Most Public Architect/Owner Rifts?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Yesterday, on the now banned "toilet thread" I posted a mildly related question that may be worth (or at least fun) discussing.....

What are the most public architect/owner rifts in gca?  There are some famous ones in most fields.

There is an old joke that "We hung a picture of the architect in the clubhouse, only because we couldn't find the architect."

I recall Hogan very publicly taking his name off of Trophy Club.  What other incidences of that made headlines?

Are there any situations where the club has dissed its architect with a public firing, or more subtly by things like naming the toilet after him?

I guess we could add in Pro/Architect rifts/rips/disses (i.e., Dave Hill and RTJ at Hazeltine) to broaden the discussion field........

[Ian Mackenzie]

5

[Cliff Hamm]

A few years back TPC Boston, an Arnold Palmer design, was redone by Gil Hanse.  The changes were significant enough that I remember Palmer asking to have his name removed as architect.  Indeed when you go on their site it states it to be a Gil Hanse re-design.

[Gary Sato]

Has to be Mirabel in Arizona which bulldozed the Greg Norman course before it was open and had it rebuilt by Tom Fazio. Reported cost, $15 million.

[Paul Jones]

Has to be Mirabel in Arizona which bulldozed the Greg Norman course before it was open and had it rebuilt by Tom Fazio. Reported cost, $15 million.

WOW

[Paul Jones]

I guess an architect has no recourse if the owner butchers his design except to ask if his name can be removed.

[Greg Tallman]

Medalist Club?

[Tom_Doak]

MacKenzie battled with his owner at Sitwell Park, but that was mostly done by letter, and not really "public".  Some pretty heated letters, though.

Pete Dye had some great "battles" with clients during the construction process of some of his courses, but those never made the light of day, either.

I can't think of one where the owner fired the architect and shamed him in public.  The Mirabel deal was a new owner that bought the course before it opened and decided they wanted to do it differently.

[Bruce Wellmon]

Local caddie lore at Secession states that the first architect was fired over the layout of one specific hole and the course was finished by BD. Whether that is true..........

[Greg Gilson]

I immediately thought of the Medallist (which became the source of some awful non GCA related gossip on this board a couple of years ago).

Slight tangent ...

...cannot remember the player but in the early days of TPC Sawgrass one of the participants in the Players Championship was asked for a comment on the course could only say that "Pete Dye just ruined a good swamp"

[Greg Tallman]

MacKenzie battled with his owner at Sitwell Park, but that was mostly done by letter, and not really "public".  Some pretty heated letters, though.

Pete Dye had some great "battles" with clients during the construction process of some of his courses, but those never made the light of day, either. 17 green at PDGC, but that became public... in his book I believe

I can't think of one where the owner fired the architect and shamed him in public.  The Mirabel deal was a new owner that bought the course before it opened and decided they wanted to do it differently.

[Josh Tarble]

Local caddie lore at Secession states that the first architect was fired over the layout of one specific hole and the course was finished by BD. Whether that is true..........

I think that may be one of Pete Dye's "battles" Tom referenced in the post above you.  If you ask me, it feels like a Dye-routed course.  Especially the finish of 16, 17, 18.
 

[Steve Okula]

I immediately thought of the Medallist (which became the source of some awful non GCA related gossip on this board a couple of years ago).

Slight tangent ...

...cannot remember the player but in the early days of TPC Sawgrass one of the participants in the Players Championship was asked for a comment on the course could only say that "Pete Dye just ruined a good swamp"

If memory serves, it was Lee Trevino, but that wasn't all he could say.

He is also reported to have said, referring to Dye's expansive use of railroad ties, "This is the first golf course I've seen that could burn down".

[Thomas Dai]

Wasn't there some adverse reaction a few years back to Seve's re-design on the course at Crans-sur-sierre or was that other pro criticism rather than owner criticism?
atb

[Tim_Weiman]

Has to be Mirabel in Arizona which bulldozed the Greg Norman course before it was open and had it rebuilt by Tom Fazio. Reported cost, $15 million.

