A question for the architects...

[George Pazin]

Earlier today I was explaining to a fellow self-employed friend my theory that everybody else's business seems easier or simpler than one's own.

What is much more difficult in building and/or designing golf courses than we laypeople would think?

[Please don't say environmental or permitting constraints, I can't take reading more about that. If it's that, then please list the second surprise...]

[Patrick_Mucci]

George,

Getting it done on time, on budget ?

[architect]

1) Self-important clients who believe they know more about golf course architecture than you do.

2) Having to keep an eye on contractors with questionable reputation and shady practices.

3) Getting sued due to items 1) or 2)

(Sorry for the anonymous post)

[redanman]

1) Self-important clients who believe they know more about golf course architecture than you do.

2) Having to keep an eye on contractors with questionable reputation and shady practices.

3) Getting sued due to items 1) or 2)

(Sorry for the anonymous post)

We need more anonymous posts such as this one.  Thanks.

[Jeff_Brauer]

George,

In addition to all of the above, I suggest that the fact that it is a business is the hardest thing of all!  I usually only spend 10% of my time doing the real designing that is the focus of this site,

The typical architect goes from apprentice with no responsibility for business to one man show, to reasonablby successful architect with a few projects.  AT that point, you hire people, get an office, etc. and then feel obligated to keep pulling in the work to keep the guys going!

Learning to sell is tough for many, especially since there has been a long tradition of avoiding selliing in the design professions.  However, its no coincidence that the best architects over time have been the best salesman as well.

After that, dealing witht the different personalities on the job (both inside and outside your office) is the biggest challenge.  I just came back from our ASGCA meeting, where we heard presentations from some of the big boys regarding their work.  Along side every thing else I learned from them, the most important was that they have the same problemns dealing with client personalities and expectations that I have!

[ian]

It has all the same problems of every other business, the difficulty is dealing with comprimise. From agencies, owners, etc. everyone looks for a change to your vision to suit there needs; the tough part is fighting to keep your vision intact. Its tiring because the process can be up to 10 years long for one project. Speaking of which, the process from design to completion is much longer than people think. Cooper Creek will be 13 years from the first meeting to completion (all approval realted problems).

[Craig Rokke]

I would think it very frustrating that an architect can rarely, if ever, design/build the course exactly the way he wants to. There are so many competing interests, each one staking a claim against the integrity of the architect's design.

[architect II]

Craig, et.al.,

So true to be said.

(Sorry too for the anonymous post)

[Tim Weiman]

Redanman:

It is unusual for me to enjoy anonymous posts, but for some reason our friends "Architect" made me do so!

George Pazin:

Not being an architect, I probably shouldn't answer.  But, if seeing my home club built taught me anything, it is the large number of things (details), that the entire project team has to get right.

May I also add that I think golf architecture has a seductive quality to it.  We can all find some good holes on a property.  This leads many to believe putting the whole thing together is easier than it really is.

[architect II]

Tim,

I'm not so anonymous to you.

Tiny

[Kelly_Blake_Moran]

George,

The hardest part of the business is hard to determine.  My initial response is to say there is nothing hard about it.  This seems like a glib response, but the more I contemplate the meaning of hard, the harder it is for me to find something hard about such an enjoyable vocation.  I just completed three biographies that might be somewhat instructive, one of which I feel sums it up best.  

Two of the biographies were about N.C. Wyeth and Robert Frost.  Their struggles in relation to your question were with money.  The feeling that no matter how successful they were there was always the dread that the need to meet cash flow might overwhelm their craft.  Wyeth in particular struggled with the need to be an illustrator to provide the monetary cushion that would allow him to be artist.  He always felt his reputation and skills were compromised because he spent so much time doing illustrations for magazines and books, and that he never could do the art he wanted to do.  Looking back it is hard for me to find much fault with his work, his illustrations to me were fine art, and monetarily, he did very well.  I have been to the Brandywine Museum many times, and I am emotionally affected by his paintings, and saddened that he actually might have believed that his skills were compromised.  Most of the modern artists today are not worthy of washing his paint brushes (boy, that sounds like a Shacklefordism).  Frost also felt pressure to produce a cash flow to meet the needs of his large and tragic family.  Again, looking back he did extremely well financially.  But, he always was looking out for the monthly needs, and he felt the need to do certain things to provide money that he worried compromised his work, or at least stole valuable time from his craft.  Ironically, the one thing he did to bring in money he did probably more for the personal interaction and adulation he received from his speaking engagements around the country.  Unfortunately, these speaking engagements took him away from the isolated farm life; the long walks on the land that made his poetry so wonderful.  

