted? I’d be happy to grow old running an old fashioned golf club. Location isn’t that big of a deal to me as long as the course is good, we can take care of it properly, and we’re stable enough to run off the knuckleheads.

To be a "serious" golfer, and by that I mean one who goes out and plays widely- not just blogs about it, a considerable suspension of reality is required.  We spend a great deal of time, money, and aggravation chasing a little white ball around, much too often at the expense of far more important obligations to our families, communities, and careers.  Arguably, without fantasy there is no golf.

Far from being a fault (sentence in red), among your strongest suits (at least the one I have witnessed and like the most) is your commitment to achieving practical results.  The industry would be in far better shape if money and work were treated more respectfully.

A recent trip to Royal New Kent where the new owner is in the midst of a project to, presumably, lower the maintenance costs of the beautiful, grand-scale Stranz bunkers brought to mind the complexity of running a club in today's environment.  Stranz might be the type of architect you're thinking about.  While this course has some very serious routing issues, it has 18 very good holes on a visuallly compelling site.   Revenues are restrained and, again, I presume, the bunker project is an attempt to align costs to achieve some form of financial viability.  But is "defacing" one of the course's major design features the practical way to achieve this?  (The periphery of the bunkers, many with steep banks, are being sodded with zoysia, often to a fraction of their former size, changing the look entirely, not to say anything about how the near vertical edges are going to be mown, if at all.)

How future courses are going to be financed requires a crystal ball.  To a great extent, I believe that the long-term deterioration of disposable income experienced by populations likely to play golf is responsible for industry doldrums.  An industry guy I traveled with recently believes that cultural factors are involved- e.g. potential golfers have other more desirable outlets for their spare time and money.  If I am right, and IF we can get our financial house in order- and I am not sanguine about this one- golf might be back to normal some day.  If he is right, the game might contract to a niche sport with limited participation and a much smaller industry to serve it.  If the former is the case, than the traditional financial/credit cycles might return.  If the latter, gentlemen like Al, Fry, Liniger, Desmarais, etc. might be the main sources for quailty golf in the future, at least in our part of the world.

Lastly, given all the limitations posed by a myriad of government regulators, site selection is the one thing you can't fantasize away.  What are the chances that Cypress Point could be built today?  Zero to none?

[Melvyn Morrow]

A golf fantasy - 'Land Fit For Purpose' - but then why make life easy and keep costs down, when we can get the golfers to pay more for their fun lower score.

Melvyn

[George Pazin]

Don, I wonder if anyone would truly take more chances in your fantasy scenario. I suspect with more of his own money at stake, the typical architect would be even more conservative than normal.

I know very little of the art world as it currently exists in the market, but I'd guess the people that are the most "original" in terms of trying really new things and taking chances, are probably the least successful, at least on a percentage basis. The occasional one may hit it huge, but most are probably never heard of. We have a fairly decent size arts festival every June in the Burgh and generally the booths that appear to be doing the best financially are the ones that sell basic art at lower prices, while the ones with really unique items tend to be emptier.

In my area, I see an analogy in the music scene. The local bands that are the most successful are the basic bar rock bands that put fannies in the seats (or more accurately, have young fannies dancing around bringing in the men). The ones that tend to push the envelope even a little generally have much smaller followings.

Maybe that's part of the answer: if architects were doing their own thing and then selling it, maybe they'd keep the costs way down and more people would enjoy the game at a more basic level. Maybe things would bifurcate and the wealthy would snag all the edgy courses while the masses would enjoy a more grounded game (pun intended).

Don't know if that's the answer you were looking for, or if that is even remotely what would happen.