Looking into the future

[Michael]

A question for the wiser minds here..

(and I do enjoy your insight, feel free to contact me on my profession at any time)

 As a designer, you have a pretty bare pallet to sculpt your course...how far into the future are you looking?

 For instance..a downhill par 3...Now.. as a new course, it is pretty much exposed to the winds at all levels, but a stand of semi mature trees lie along the side that the prevailing winds come from..do you say.." it plays nicely now..but wait for 20 or so years and the golfer will have to contend with a whole different set of variables once those trees grow up"?

 And along the same lines.. a dog leg that may tend to play more wide open now..will tighten up as the years go on and the surrounding areas mature?

 I guess in short..is it like Wine? Do you try to place yourself in 2050 and look at what it has become? And would you plan some features that may only become apparent long after the course is finished?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Michael,

Its a hard concept to think in the future, so I agree most designers probably design mostly for the here and now.  As has been mentioned often here, there seems to be more and more pressure to design for first year awards and great photographs to assist in marketing.  But, we don consider the future to a degree.

Getting people to consider the full width of young trees is a constant battle we stress. Lack of recognition of that is one reason so many courses are too narrow and overtreed.  As far as wind, I have trouble presuming that trees will affect it that much. I know they will but a strong wind will probably convert to a swirling wind, which is probably an even greater challenge.

Other long term things I consider is maintenance.  For instance, based on history, I know that anything that is difficult to maintain faces greater pressure to be removed. Sometimes I am faced with a "great design choice" and a practical one.  Overall, I know that minimizing the size and number of bunkers means they are less likely to be removed.  Ditto other elements.   try to account somewhat for shrinking greens and tees over the years.  At the same time, I know there will be pressure to narrow fw that are extremely wide, so the question is, do I design them that way, or keep them within some reasonable dimension golfers and owners "expect."

There is always the distance question, and I try to leave backwards room and perhaps build a small spectator mound behind back tees so it can easily be converted to another small tee if necessary.

Looking back at a lot of courses that stand the test of time, I think designers overall have done a pretty good job of anticipating future needs.

[Michael]

Jeff,

 So you run the risk of lack of future maintenance effecting the concept of a hole, or the whole course? Is this reflected is some of the use of undeveloped/natural areas on courses..(I hate the term "waste" area) but you get my drift..

Michael

[Ron Farris]

Michael that is very interesting.  About 10 days ago I looked at a possible gc site and I stated to the property owners that I was trying to visualize what the place could be 30-50 years from now.  It was a rolling site without trees, but in an area that has a lot of natural trees.  A psuedo links course did not come to mind.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Michael,

I was thinking in terms of individual features - like a steep flash bunker where the sand will wash out all the time.  I also think very hard on double fw holes, having seen a lot of those fw eliminated during the depression.  Most people think, why have two fw on a hole when most holes get by with one?   I toured a course yesterday that hadn't even opened (not my design) and the super was already asking how he could cut down his 80 acres of fw to about 45 for cost reasons, even though I had nothing to do with any design there.

As Ron mentions, entire design concepts can (and probably should) be scotched if they fight nature and natural elements - please recall that all the original waste bunkers at TPC are gone. Its just to hard to mimic the desert in a rainy Florida climate......

While everyone hates standardized design and we try to fight it, there are real world reasons why certain things get that "standard." if not by the gca, then by the super in a cost cutting mode, or his operators, in a "mow before coffee mode."  In earlier years, simple bunker shapes kind of matched mowing radius of bank mowers, for example.  Green shapes simplify to the turning radius of riding mowers (used in most places for the edge, even if hand mowed through the middle)  And so on. 

[Michael]

Jeff,

 I would assume (bad word I know) that you or someone on staff would be doing a cost analysis of maintenance for the course being designed, given that.. I general what kinds of tricks are used to minimize the maintenance?..

[Jeff_Brauer]

MC,

One of the typical ones in this, and any cost cutting era, is to minimize the size of the high maintenance areas.  I used to use 80-100K sf of bunkers and now a typical bunker budget is 45-50K.  Every sf of bunker costs about $5 a foot to build and consumes a lot of maintenance time.  (On a recent high end outing, I saw a crew of 7 guys working on one bunker)

Tees are getting downsized - I am working with a super now who says his 7250 Yard tee set has seen but 50 players in the last five years.  So, why not cut that down to about 15 x 15 to save construction and mowing?

Greens tend to get "standardized" to about 6500 sf - the accountant asks why build 9000 sf when only 5000 sf is pinnable anyway and the rest is wild contours that will probably only scalp, dry out, or otherwise be sort of a pain in the ass for the super?  And, not too many golfers seem to like really wild contours anyway.

Taking out those blasted (Jones, Brauer, insert your gca here) mounds is getting to be a popular option!  Those who do time and motion studies will tell you that mowing flatter areas is quicker than mowing mounds and steep slopes. Irrigation is easier, too.