Based upon these two lives I sympathize with the intrusion cash flow, or the business end, has on the craft.  On the other hand, as the saying goes, if He takes care of the bird, keeps it clothed and fed, we shouldn’t worry that He will also provide for us.  In other words, it should work out okay in the end, therefore the focus on the business end should be minimized as much as possible.  Everything must become subservient, including family, to the practice of our craft.  This of course is in direct opposition to the superficial call to put family above all else.  Hard work, and work that is indiscernible from a personal, family life is what seems to be most valuable in the end.  It is ridiculous to live two lives; work and family should be blended together, rather than kept separate and put in conflict with each other.  “Attentiveness is the natural prayer of the soul”, which I take to mean that many of the distractions of the modern life, including the attention to the business end, distracts you from what is inside you, what speaks to you, which informs your work.  Try turning off the radio and the TV for a week, and I guarantee you it can have a profound effect on your view of whatever it is you do.  Frost’s isolating periods probably helped him produce his finest work.  So, in part to answer your question maybe the hardest part is trying to isolate yourself so you can hear yourself.  Unfortunately, that isolation includes getting away from this website as well.  Wyeth lived on a farm and spent hours in his studio alone.

The third biography is probably the most instructive on this issue.  The second volume biography of Teddy Roosevelt, by Edmund Morris, shows a man totally in command of life, probably more so than any man I have ever known of.  The first volume, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, of all the books I have read, excepting the Bible, could be the one book that could change a young man’s life.  It is the finest book I have read because of the way Roosevelt conducted his life.  What is instructive here to your question is that he never saw anything hard about his life, at least not in a negative way.  In fact, he cherished the hard moments, and he felt life was worth living only if it included great struggles, hard moments, and failures.  The fight, the struggle through these moments is what makes life worth living.  Roosevelt took extended trips into the wilderness.  We may judge that these trips had a profound effect on his attitude, and therefore his tremendous successes.  Most of the hard part discussions here, and the teary eyed life stories you see on TV and read about in many ways reflects more on the person’s attitude about their situation rather than on the circumstances of the struggle.  This to me is critical when considering your question.  What could possibly be so hard about what we do?  It seems trivial to attempt to find something.  Based  upon what I have poured through here, I would say the toughest part, if I must find one, is finding the isolated moments to hear what is spinning around in the head, to throw out the trash that enters from the modern culture, and tap into the spiritual voice that is true to oneself…and have the time to withdraw to do this without fear the cashflow is taking a dive!

[Tom Doak]

I have to agree with Jeff on this one, for me running the business has always been the hardest part.  Of course, thanks to my travels and my apprenticeship with Pete Dye, I had a much more solid background in design & construction than in business.

Kelly Moran is right, the business is a distraction.  But to simply ignore it will ensure relative anonymity in a business where having a name is essential to attracting quality projects.

For most of my career, I worried about becoming overcommitted, when in fact I didn't have enough solid projects to stay productive.  Now, just when I got that sort of figured out, our profile has changed completely and I have to get better at saying "no" to promising opportunities.  It's very much a juggling act, and I have never been able to juggle more than two balls.

The hardest part of design is still making your golf course fit the site.  There are a lot of successful designers who still can't get that right.

[Todd_Eckenrode]

I'd agree with most of above comments.  It is difficult running the business side (and much more time intensive than most would know).  

A side note is, what is the most difficult aspect of design today? Oftentimes, it's being able to juggle all of the "issues" that can arise in the course of, let's say, a 6-year project(which isn't bad, believe it or not), or worse, a 13 year project as Ian points to (from conception to opening), whether they be client driven, politically driven (environmentally fought projects), or because of intensive amounts of red tape during approvals...whatever.  In the end, it's about how good your tenth, or twentieth, or greater...routing revision you are left with is.  If you can make that golf design a great course, you are doing great work.  It's not that hard (arguable, of course) to come up with a great design and vision on a nice peice of land.  It's just that that is rarely the end of it.  It's how you adapt, infuse creativity, have the strength to drive the boat, and have the drive to last that affects the final design in the end.

[George Pazin]

I'm gonna have to take a mulligan of sorts on this thread & try again. I fully understand that the business side of any business is generally the toughest part (how's that for a Yogi Berra-ism?) - what I was really looking for was what's the toughest part of design and/or construction. Tom D did answer this - any chance I can get you guys to give me a second chance & address that question?