Gary,

What is known about the Norman course? What made it so bad?

[Bill Seitz]

I immediately thought of the Medallist (which became the source of some awful non GCA related gossip on this board a couple of years ago).

Slight tangent ...

...cannot remember the player but in the early days of TPC Sawgrass one of the participants in the Players Championship was asked for a comment on the course could only say that "Pete Dye just ruined a good swamp"

If memory serves, it was Lee Trevino, but that wasn't all he could say.

He is also reported to have said, referring to Dye's expansive use of railroad ties, "This is the first golf course I've seen that could burn down".

This same story has been told about Lee Trevino with regard to the courses at Industry Hills in Southern California (now Pacific Palms or something) which was built on a landfill.  Only, instead of a swamp, in this version of the story, he says they ruined a perfectly good dump when they built the golf course.

[Gary Sato]

Has to be Mirabel in Arizona which bulldozed the Greg Norman course before it was open and had it rebuilt by Tom Fazio. Reported cost, $15 million.

Gary,

What is known about the Norman course? What made it so bad?

Tom Doak is correct, they changed owners who then switched from a public to private club.

I found this on Google,

"Seems it is a golf course built on top of a golf course. Originally designed by Greg Norman, as a high-end public course for 5 or below handicaps, which the pros stated was too difficult, it couldn’t sustain itself so the new owners requested Norman for a makeover and more playability. Upon refusal by Norman, Fazio designed a completely new course on top of the original one."

[RJ_Daley]

There might have been some finger pointing in the aftermath of the Arcadia Bluffs debacle. 

To the high tribute to the classy folk involved with Sutton Bay, they all rolled up their sleeves and got to work righting a horrible natural misfortune.  Gen Mgr., Mark Ammundson RIP, and Swampy Marsh were a great team.

There have been a few fall outs in WI between land owners, and architects that involve courses you never heard of, from what I have heard through the grapevine.  I suspect that is so in all locales where golf dreamers and schemers and first owners, second owners and the pattern of high failure rates abound.

[Tom_Doak]

Hell, I completely forgot about China, until R.J. mentioned the small-time courses in Wisconsin.  China is famous for meddling owners who add lakes to courses against the architect's wishes.  I don't know that any of those things ever "go public", but they happen all the time there, and if the architect complains very loudly he can forget about getting paid anything more on his contract.  I was very careful to pick a good client there.

[Phil McDade]

Erin Hills certainly had its share of owner-architect disagreements.

[john_stiles]

It was the 14th hole at Secession that created a problem.

The hole would have been a brute as contemplated.  It was to have been a sharp dogleg left par 4,  almost 90 degrees.   The second shot would have been a long carry over marsh to what is now the practice green for short game area.

[Jason Topp]

High Pointe?

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Forrest Richardson and the new owners of Legend Trail GC in Scottsdale who brought in Rees Jones for his "name" to give the course some recognition:

http://www.golfgroupltd.com/legend_trail.html

[Steve_ Shaffer]

More on Mirabel, originally known as Stonehaven by Norman:

 Norman has also seen two courses he built reworked or bulldozed by developers who deemed his layouts too challenging for average golfers. That was the case in Scottsdale, Ariz., where he designed a resort course known as Stonehaven for Lehman Brothers Inc. After Lehman sold the development to Discovery Land Co. of San Francisco -- which immediately converted it to a private club -- Discovery determined that the design was too demanding for members. "We saw the course as not being playable enough so we tore it up and started from scratch," says Discovery partner Steve Adelson. While the Norman layout had a mere 42 acres of fairway -- meaning most wayward shots ended up in the desert -- architect Tom Fazio created a much more forgiving 90-acre tract.

http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2005-11-13/greg-norman-all-business

http://www.golfcalifornia.com/departments/features/discovery-land-company.htm

http://golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php?topic=3246.0

[Tom_Doak]

High Pointe?

My disagreements with management at High Pointe were all after the course opened, with the client's son. 

He got the last laugh, by closing the course after he inherited it ... if you count taking the value of what you own to zero, as a victory.