I posted this on ‘thegolfforum’ for those in Australia who may know the courses involved, but thought it was worthwhile discussing here in a generic sense.
On my recent holiday I played two courses, neither of which would be included in any Top 100 lists. They service little country towns of around 1000 people with some seasonal tourist trade.
The first course is right beside the ocean with a design (I assume having evolved through member involvement over the years) that would be easy to maintain. The greens are small, the course is not overly bunkered & there are very few trees. The club only hires a ground staff of 1, yet the course is regularly in better condition than many big city courses.
The other course has definitely had a golf course designer involved, but would have similar, or less, income than the first course. Although you can’t see the ocean it is about 50 yards from the beach. What I found bizarre was the size of the greens. All the greens are exceptionally large (some of the largest I have played over the 700+ courses I have played around the world), with huge undulations & multiple tiers. The last green is just under 200 feet from front to back & all the other greens aren’t much smaller.
A course like this sounds like it could be a lot of fun, but the greens take so much time just to cut that the course is constantly in poor condition because of lack of funds & staff.
Why would any designer try to sell a design like that to a little country club & have such disregard for their maintenance budget? At what point is this the architects’ fault, or should the blame fall back on the developers/committee?