[Mike_Young]

Why do we so often see press releases of rework on courses less than five years old?  Often by signature firms...and it is hyped as improvement....come on....there were three this morning in golf news reports....my question....WHY?  and how many of us that are not signatures could get by with such?  or better yet..how many of us would be given a second chance to go back and fix such....in most cases it would be blamed on the original architect but with high budget private or resort signature courses it is marketed as a good thing...
Just another case of cost out of control...

[Melvyn Morrow]

Mike

Straight away The castle Course at St Andrews, well just outside St Andrews suddenly sprung to mind faster than an F1 can hit 100mph.

Why indeed are courses left in such a way? Could it be the client is just too ambitious in what he seeks, the budget not adequate, the land just unsuitable, the architect inexperienced not in design but golfing skills, perhaps the brief was wrong or simply the architect got in wrong.

I am not certain but one thing that has been at the back of my mind for years is the actually golfing skill of ‘The Architect’.  Relating it to the Castle Course how can a designer get in that wrong - that Greens need to be reworked. Did he not play it and notice,  did he not have associates or Clients representatives who would have tried the course before it opened  or are their golfing skill also to be called into question. Clearly something was not quite right, yet it was not mentioned until the course was opened and it only took a few weeks for Joe Public to notice there seemed to be a problem. Seems rather remiss of the architect or his Team not to have noticed first.

Yes how do these guys get a second chance, after all The Castle Course was reputed to be on a very generous budget? I seriously do question the golfing skill of the Architects and I feel their lack of those skills may reflect in the errors we seem to incur on some of the newer courses. That’s not to say they did not happen previously over past generations of architects

Just a thought

Melvyn.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Mike,

I can only remember a few of these, and will add the Castle course to my mental list. 

At least, I can only recall a few wholesale redo's.  There is a long tradition of tweaking golf courses, esepcially at the top end to satisfy egos of the members that they are the best of the best.  For mid level clubs and publics, the money usually isn't there to change the course in any but the worst design flubs (often safety related) or unpopular holes.

I just completed a small redo of my newish course in Newton, KS.  However, it was only partly flub - the putting green turned out a bit small for the play they get and they are bidding for the national publinx and the USGA suggested they upgrade the short game area a bit to better reflect course conditions.  I know what you are saying - I felt a little bit embarrassed that both those practice items didn't meet muster completely the first time out, even if I couldn't predict things like a national tournament.

[Mac Plumart]

Mike...

I think you are totally correct.  I was just re-reading Mackenzie's Golf Architecture book and that is one of his very first points.  He talks about finality of a design and he really bags on courses that need to be re-designed just a few years later.  I think you've hit a homerun with your comment.

[Robin_Hiseman]

Mike...

I think you are totally correct.  I was just re-reading Mackenzie's Golf Architecture book and that is one of his very first points.  He talks about finality of a design and he really bags on courses that need to be re-designed just a few years later.  I think you've hit a homerun with your comment.

...and yet MacKenzie's Sitwell Park was reworked soon after he had completed it!   Hmmmm....

It is the easiest thing in the world to design staid, dull greens and features.  David Kidd and Paul Kimber sailed close to the wind with their design of the Castle Course and I think they would be their own fiercest critics in recognising that in a few places it got a bit too funky.  When you have designed something as avant-garde as this, it remains a prototype until the green fees start rolling in.  It is only with repeat play that you can confirm what you may suspect privately; that a green is a bit too loose or a fairway mound is too penal.  The time to correct it is before the grass is sown, but they were being brave with their design and I applaud their courage.  A few tweaks is all it will take to sort it out.

As for Melvyn's point about the quality of the architects play.  Well I guess the answer to that is to leave the golf design to the tour pros

[Jeff_Brauer]

Robin, 

He didn't exactly achieve permanency at ANGC, either! I doubt anyone can, but I think you are right that those who try to think out of the box tend to have their stuff remodeled even more back to "conventional" design.

As to positioning yourself in the marketplace for designers, I am always surprised that the pitch "I play exactly like you" doesn't resonate as well as "I have worked with a dozen tour pros", "I am a tour pro" or "I am a top amateur."  And for some reason, the fact that I have played over 75 of the worlds top courses isn't nearly as important as having played them under competitive conditions, which somehow translates into understanding what might make the enjoyable for play every day.

Selecting a golf course architect is an emotion based decision, hardly ever made on a scientific basis.

[Bill_McBride]

I just completed a small redo of my newish course in Newton, KS.  However, it was only partly flub - the putting green turned out a bit small for the play they get and they are bidding for the national publinx and the USGA suggested they upgrade the short game area a bit to better reflect course conditions.  I know what you are saying - I felt a little bit embarrassed that both those practice items didn't meet muster completely the first time out, even if I couldn't predict things like a national tournament.

Jeff, sounds like the lack of major practice facilities at the start might have more of an owner's budget decision than an architect's oversight.  Don't be so hard on yourself!

