[Mark Bourgeois]

Excluding costs of acquiring the properties involved.  Cypress: rocky in places, dramatic routing, lots more bunkers.  Probably need to adjust ANGC costs upward to get constant figures (given the deflation taking hold in the Depression by that point).

Mark

[BCrosby]

I'm curious, why compare the two? I ask because it's hard to think of two more dissimilar courses from a cost perspective. Not to mention the very different economic environments at the time each was built and the associated costs of labor and materials.

ANGC was built by laborers that lined up at the gate willing to work for a dollar a day. It was tough times.

Bob 

[Mark Bourgeois]

Bob, I came across MacKenzie's figure for CPC and was surprised -- not sure I believe it.

How big do you think the difference was?  Humor me and take a guess!  One was built in a very expensive location (Monterey / California) at the height of boom times, the other in an inexpensive place towards the nadir of doom times.

By the way, the inflation rate from January 1928 to January 1933 was -25.43%, according to inflationdata.com.  So we might have to haircut the CPC cost by that amount.

Mark

[Ian_L]

Somewhat off-topic, are those retention walls on 16 and 17 at CPC original? Replaced?

[BCrosby]

Well, let's see. ANGC cost about $100k to build - land acquisition costs excluded. Labor and materials were cheap (and even then ANGC couldn't pay for some of it ), the rolling clay terrain did not require a lot of earth moving, though a lot of trees were taken out.

I don't know CPC well, but Behr built Rancho Santa Fe for about $200k. I'll guess CPC cost $300K plus.

Bob

[David Stamm]

Shackelford's book says the final construction cost for CPC according to club docs was $121,000. AM claimed it cost $88,000. In either case, it came under the $150,000 budget that it was budgeted for.

[Mark Bourgeois]

In a passage apparently excised from the trade version (not sure about the special ed) but in the manuscript of Spirit, Mac writes the club gave him a budget of $200,000.

Telling them the amount needed was far less, he wrote they came in at $90,000 - thanks for the club info, David.

I guess I don't know much about construction:, because I would have figured Augusta not to have cost more -- down to building on sand vs clay?

And if we deflate CPC's cost by 25 percent, what are we to make of such a significant difference?

Bob, per your comments this summer, I think we can say ANGC was not built with a budget in mind; that doesn't explain the paucity of bunkers - guess it helped that they weren't held accountable to their creditors.

Mark

[David Stamm]

Bob, per your comments this summer, I think we can say ANGC was not built with a budget in mind; that doesn't explain the paucity of bunkers - guess it helped that they weren't held accountable to their creditors.

Mark

 

And the fact that they still owed AM money.

[Peter Pallotta]

Mark -

re the paucity of bunkers. What about that is interesting to you?

There was a thread a while back about bunkers as they related to costs; but I'm still not sure I accept that the building or not building of them had mainly to do with costs.

In Mackenzie's hole by hole article on Augusta, he writes the following about the 2nd hole (i.e. 11th)

"The green is situated in the bend of a beautiful stream. The approach has a marked tilt upwards from left to right, so that the further and more accurately a drive is placed to the left the easier the second shot becomes. This will be a most fascinating hole, without a single bunker, I don't know any other quite like it."

That doesn't really relate to your initial question, but I find it interesting in the context of Mackenzie and Jones wanting to create an ideal and strategic and premier inland course, i.e. that a most facinating hole would be a bunkerless one.

Peter

[Jeff_Mingay]

Shackelford's book says the final construction cost for CPC according to club docs was $121,000. AM claimed it cost $88,000. In either case, it came under the $150,000 budget that it was budgeted for.

This is an amazingly inexpensive number... $150,000 in mid-1920s dollars is equivilent to less than $2 million today.

[Mark Bourgeois]

Jeff you're saying both were cheap and we shouldn't get caught up on their costs relative to each other?

It is perhaps worth noting that MacK wrote repeatedly that the value of hiring a top class architect was that he would save the client money. The design would be final and there wouldn't be any wasted land - he would get the most out of the site.

Peter, yes, that's the discussion to which I am referring.

Mark

[Matthew Mollica]

Mark,

MacKenzie wrote "on many courses there are far too many bunkers. The sides of the fairways are riddled with them, and many of the courses would be equally interesting and infinitely more pleasurable if half the bunkers were turfed over and converted into grassy hollows".

I'm not surprised at the small number of bunkers at Augusta (at the time of construction) in light of this comment. Even more understandable with MacKenzie bulding Augusta on clay, and when viewed in conjunction with his repeatedly stated desire to build to a budget.

MM

[Kalen Braley]

I'm pretty sure the retaining walls on 15-17 were not original and built afterwards.

[TX Golf]

I know they were built afterwards because when my dad when to play the course and they got to the 11th hole their caddie told them it was too bad they weren't gonna be able to play 17. My dad thought it was a cruel joke until they got to 16 and realized the entire 17th was under construction. I felt bad for him for a few minutes, yet he got to play the course a second time. I'm still waiting for my first.

Robert

[Adam Clayman]

Was the Doctor paid? That would lower the cost if he wasn't.

[Tom_Doak]

Jeff:

Barnbougle cost less than $2 million, and that figure includes WAY more irrigation than Cypress Point put in back in 1928.

Mark B:

Bottom line is that building a golf course in sand is remarkably inexpensive, building in clay is expensive, and building in rock is remarkably expensive.  And if a course is all sand, bunkers cost very little to build.

Ian L: 

The retaining walls were built about 10-15 years ago, for somewhere around $3 million ... or more than the entire cost of the original course, adjusted for inflation!  Oceans are hard to hold back.

[Jeff_Mingay]

Tom D.,

Blackhawk GC, in Edmonton, cost just over $2 million to build as well.

It seems there would have been some difficult rocky places at Cypress Point and quite a bit of clearing; and, you've already mentioned the clay at Augusta.

I'm not saying these courses weren't build for +/- $150,000. I'm just a bit surprised the costs were that low. 

[BCrosby]

Mark -

Yes, the paucity of bunkers at ANGC had nothing to do with budgetary constraints. They had everything to do with design ideas that MacKenzie (and secondarily Jones) thought important.

Interestingly, press accounts of Rancho at its opening ('29?) talk about its "revolutionary" paucity of bunkers and rough. Rancho's press notices sound very much like the press notices that ANGC got four years later. I've often wondered about Behr's influence on MacK as to these issues. I've never seen Rancho. The connections between the two courses is a research topic that I would like to pursue someday. All that is a bit more evidence for my suspicion that Behr had more influence on MacK than is often appreciated.

The real paucity at ANGC as of its opening date was of good ole train ridin' American cash. As you know, lots of people got left holding the bag. Including, apparently, the Good Doctor.

You got me on the CPC construction costs. I am very surprised.

Bob

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