A Worthy Initiative?

[V. Kmetz]

Hello,

The Chambers Bay/Extreme Measures thread got me putting a little bit of sunshine onto a notion I've been harboring since before I joined this board.

Would it be a worthy initiative for the germane governing bodies (USGA here in America) to build and operate a few courses within their "jurisdiction" to serve as hosting sites for their featured tournaments, and derive visitor revenue the remainder of the year?

Sort of like a few stadiums being owned by the NFL, where the Super Bowl is played on a rotation, as well as playoff games, the Pro Bowl, scouting combines, some preseason match-ups or as any emergency stadium in case of exigency (which has happened with greater frequency in recent years)

I'm not familiar enough with international territories to suggest a plan of action, but here in America, I envision something like this:

1. The USGA selects several (5-10) geographic locales around the country for which to place these courses. I suppose it would naturally start with one or two featured sites, but in time, I think it would be desirable to expand it to at least 6 or more.

2. These courses/properties would be designed with the logistics of hosting a feature tournament (Mens/Womens Opens, Ams, Juniors, Sectional Qualifying) squarely in mind, though--like any place--with regular visitor-public golfer usage the seasonal norm.

3. These facilities would each be equipped with fulsome range, instruction, practice and testing grounds and thereby attract a healthy local reputation as a true golf center...first and foremost as a promotion point for the game, but also a means of revenue in the directly local economy within which they are chosen to be placed.

4. These courses could serve as a satellite Green Section lab of sorts, to advance the trades of agronomy and turf study, maintenance practices, perhaps even course construction and feature design..a living, working laboratory that, if regionalization could eventually be realized, would advance these trades with more local/scientific specificity (ie; Massachusetts' turf environment is substantially different than Louisiana's, which is different than Arizona, and Oregon's)

I know most here are much more interested in the speculations of what kind of courses, which architect, etc...but I'm just thinking of the idea as means of revaluating/shifting the debates about the "necessary" destructions, classic courses undergo to host a big event. I'm of the opinion that while some accord "might" be reached to go no further, I don't think there's enough political or cultural will within the game to rollback the ball or the properties of the swinging club... and eventually our classic courses will be informed "go 8000 yards+, or perish in the championship history."

That is, for me, the ambivalent side of this...that I'd sooner let the connection with history on championship courses be broken, than the classic course's body be broken by these "needs." I hate to admit defeat in this regard, especially in light of what I think have been two sound US Open presentations in 2013 and 2014 that would suggest there is a happy medium between technology encroachment and classic architecture...but that's not only debatable with parties that honestly feel differently, its seems certain that only 10 years from now (at commercial technology's pace) that happy medium will have to be further compromised.

Still, who knows?... I think the great classic courses will still be the great classic courses in 100 years, but if such an idea were to flower in some manner, the future generations will receive this idea as normally and with as much interest as we do the championship rotas now.  While they won't have WF, Oakmont, Merion, Medinah, Olympia, TCC, to chew on anymore...the regional US Courses (let's call them United States Golf Club ____________ with the specific region named after: like, "Midwest") will capture the golfing imagination as people will see them year after year.

Whaddya think:

The only response that does nothing for nobody is: "It'll never happen."

I'm asking, "Should something like this happen...why or why not?"

cheers

vk

[Tom_Doak]

V:  The key to your question is, who's to guarantee they would make money to justify the investment?

The USGA thought about doing something like that many years ago, but they didn't have the funds to do it at the time, they would have relied on outside funding.  Today, they have the trust fund, but it seems they would rather invest it on Wall Street.  Most new golf projects do NOT turn out to be profitable, so they might have a point.

The PGA Tour, of course, did just as you suggest with their network of TPC courses ... but following on after Sawgrass, most of those were tied in with real estate development ventures so they would be guaranteed to return money to the players' pension fund, instead of built as stand-alone golf facilities with the goal of building something special.

No matter what organization is behind it, such facilites would get some flak from private golf developers who would not welcome the competition ... especially if that competition had an easy link to hosting tournaments and generating free p.r. for said projects.  This was the topic of a near-revolt of the PGA Tour against Commissioner Beman in the 1980's ... Mr. Nicklaus and Mr. Palmer had sold many clients on the premise that their courses might someday host a Tour event.

In other words -- there are a lot of politics involved in such a venture.

[Matthew Petersen]

As Tom noted, the PGA Tour essentially has tried this with their TPC network and the results are mixed at best.

It would be a shame, to me. It doesn't matter all that much where a football game is played--the field is still the field, only the weather perhaps would change. Golf is a different thing and while it's fun to have one major a year contested at the same course, that's enough. I like that the USGA moves the Open around, while keeping the general idea of a tough test (they test this in different ways, of late) being consistent. But it means you don't end up with one guy winning 5 US Opens just because one of the USGA courses really suits him.

Edited: PGA Tour, not PGA, of course.

[Jason Thurman]

If you think classic golf architecture is obsolete now, wait until you see what happens when the USGA deems classic courses unfit to host national championships and builds their own ultra-long, ultra-narrow, ultra-difficult modern monsters and all subsequent major championship telecasts deem these courses the only ones fit for hosting true championships.