[Adrian_Stiff]

I think that often courses need reworking because initial investment was not enough, or was adequate then and now the course needs a bit  more. It is not often a golf architecture problem or fault or flaw...the commonest could merely be an opportunity existing at a later stage to acquire some more land which can allow an improvement.
I think everybody will have built a green that is at crazy limits that needs a redo from time to time, a great green or a crazy one is perhaps not so far apart.

[Garland Bayley]

...
Yes how do these guys get a second chance, after all The Castle Course was reputed to be on a very generous budget? ...

According to the book on creating the course, it was on a very stringent budget.

[Mike Nuzzo]

Mike
What other press releases can they send out? 
Any other Concessions?
Cheers

[Melvyn Morrow]

Robin

By understand skill the architect can entice the golfer to try the shot, totally different to comparing skill to the tour world. I am not talking about our modern Prima Donnas but golfers who want to rise to the challenge. The Tours have done more damage to the traditional game of Golf and should be flushed down the pan into one of those island Greens - its money for old rope - sorry guys but thats my opinion.

Architects IMHO need the knowledge that I believe comes from understand skill. A football coach understand skill although he himself may not reach those heights but understand yes he does thus able to push his players. We are talking about architects being able to push golfers, but without understand the skill factor they become the “Also Ran” in a horse race, but never the winner.

If it was easy we would all be successful architects with many quality courses under our name, but alas its not.

Melvyn       

[Tom_Doak]

Why do we so often see press releases of rework on courses less than five years old?  Often by signature firms...and it is hyped as improvement....come on....there were three this morning in golf news reports....my question....WHY?  and how many of us that are not signatures could get by with such?  or better yet..how many of us would be given a second chance to go back and fix such....in most cases it would be blamed on the original architect but with high budget private or resort signature courses it is marketed as a good thing...
Just another case of cost out of control...

Mike:

I agree with you 100 percent.  But, when I say the same thing, three or four people come on to say that I am too egotistical and think everything I do is perfect.


Robin:

A few tweaks?  I don't think it will ever be all sorted out.


Adrian:

The courses Mike was addressing were not ones that had problems because of inadequate budgets.  Reworking 17 greens out of 18 on a brand-new $5m or $10 million course is a different issue than what you suggest. 

[Jim Nugent]

Haven't lots of top classic courses gotten reworked often, over long periods of time, starting shortly after they opened?  I thought I read that is true of the following:

Merion
NGLA
Pinehurst
Oakmont
ANGC
Pebble Beach
Pine Valley (?)

In Ran's profile of Crystal Downs, he says, "This kind of sophistication in and around the green complexes only results when the architect lives on site and can take the time to get it right.  And, of course, that is exactly what Maxwell did at Crystal Downs..."

Considering we got some of our best courses by reworking is it necessarily a problem?   
 

[George Pazin]

Kind of depends on how one defines re-working, I guess.

If you're tweaking a green - maybe softening the contours or pitch a hair, to play more as intended - that's one thing. If you're blowing up the green and trying again, that's another.

Can't speak as to the other courses, but someone (Joe Bausch?) recently posted a drawing of Oakmont circa 1915ish - it looked remarkably like the current course.

So, to summarize, there's tweaks, and there's tweaks...they're not all the same.

[Mac Plumart]

Jim...fabulous point.

All I can share is that in Mackenzie's book, he rails against sloppy work done by architects that results in needing to re-work a course because it ends up costing the club a bundle of money.  Therefore, sloppy work by an architect is a waste of money.

[Sean Leary]

Perhaps this is happening more often because the architects have more time to go back and redo things with new projects non-existant.?

[Kyle Harris]

Haven't lots of top classic courses gotten reworked often, over long periods of time, starting shortly after they opened?  I thought I read that is true of the following:

Merion
NGLA
Pinehurst
Oakmont
ANGC
Pebble Beach
Pine Valley (?)

In Ran's profile of Crystal Downs, he says, "This kind of sophistication in and around the green complexes only results when the architect lives on site and can take the time to get it right.  And, of course, that is exactly what Maxwell did at Crystal Downs..."

Considering we got some of our best courses by reworking is it necessarily a problem?   
 

Jim:

I think the difference is that all of the above courses were opened with the intent of further changes pending. In other words, the design intent was to look at how play was affected by the features and to enhance or change as needed.

[David_Elvins]

Jim:

I think the difference is that all of the above courses were opened with the intent of further changes pending. In other words, the design intent was to look at how play was affected by the features and to enhance or change as needed.

I am with Jim on this.  The proof is in the pudding. NGLA, Pine Valley, Merion, Oakmont, Pebble Beach,  Add in TOC and Royal Melbourne as another two off the top of my head. 

If you are going to design a world class course, it has to have bold features.  It seems that a lot of people don't realise how hard it is to push dirt around and correctly predict how the features created are going to play once golfers are hitting shots.  i believe that is the main reason why the best courses are tweaked over a few years after opening. 

