Backstabbing Architects

[Michael Morandi]

I’m glad that course changes at my club are left to the architect only, with virtually zero input from the board and/or members, with the possible exception of costs.

[Tim Martin]

I’m glad that course changes at my club are left to the architect only, with virtually zero input from the board and/or members, with the possible exception of costs.

Michael-Putting cost aside I can’t imagine there are many clubs where the Greens Chairman doesn’t have some say regarding architectural changes. That’s an interesting dynamic.

[George Pazin]

Yes, the article might have been titled, "Welcome to Wednesday" if you are a gca.

Welcome to the real world in any industry. I could bore you with 30 years of stories like this in the painfully banal world of t shirts.


So it all started in 1994, when I decided to start my own business printing apparel…


🙂


You either believe in liberty or you don’t. That’s life, no one said it was fair.

[Michael Morandi]

Our Green and Grounds chairman has no input on course changes. His role is to communicate with the members about what is being done to the course and why. Nobody plays architect except the architect. It works well.

[DFarron]

Years ago I completed a very detailed and fairly expensive master plan (over a year plus of work) for a club on the East Coast. Long story but one day I got a call from Gil Hanse asking me if I was still working at the club because he got a call to interview. I said I thought I was but I knew some members who were involved felt they needed a bigger name.  I told Gil I had just completed a master plan for the renovation of their golf course.  Gil asked if could send him a copy of the plan and rendering which I did. Long story short, Gil did interview with the club and told them he would take the job on the condition that he work with me to implement my plan. They told him they wanted a new plan from him.  He said he liked what I had done and that was his condition to take the work and he eventually walked away.  He called and told me the whole story.  Class act in my opinion.


For some time now I haven’t updated my website with all my active projects as I prefer not to disclose where I am working as it attracts less attention and pouchers 😊.


But you can’t blame architects for trying to step in as most just want to make a living but it’s not my style if someone is already working there.  If I get called I always ask if they have an architect under agreement.  It’s a small community and most play nice and in many cases collaborate (which I have done often).

Gil Hanse....my new favorite designer

[Anthony Butler]

Your Oakland Hills example is an interesting one.  They had initially called Ross to renovate it for the 1951 Open, and his plan wasn't really much different than what RTJ came up with (I saw the original red marked Ross plan in the maintenance building, so I know).  So, Ross was perfectly willing to renovate his course for a specific reason, i.e., tournaments.  The fact that his and RTJ's plans were so similar may suggest that the USGA was driving the boat on the design changes, not the gca and not the club members.  So, examples are all over the map of why courses got changed, and I still disagree with the notion that those WWII vets were somehow misguided by today's conventions.

You have to wonder about some of the details and time line on this. When did the initial conversation take place with Ross, who died in April '48 over 3 years before the '51 US Open.

Had the club already decided to move onto RTJ before he passed...and was Ross even healthy enough in the last couple of years of his life to supervise this kind of work?

[Ian Andrew]

It’s not a stable business.

1. Committees and boards turn over/ ownerships change
2. Staff change
3. It’s economically sensitive
4. Styles and taste change
5. Competition for work is very high

It’s fun. But it wasn’t a stable lifestyle.

[Mike_Young]

Backstabbing architects?  Hmmmm…I’ve heard of this but I think it is only justified when you have a “code of ethics” behind you and it is done in the name of saving the innocent clubs from the unqualified.

You guys are confusing the game of golf with the business of golf now.  It’s a cutthroat business, no licensing required and it is street ball.  Where you are getting confused is in thinking that most golfers care who the architect is.  Golf architects are like golf shirts to most golfers.  The pro at your club this year likes Peter Millar so your shop is loaded with Millar,  the pro 10 years ago was a Fairway and Greene fan so the club liked Fairway and Green, the next guy may be a Holderness and Bourne guy so that will become the flavor of the week. And the average member can't tell the difference between the shirts but he is convinced the latest is the best.  It works the same with architects.  Same goes for the supt.  These guys have great influence with most boards.  And most boards don’t know what they don’t know.  The new supt or pro tells the board he doesn’t like your bunker edges or a green contour and you are out.  Next pro or supt comes in and tells them he doesn’t like the last bunker edge or green contour and the guy that was there after you is out.  For most courses renovation/restoration is a scam business conceived by the industry when new construction went away 25 years ago.  If you watch a region you will usually see one guy go thru town every few years doing the greens/bunker and Reno work from course to course and all will look similar.  That’s because boards have no clue what they want and are influenced by what they see from the neighbor.  AND most reno work is done because the course next door did it.   