Then there are both fw and rough.  As above, 40 acres of fw (some guys are used to mowing only 25 acres and think thats a lot) is obviously a lot more cost effective than 80 acres, all to create some strategy that 99% of golfers won't appreciate anyway. 

As to rough vs native, there is a real tradeoff, which can be estimated only, on having play areas vs native.  Yes, you save about $6000 per acre annually by putting that acre in native, but its harder to figure slow play and lost revenue accurately.  I was joking yesterday that I continually underestimate areas that are "in play" and overestimate the ability of any area on the course to be "out of play."

On a specific basis, those kind of decisions usually get affected by sprinkler pattern.  If you get the sprinklers laid out and the area you have brushed out for fw is between them, do you bring the turf area in, or take it out and add a sprinkler?

Reasonably minimize area, simplify shapes to equipment, soften slopes.  Those are the biggest keys to reducing maintenance.  Reduce shade and increase air movement are big helpers too.

I don't know if that answers your questions, but at least, I tried......

[Michael]

Jeff..

 Any answers you and your compadre's can provide is much appreciated, believe me...as I tend to sponge up knowledge in weird ways..(still can't get the line on the ball tirade..though)

I digress..

 Is it tempting for designers to take a certain amount of holes on a routing and make the courses statement on them while kind of being more maintenance friendly on the rest? Not to infer that the other hole will be boring.. but maybe not quite as intensive as the "statement" holes?

Thanks again for you time..

Michael

[Jeff_Brauer]

Yeah, I think its tempting, since its not all either/or or black and white.  For all the mid range courses, there is probably enough budget to maintain some high end features, even if the whole course can't be that way.  And, in some cases, the land simply suggests we create or allow some higher end maintenance features. 

If we know its a low budget muni intended to get golfers in the game, we tend towards 99% maintenance friendly features. For a $150 course, it is almost reveresd, but not quite.

In the old days, there used to be a thing called the design triangle - aesthetics - maintenance - playability.  We would probably add environment and make is a rhombus or something now. 

It was a visual aid for the designer to ask the owner how he thought the design should proceed.  The idea of the triangle was that if all things were considered equally, you would visually have a balanced triangle. In many designs, the triangle would lean one way or the other - towards maintenance or towards design and playability.  If design quality (or maintenance) was not going to be considered at all, I guess you would have a flat line, but I never saw an owner lean THAT far one way or the other.

On a specific level, I once had an Owner suggest one bunkerless hole, with that hole being the furthest from the maintenance building and kind of separated from the rest.  Given the moderate design consideration he was inclined to, the turtle like speed of bunker rakes, and my inclination to have a few bunkerless greens per course, I was inclined to agree with that one, although thats not always the case.  It didn't diminish the design (unless someone thought that every green had to have a bunker, but I felt there were other ways to design it equally well) and to this day, his crews probably save 20 minutes in the bunker rake job by not having to go all the way up that fw just to rake one bunker near the green, and then come back.

[Michael]

Jeff, a follow on question...


 Why do greens almost always have to be multi bunkered? Although to most of us, a bunker is still a hazard to be timid of..it seems the better players would rather miss hit into a bunker then contend with the rough around the green?

 I would think that F/W bunkers are more troublesome all the way around..

[Jeff_Brauer]

Ask 100 gca's and you'll get 100 answers.  However, I think the answer lies in aesthetics. Most of us design types happen to think clusters and arrays of bunkers are very artistic.

Strategically, it would seem that one bunker on one side of almost any green, perhaps with no hazard, or a lesser one, like fw chipping area or rough, would be enough to set up most holes.  But, one bunker here, one there would be boring, even if some got big, small, left right front back, etc.

And, going back to the maintenance side of the OT, on high play courses, bunkers between the cart path and the green funnel traffic, which causes compaction, which hurts turf, etc.  Layout of the routing, features and cart paths has a big impact on maintenance.

[Michael]

 Speaking of Cart Paths....

 That must be the least favorite aspect of a routing.....

 Is there any good way to do them?..they always seem out of place,unattractive..and mostly unused.... except around the tee boxes.

 Really...Green grass..white sand...hot asphalt?

[Jeff_Brauer]

I might be wrong, but I think I covered cart paths in my Cybergolf.com series. Look under Brauer's book.  Too much to rewrite right now, but in a way, I like it. Its just another part of the jigsaw puzzle that is golf course design.

My main thought is the debate of "handy" vs "hidden." Faz does a great job of hiding them, and on public courses does a nice job of keeping them close enough to be useable. On some private courses, I have seen them so far out of the way in the name of hiding them that I feel they are seldom used, especially given a high end club member generally feels entitled to drive whereever he wants.

If they must be visible, I try for long gentle curves that mimic the landscape.  Sharp corners usually jar my eye.

[Michael]

 Thank you again Jeff for the insight.

Michael