[A.G._Crockett]

I think there is a big difference between tweaking a course to improve it and reworking it simply to add a "name" to the design.  In the first case, the original GCA might get to do what he wanted to do in the first place, and/or fix what he didn't like.  In the latter case, though, it isn't about improving the course, but rather about improving the marketing.

Good example here in Georgia.  Bob Cupp designed a course outside Savannah called The Woodyard.  I liked it a lot; I thought it had as good a set of par 5's as I had ever played.  The course was only open for about 3 years before Greg Norman's firm was brought in to redo the golf course, which was then renamed Savannah Quarters. 

There is no way that is about anything but marketing, especially given that nobody considers the current course to be the equal of what was plowed under.

[Jim_Kennedy]

Mike,

It's a marketing ploy that generates another round of 'buzz' for a course that's been around for a while, especially one that had more buzz than substance in the first place.

[Mike_Young]

Mike,

It's a marketing ploy that generates another round of 'buzz' for a course that's been around for a while, especially one that had more buzz than substance in the first place.

Could be....
But what gets me is that so many of these projects are afraid to argue with the big signatures...the supts are afraid of them, the marketing people are afraid of them yet if some unknown architect does some of the stuff that is initially done on some of these projects the supt and the owner would be kicking them off the job and calling them stupid and other names...they can just get by with ....and TD is not being egotistical if he agrees   I am...

[Jim_Kennedy]

Mike,
I was in the building trade for over twenty years and saw similar occurrences. In structure building the architect controls the aesthetic, and he has sold the owner on that aesthetic. Once sold, the owner will almost never change horses in mid-stream as this will make him look like a fool for ever hiring said architect in the first place. This struck home for me when a guy I was working for called an architect  a series of expletives in front of the owner of the project we were working on. This architect was clearly out of his league but the owner had already spent 100k with this guy, so we found ourselves packing up our tools and heading down the road.

I don't imagine it's much different in the GCA trade. You, as the architect, have great control over the aesthetic. Once you sell it to an owner he is invested in it, and the 'larger' your name, the more heavily invested he is.

[Brandon Johnson]

I like what Adrian states about a great green or a crazy green being not so far apart. That is so true when it come to any great piece of art, architecture, music or unique creation in that it pushes the limits and may even flirt with disaster but for some genius reason or another strikes a chord with a core group or the masses and becomes great. By the way…Didn’t Pete Dye do some “tweaking” to TPC Sawgrass soon after it opened? I also side with Jim’s points in that if some our greatest courses were continual works in progress why should adjustments or changes to courses (new or old) be viewed differently now?

[Tom_Doak]

I like what Adrian states about a great green or a crazy green being not so far apart. That is so true when it come to any great piece of art, architecture, music or unique creation in that it pushes the limits and may even flirt with disaster but for some genius reason or another strikes a chord with a core group or the masses and becomes great. By the way…Didn’t Pete Dye do some “tweaking” to TPC Sawgrass soon after it opened? I also side with Jim’s points in that if some our greatest courses were continual works in progress why should adjustments or changes to courses (new or old) be viewed differently now?

Brandon:

I was around a lot in the early years of the TPC at Sawgrass and you are correct, there was a ton of tweaking.  They were doing the first round of it the year after the course opened, while we were working at Long Cove ... one Sunday Pete took a few guys with him to Jacksonville, stripped the sod off a green and recontoured it that day, put the sod down and drove back up to Hilton Head!  I was told at the time that the last four holes finished on the course [nos. 6-9] were done under FLOODLIGHTS on 24-hour shifts because they had to be done before Commissioner Beman left on a long trip, and those were some of the first greens torn up.

But I can tell you there was no advance plan to keep reworking those greens, and Mr. Dye didn't especially want to do it.  The pros complained endlessly about them, and at one point I heard Commissioner Beman order somebody to send out a survey for suggestions and if three players made the same suggestion independently, they'd consider it.  There were a lot of internal politics happening there and it was not all conducive to good architecture.

As for your last comment [and Jim's] about courses which have been "continual works in progress," I would only remind you there is a survivor bias in play.  There are lots of other courses which have been reworked constantly and suffered for it.  So, when you get a course to the level of Merion, you must be aware that the odds of improvement v. failure keep going down the more you tinker with it.  Risk and reward applies to that level of design, too.

[Carl Nichols]

I just played the Ocean Course (Kiawah) and they are doing a decent amount of work to bunkers on several holes.  (Indeed, Mr. Dye was onsite, presumably for the work.)  That course seems to have been tweaked quite a bit since it opened, albeit under the direction of the same person.  If it was really good to start, and the changes make it better, what's the problem?  Isn't the real problem when a lot of money gets spent to make a course that isn't good to start, and the changes are necessary to make it a least decent?

[Tags:]

Tags:

[Tags:]

Tags:

Call to undefined function theme_linktree()