Beginning with Charles Frazier hiring a guy named Pete Dye and Jack Nicklaus to design Harbor Town, golf design took on a new light. The signature professional golfer idea began to blossom and multi-million dollar RE developments were promoted based entirely on the name of a professional golfer/designer. Entire marketing/advertising campaigns were printed/developed touting such. It was a win/win for the professional golfer/designer because the developer was spending millions to promote his work when it would not be possible to promote such if it were just to sell golf. Thus the professional golfer/architect began to accumulate large offices of designers and sales staff to promote themselves to other large developers.
A GAME WAS BEING TURNED INTO AN UNSUSTAINABLE BUSINESS MODEL
As each new development searched to improve upon the last, the golf course and clubhouse was usually the focal point and rock walls, waterfall, pumped/recirculating creeks, 70,000 sq ft clubhouses with $500,000 half way houses became fixtures. (Also, when length is mentioned....a 7200 yard golf course vs. a 6600 yard golf course with 100 ft wide lots on both sides of a fairway would give you 36 more lots.)
Preferred General contractors were placed on projects by the design firms because it made life much easier when they could just relate to these few particular firms what they needed and use a past course for comparison. Cost escalated.
Irrigation and equipment companies saw what was happening and developed unsustainable ( golf cost wise) equipment since they knew the signature architects could specify such to the RE developers who were only searching to one-up the competition.
College and University Turf Grass schools saw the light and developed programs to teach many sharp, young, new supts how to incorporate these unsustainable theories and ideas into the market place.
The design firms hired sharp young landscape architecture students to draft and make site visits as their representatives.
AND then it blew up.....
What did they do?
Many of you may remember the older publications such as Golf Course News which was published monthly and was at least 32 pages of color touting all the new projects and design firms, builders etc. BUT one thing was never , ever promoted by these Golf professional/architecture firms. AND that was public golf. At the time they had no desire because they had this huge market for golf being subsidized at ridiculously high prices by RE developments. SO AS IT BLEW UP THEY ENTERED PUBLIC GOLF PROMOTING IT AS CCFAD. They proceeded to blow that up also. They had degraded and often laughed at those of us building such projects in the past and now they were right in the mix. It was amazing to watch how they turned.
And once that turned what happened?
A huge marketing effort was made by builder groups and architecture groups to convince clubs they needed extreme renovations or remodelings when much much smaller efforts would have sufficed. AND it was found by many architects that a club could market themselves thru the name of an OLD DEAD ARCHITECT much cheaper than hiring a modern signature.
All of the above aided in creating an aloofness in the GCA business today. What does that mean? Let me say this before saying more. I think all that have been in this business on their own have learned to be hardened and not really worry with about the arrows etc. but anyway IMHO I can have respect for others personally while not caring for their work. And that is often the case. The aloofness generated by those years left us with an abundance of "deer in headlights". I have often had it used against me in selling a job the fact that I was not trained by a signature firm and had therefore not been exposed. They forgot, I was trained by working for an equipment company that was sitting in the same room selling to that same developer the items that signature had specified.
I knew where the BS was.
Think about it...
The guys that were working for so many of the signature firms were basically dumped. It was business but it was a shock to many because the perception of reality in those firms was just not right. Regional guys that had been selling and promoting themselves had a huge advantage over guys that had been sheltered by a signature and his marketing/sales department for years. Just look at the ASGCA list of members and see how many worked for firms other than themselves and look at their own websites to see how many of the listings will be work from the signature firm.
The general contractors that had been building for these RE developments had layers of management and job superintendents. Change orders were the name of the game walking into a club and telling them that one had done the work of a signature firm often had guys drooling. These guys also would denigrate smaller firms doing their on work or just doing smaller jobs as having no ability. Meeting budgets was not necessarily a critical aspect of the RE business because often the signature had told the developer he expected a minimum specific budget and these guys took full advantage. This was the segment that made HUGE money of of all of this. And some can't crank a dozer or grip a club or know what a redan hole is.
The young supts that had come out of these schools came out searching for clubs with budgets that would let them show their stuff and obtain a job at a club with an even bigger budget. Most had never seen a ground driven fairway unit. Can you imagine a business school sending guys out into the world looking for ways to spend instead f ways to profit. Profit was not taught in turf school. I mean after all the chemical, fertilizer and equipment companies were providing the grants and why would they want less of their product to be used? Today it is difficult to hire one and convince they can work for the budget you require. Some learn and do extremely well and some go away thinking low budgets are beneath them.
The equipment, fertilizer and chemical firms continue on down the path thinking they can control the industry.
The USGA never wanted public golf and as much as they say they embraced it, it does not show on their boards or other areas. There are 4000 private clubs out of 16,000. They want the money and that's it.
And so here we are today.
No one wants to say where they are working. Ex signature associates are hanging around as though in the business by doing a few bunkers every few years and showing websites listing the projects of their previous employers. General contractors are hiring young draftsmen and doing the entire project themselves without an architect. Architects are doing their own construction. Turf equipment companies are sold out of ground driven fairway units and wanting to produce more. Pump stations are smaller. Clubhouses are much much smaller. Architects work from their homes. And all of this is good for golf....when we finally escape from the "aloofness" hype of the architect and place him in the same view as the supt then we will have arrived. Needs a few more years....
hopefully golf will mainly be marketed in a 20 mile radius...