Sorry about the mixup - I really love & respect the participation of all the architect's onboard.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Another thought came to me as I wind down the work day......budgets!

The "dirty little secret" of the golf business is that courses (usually) don't work financially, at least w/o a generous subsidy from housing, or until you get to the third owner.  That fact has been concealed pretty well the last decade, although the NGP problems are bringing them back to the forefront.  Low interest rates have also worked in the financial favor of golf courses, keeping the annual nut down to reasonable levels.

As an architect, this usually means being forced into unreasonably low budgets.  If 10% is on design concepts, double that is on "value engineering" (i.e. getting the same product cheaper) which is time consuming and difficult.  that means spending time on matching tree corridors to sprinkler widths, downsizing greens, tees and bunkers (wouldn't a mound be just as effective and cost less than a bunker) etc. etc.

I should probably add a note of thanks to George for bringing it up.  In a way, the few of us who participate here are trying to make his basic point - it's harder than it looks, although I guess I never figured anyone would ask exactly HOW it is harder than it looks.  I should have better answers.

PS - I post this after seeing George's "ammended pleadings."

To KB Moran - You are too deep for this country boy!  I use your "I need to get isolated" line of thought, but usually because I don't like clients looking over my shoulder.  Now, that's a distraction!

[George Pazin]

No problem, Jeff - just keep sending me that weekly stipend & I'll shill for you all you want.  

The main reason I decided to post this thread was in reaction to Patrick Mucci's thread about would anyone turn down the job at Bayberry & my response stating of course we "bozo" (Pat's word, not mine) amateurs would. So I started thinking about what I would do if I owned the land - would I try to pull a Hugh Wilson/Fownes kind of a thing, study all the greats & try on my own. I'm a big enough idiot to try something like that - I started a screenprinting (t shirt printing) business without knowing anything about it, figuring my math degree would surely show me the correct way to do things. Anyway, I wanted to know where I would get in trouble on my own foolish attempt - when would I call one of you guys to bail me out...?

Green contours? Surrounds? Drainage? I know, probably everything.

[Jeff_Brauer]

George,

The check is in the fax machine!  

Timely second question, because I just had a discussion with the managers of a well known resort considering a third course.  They made the same comments Pat did - an architect would be concerned following two pretty good acts.  I did say I would take the challenge if it was offered, though.  Perhaps we are like professional golfers - probably over confident of our abilities.  Of course, so do many amateur architects.....

As to your question about what you (ably standing in for amateur architects everywhere) would do wrong, it would be the routing to start, and then, as you suggest, just about everything else!

I have gone to many projects where someone involved proudly unrolls "their" routing.  The biggest problem most have is understanding just how much room a fairway, green or tee complex takes, and spacing everything too close together.  This is usually a result of "falling in love" with a few features, and not realizing that some of them just can't be used within the framework of a golf course.  You have to pick the ones that fit best - not necessarily the best ones in all cases.

The "scale factor" will come into play in designing greens, tees and bunkers next.  Without fail, the features depicted on most plans are about half size.

In terms of design elements, designing for vision (forgetting the occaisional desire for a blind shot) of design elements is a difficult chore, and one we still make mistakes on, and I think I am one of the better in the business at it.

Some examples - Pete Dye's (and mine) lake edges are straight.  Why?  Every inside curve dissapeard to the golfer's eye.  Many Landscape Architects depict beautifully curving shorelines, which look good on paper, but not to the golfer who wants to know where the edge of the lake is.

Going uphill, its hard to make just about anything visible, and it affects hazard and green design.

if you look at clearly visible sand bunkers, you will note that they are usually built a little above the fairway, not dug in as pits.  Dug out bunkers are almost always blind to the golfer.

Lastly, most first time (and even some professional architects) fail miserably when considering maintenance related aspects - like cart and pedestrian circulation and it's effects on design, shade and air movement, turning diameters for riding mowers, etc. and to name just a few "swirling thoughts" that go through an architect's mind simultaneously.

Of course, the drainage, irrigation and grassing aspects can give trouble.  Even the professional architects ask for help on those in most cases.

This list is by no means complete!  What I have learned through mistakes - the number of which is just too painful to contemplate - goes on.  however, there will always be an eager young associate (or any aspiring architect) who is pretty sure he has it all figured out, until he actually tries to design something!