Think about this.  We look back 75-100 years on a course and we may know the original architect who designed and routed it but we usually have no clue about the backstabbing that went on between “architects” once the course was on the ground.  And it will be that way a hundred years from now.  Social media has made this business much easier to enter.  One can buy some business cards or not, one can visit a course where the pro is his friend and write free unsolicited reports or perhaps even put some new 4 inch perf pipe in a bunker or two and then make one good  website with a long list of clients BUT when you check it out , it ain’t there…   Now if you have the money or your wife is working then you can play all you want but very few can find enough work to make a living from it.  It all sounds so sweet.  So if being “backstabbed” makes one lose sleep you may want to rethink things.  As Kisner says “this ain’t no hobby"…
All of the above is why I have never liked renovation or restoration and only do it when they approach me.  I don’t know of one Reno any where that doesn’t have a good portion of the members that don’t like it.  Most of the time you know someone is going to change what you do as soon as they have the power.  It’s sad how much money has been wasted in American golf on renovation and restoration in order to keep the machine running.  Imagine how American clubs would change if the money spent on renovations was used to endow maintenance budgets …

[Ally Mcintosh]

Years ago I completed a very detailed and fairly expensive master plan (over a year plus of work) for a club on the East Coast. Long story but one day I got a call from Gil Hanse asking me if I was still working at the club because he got a call to interview. I said I thought I was but I knew some members who were involved felt they needed a bigger name.  I told Gil I had just completed a master plan for the renovation of their golf course.  Gil asked if could send him a copy of the plan and rendering which I did. Long story short, Gil did interview with the club and told them he would take the job on the condition that he work with me to implement my plan. They told him they wanted a new plan from him.  He said he liked what I had done and that was his condition to take the work and he eventually walked away.  He called and told me the whole story.  Class act in my opinion.

Gil Hanse....my new favorite designer

Thanks for this story, Mark.

[Tim_Weiman]

Mike Young,


I always enjoy your posts!


One muni that underwent unnecessary changes is Big Met, a course near Cleveland that is part of the Metroparks and sometimes described as the busiest course in Ohio.


A while back some unknown architect convinced Metroparks officials to change two par fives on the front side. I don’t think either change was for the better and, if anything, simply worsened the biggest problem with the course: slow play, especially on weekends.


IMO, Memorial Park in Houston is a different case. I think it is a gift to golf in Houston for both the tournament and everyday play.


I actually liked the old course, but mostly because it was easy to walk on as a single and there was a very good chance one would be matched up with friendly enjoyable people. That’s Houston.


Now was it a great course? No. Was it worth preserving? No.


After Tom’s work was completed I asked an employee in the pro shop how people liked it. The answer was: 90% like it, 5% are indifferent and 5% don’t like it, the latter being mostly older people who had played the original for decades.

[Michael Morandi]

Mike Young, to your point about course renovation envy it seems somewhat prevalent in the S.F. Bay Area. I can’t prove it, but a certain club had a very successful renovation that put it on the map and now, a decade or so later, the area  has had 4 major renovations/restorations at “important” private clubs, plus at least one semi-private one. The outside  reviews are mixed, with some (mostly members)  loving the changes and others not so much. I suppose that if the members love it then it is money well spent.

[Bruce Katona]

So renovation work can be:
1. Restoration of the original design intent.
2. Renovation to bring something that has some wear/tear/neglect on it back to the original intent - things like removing sand build up around green surfaces, maybe adding in a tee to help add length/reduce turf wear and tear on teeing ground or maybe adding in a sand area or  few grass depressions.
3. How about bunker renovation since most of the underdrains clog & the sand areas become bird baths -


Is bunker renovation worth the time and effort of the design professionals here that opine?

[Tom_Doak]

Is bunker renovation worth the time and effort of the design professionals here that opine?

Bruce:


Before the restoration era [which was brought about by the disappearance of new course development in 2008], clubs renovated their bunkers in-house as necessary.


More recently, most clubs with an architectural pedigree have become convinced that they need a golf course architect to supervise such work, and often, a golf course contractor to complete it.  That is the inroad for architects to keep getting hired and later ousted . . . routine bunker renovation made into something bigger.


Way back when, superintendents often wanted to supervise and control this work, and make it a centerpiece of why the club needed them.  Today, the opposite is often true:  the superintendent says his job is turf maintenance and he is not getting paid to do this sort of work, and the club should hire specialists to complete it.

[Bruce Katona]

Thank you Tom.


BK

[Jim_Coleman]

    The title of this discussion is “backstabbing architects.” I suspect that’s an unfair accusation. Most changes occur because of changes in club administration. Either a new super or a new decision maker comes in and wants to insert his guy, and so fires an architect. What’s the replacement to do, turn down the work? It’s long standing problem in golf club management - new boards or managers want to make their marks.