I know this goes against the wishes of some on this board but one of the things I hate the most is recounting what we did on a course, the thought process, etc., because so much of those thoughts evaporate from my mind. I do know when I go back to an old course of mine/ours I hold my breath because I feel there are some things I would do differently, and I am certain this would be true at Serena as well as anywhere else, but I am surprised sometimes by the things we did back then, there are some bold things we did I forget, and in fact may have lost touch with on subsequent projects.
Randy and I designed it but as was the arrangement it was his after that since he was fully in charge of construction, so while he faithfully followed the design all credit for what ended up in the ground, the budget, the grand opening conditioning goes to him. Budget-wise my only contribution was that we had to endure the 6 hour drive from Santiago to La Serena because the client would not pay airfare during that phase of the work. And Randy drives like your grandmother, in fact back then he would try to date your grandmother, your mother, if they were lookers, and your niece, of course only if she were 18 or older, at the same time! I believe we flew once. But it also gave us quality time together, as I recall I brought a copy of Doak's, Anatomy of a Golf Course, and I read it out load the entire trip one time!
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Kelly
We never stop evolving, so its impossible not to think back and want to do a few things different. If it were today, I would have left more and created more movement in the fairways and a few of the greens. But the Chilean market is such an uneducated golfer and there still not really ready for what we did, which is much more toned down then we would have liked to create. It was more of a marketing decision at the time. (I remeber Mike Young making a comment about Jack Nicklaus in Central America and the client saying, oh he is my favorite actor, I have heard that too many times down here also)
Secondly since the dirty architect secrects are coming out, the client paid for two air fares, 250 each. I spent 100 in gas and tolls and pocketed the other 400!
Third and most importantly, thank god I married a Chiliean wife that doesn´t read English. She married me thinking I was a virgin. What did you expect me to do, I was traveling 27 days a month, what kind of life is that! I didn´t want to hurt your feeling but I had read Tom´s book fourteen times and Bury me in a Pot bunker fifteen. My physchologist said I had to leave the books and start living and dating! Anyways, thanks for not mentioning the niece´s dog because I swear it was one date and we went to a movie and got a couple of hot dogs afterwards and nothing more!
