Niall - My courses could be deemed minimal if you look at the word minimal as being low cost, but I guess we dont mean that in the context of what we are talking about here. My first few involved greens, tees and as little soil movement as possible, perhaps my forst five or six could have been the same sort of soil movements that would have been involved in the 1920s-30s period. Maybe in time they will be considered good golf courses, most of them were built for sub $750,000. More recently as soon as I get on site I basically move the top soil to one side and completely recontour the lot, but I am importing inert landfill so getting paid by each lorry load. That fill material can be shaped into a golf terrain. The prices have dropped off a bit now but we were getting $100 for every load and most days we got over 100 loads (record is 323 loads), you need 1 girl to count the lorries and 1 shaper and if you get enough fill you ccan build your course for zero and bank a million.
You can shape your land in a way that the land can look like a series of disused quarries, plant gorse, scrub pine, bit of thorn and 99% of people wont know its not old.
As for my philosophy on golf I look to produce golf courses suitable for as many people to play as possible as a general rule, I am very aware of what things cost and what revenue you can expect to achieve and the margins and the profits for the client. I am proud that none of my courses have ever gone bankrupt. I would want a course that I was involved with to be at least good enough to stage a county championship, I am not against island greens or bringing water into play, I like greens that defend themselves without sand and contours that sometimes help and sometimes dont, I try and keep a mixture of hazards on one side of the green rather than both and mainly look to have preferred sides of the fairway as the best side, but I dont really have strong rules that would preclude anything. I know i make mistakes based on $$$ and time restraints. I like a lot of the courses we see on this site, I have not seen a TD course though from pictures I like them, there are some modern architects and some older ones I think are crap but I will only tell you that in March when we are on our third pint. If you go to
www.commandsport.com there is a little player that shows one of my courses