I hope I don't sound dismissive, and I am sure the other architects will have different perspectives.  Getting that experience is certainly half the fun.  Got to go now, but I hope this answers your "mulligan" question a bit better.

[Jeff_Brauer]

George -

I thought of a few more, while I wait to go out to dinner.....

Mostly, newbie architects don't grasp vertical scale in the outdoors very well either.  A 5 foot deep bunker is really moderate, but most people would underestimate what a moderate depth is.  Many architects compare depth while sitting indors at a drafting table, and everything seem more dramatic inside compared to an 8 foot ceiling as opposed to an unlimited sky.

Besides vertical and horizontal scale, matching them together, thinking in 3 dimensions is never easy.  I know one architect that is convinced that Pete Dye's Harbour Town style is a result of his inability to think three dimensionally at that time, resulting in flat bunkers, steep banks and elevated greens.  I don't know about that, but his later work better embodies flowing landscape movement.

From my own experience, I recall experimenting with round greens where the contours crossed over the outside corners, which I felt (after seeing at a Colt course) provided more attractive movement.  My mentors preferred the mounds and ridges hit the green on the inside corners/indentations, which left the green edge - one of the turf cut differences the eye can pick up - almost flat!  Of course, it does render the green nearly all suitable for pin placements, but it is not as exciting.

Lastly, putting all those details together in a cohesive whole is tougher than it looks.  As an example, we can all tell jokes (just as we can all conceptualize golf holes) but a professional comedian can string them together into an effective monologue.  We can keep our day jobs.

One reason I cringe at Fazio bashing on this site, regardless of whether you approve of the style, or even just get tired of it, since he has done so many courses, is that his organization really does the job at tying the details together.  Perhaps its because there are no obvious flaws in the course it the reason it inspires such discussion of strategic nuance.

I don't want to start another bashing thread, but am just pointing out that critics (including my old english teacher, dammit) will find about the same number of mistakes in an "A" paper as a "C" paper, no?

I know you asked about specific design items, and I give some general skills that apply to all aspects of design, but again, I hope this answers the question.

[George Pazin]

Jeff -

Those are exactly the type of responses that I am seeking - I might not even cash this week's check, just as a thank you of my own. Funny that you mention vertical scale - every time I read a post by a practicing architect detailing the actual slope in a green, it always sounds like much less than I would expect.

I would presume that other architects have other thoughts in other areas - now if they'll chime in, I could sleep easier.

Not that I ever really sleep well. The other night I was using old trigonometry formulas to calculate distances on a fictional golf course layout - that's what us old math geeks dream about. Too bad we can't program dreams...

[Jeff_Brauer]

George -

I have to admit to trouble sleeping as well.  Not sure its organic (see the other thread) and you know I am not an organic kind of guy, so I occaisionally use both melatonin and tylenol pm.  I also wake up at night with great golf design ideas, and keep a pad by the bed to jot them down....here's what I wrote last night.....

"grlaoz flub, sixx buzzles, no chugnet, 33%, obstouet, nol duzzel.  

If I can figure out what that means, I think it will be great!

I thought of one more quality that most architects stumble on - artistic ability!  Many get design degrees without it.  Back in school, you could tell who was going to be the hotshot designer, and who would be a Parks Director some day.  Even now, I get beautiful resumes, probably redrawn several times for the portfolio, but within six months I can tell if a new hire has the soul of an artist.

Even a Seth Raynor, trained as an engineer, and building clearly engineering forms must have had a sense of rythm, balance, and proportion that all great artists and designers have, so it is not necessarily a matter of schooling.

[Mike_Young]

George,
I would have to agree with Jeff, Kelly,Tom,Todd and others on the aspects that they mention in their post.
One aspect that I have a problem with (and it may just be me) is spending quality time on site. .  Ideally I would go directly to the shapers early in the morning and spend the day walking but that rarely happens.  Usually you spend a good amount of time with the owner, other people that may know you are coming that day and then in many cases someone has lunch planned that can last a couple of hours.  All of this is necessary but it is inefficient and really messes with my ADD.  Now I try to arrive on the afternoon of the previous day and meet with owner or others and then not let anyone know that I am on site the enitre next day.
Mike

[Jeff_Brauer]

Mike -

It aint just you!  I fight timing my visits around "construction progress meetings".  Everyone is there, and everyone walks around the course looking at dirt they don't understand.  But I don't get any work done.