The only message worse than "Courses like Merion need tiny fairways and 9 inch rough to challenge good players" is "Courses like Merion are bygone relics completely incapable of challenging good players."

[mike_beene]

Although it is obviously different, this is what the USTA did with Flushing Meadows when the U.S. Open was moved from Westside

[Tom_Doak]

If you think classic golf architecture is obsolete now, wait until you see what happens when the USGA deems classic courses unfit to host national championships and builds their own ultra-long, ultra-narrow, ultra-difficult modern monsters and all subsequent major championship telecasts deem these courses the only ones fit for hosting true championships.

Isn't that what Chambers Bay and Erin Hills are?  USGA championship venues built with other people's money?

[JC Jones]

Doesn't the PGA of America own Valhalla?

[Matthew Petersen]

Doesn't the PGA of America own Valhalla?

They do now, but they didn't build it. They first bought a stake after announcing the 96 PGA, then bought it outright after the 2000 event.

[V. Kmetz]

Hi again,

JT: I think you've identified the current problem, that:

"To retain at all the historic connection with the games formative venues, we have to change those venues substantially."

But I don't know if the resultant answer MUST be the creation of "ultra-long, ultra-narrow" courses, and even if so, whether or not, those courses (which admittedly would be heralded on television and media in championship play) would lead classic threads of architecture astray.  

I question (and maybe TD can speculate over this as a leading architect of this era) whether or not is it beyond the current abilities of GCA to deliver a new course of "around" 6500-7000 yards that costs within 10% of what any new course runs today, that produces challenge for the elites and still is a desired destination for a much wider contingent of golfers.

MP:

I admit that golf is unto itself as far as its venues....evenso, perhaps football was a poor analogy... take baseball where the dimensions beyond the diamond are not uniform (and were even more disparate in days gone by), or in the older days, something like hockey where rinks and ice were not uniform, or the current differences in Olympic to North American hockey where the ice is nearly 12% wider, with increased differences in blue line... and a physical, close-checking game comes with increased risks.

Still I take it that you more value the connection with a variety of historically different sites than what has been/may need to be done to keep the majors on them. Is that a fair summary of what you are saying? That, given ONLY the choice of amending the classic sites or abandoning them, you would pick our current model...of "amending them."?

As far as the success of the TPC courses (and buildign model), I'm in no position to say whether or not they have been a success or not.  I don't know what happens on them the other 340 days a year that they don't have a tournament on them, I've rarely (or never) heard of them going to seed, I know they advanced the innovations and style of Pete Dye, a controversial but ultimately respected HoF architect, and what I'm suggesting would be more limited in scope than the number of TPC courses that exist, and those be much more public accessible than the TPC courses are.

TD,

The knot of feasibility/investment returns is something I could not/cannot unpack in this space, but I want to address some of it with this follow-up:

1. Wouldn't some of this cost be defrayed (over years) by the elimination of need to pay the classic courses for hosting, including all the infrastructure improvements and so forth, and also the "smaller" tournaments and sectional qualification?

2. A network of 6-10 such courses might be too "ballooned" to contemplate upfront, but surely they now have enough money to attempt one or two of these, no? One featured site/course might be enough to incentivize another and a successful model for financing and construction of further ones.

Thanks to you all for these follow-ups.

Of course I feel deficient in making such a suggestion, because it posits architectural "leadership" with an organization (the USGA) that has not always led very well, and is a bit guilty of the sin of pride, in keeping a par score as the manufactured standard of winning play. Though played under perfect conditions and only 2/4 rounds played at Pebble, what would be the harm if Snedeker won a US Open at Pebble shooting 16 or 18 under, and had close followers a few shots behind?

cheers

vk

[Jonathan Mallard]

As an aside, but germane point, the VSGA did that with Independence Golf Course in Richmond. They hired Fazio to design/build the course and moved their headquarters to the clubhouse and included a museum.

They sold the course last year, and there have been published foreclosure notices for (what I presume are) the unbuilt lots in the development.

Their 990 forms show an organization that was hemorrhaging cash.

Lester George just completed a renovation of the course, and may have more to offer.

It could work. As Tom and others have noted, that doesn't guarantee that it will work.

[Jim Nugent]

If the USGA builds a great course (or two), maybe the model would be more like ANGC and the Masters than the TPC courses.  I bet they could charge a hefty fee for daily play, and have no trouble filling the tee sheets.  That's on top of whatever they net from the Open, which IIRC is typically around $4-to-$5 million per year for the host course. 

Build the Lido somewhere in the NYC area if possible.  Make the course a tougher version of NGLA from the tips, so it challenges the pro's.  Open the course to the public the rest of the year, with appropriate tees/rough etc for the average player.  Could be a big winner.

[BCrosby]

Whatever the merits of V's idea, it won't happen. The USGA does not want to get in the business of owning and managing golf courses. 

In part, at TD notes above, because private developers will not be happy to have the competition, in part because it is not something the USGA knows much about, in part because they have plenty of other projects on their plate, and in part because they don't need the revenue.

Another important reason is that the USGA does not want to get in the business of picking architects. Having an informal rota of courses in which clubs make their own choices about architects is one thing. Picking an architect to design and build an official USGA rota course is something else altogether.   

Bob

[Lester George]

State golf associations that have tried it haven't faired so well either. 

Lester