What did we learn in the last 25 year cycle of GCA?

[Randy Thompson]

opps

[paul cowley]

"What did we get out of the last 25 years of the golf boom and how will it affect the next golf boom if it ever happens"

OK...I guess we got a lot of GCArchitectural design innovation and excess that was a result of good financial times and largely successful RE driven products....until the music stopped.

The next golf boom will probably be similar when it happens.

Until then we will be lean and mean and innovative but without the excess.

Am I missing something?

[Mike_Young]

"What did we get out of the last 25 years of the golf boom and how will it affect the next golf boom if it ever happens"

OK...I guess we got a lot of GCArchitectural design innovation and excess that was a result of good financial times and largely successful RE driven products....until the music stopped.

The next golf boom will probably be similar when it happens.

Until then we will be lean and mean and innovative but without the excess.

Am I missing something?

Paul,
I just can fathom another golf boom tied to RE.....that's what I see missing....so I like the lean and mean idea.....

[paul cowley]

"What did we get out of the last 25 years of the golf boom and how will it affect the next golf boom if it ever happens"

OK...I guess we got a lot of GCArchitectural design innovation and excess that was a result of good financial times and largely successful RE driven products....until the music stopped.

The next golf boom will probably be similar when it happens.

Until then we will be lean and mean and innovative but without the excess.

Am I missing something?

Paul,
I just can fathom another golf boom tied to RE.....that's what I see missing....so I like the lean and mean idea.....

Not a choice my friend....fortunately you have deep roots!

[Mike_Young]

"What did we get out of the last 25 years of the golf boom and how will it affect the next golf boom if it ever happens"

OK...I guess we got a lot of GCArchitectural design innovation and excess that was a result of good financial times and largely successful RE driven products....until the music stopped.

The next golf boom will probably be similar when it happens.

Until then we will be lean and mean and innovative but without the excess.

Am I missing something?

Paul,
I just can fathom another golf boom tied to RE.....that's what I see missing....so I like the lean and mean idea.....

Not a choice my friend....fortunately you have deep roots!

I don't know..hope all is well...

[Jeff_Brauer]

Having been in the biz for my ownself just over 25 years now (33 overall) I may be qualified to answer this one!

To be honest, in the last 15 years, I think we got away from some basics - like keeping water from draining in bunkers - that the 50's-60's guys had figured out.  Forget money not buying taste, its as if we thought throwing out money could outdo mother nature.  Yeah, they got a bit too standardized because of their own good rules, but the ongoing cost of not doing things certain ways just gets tiresome when money is plentiful, and a real burden when it is not.

In the last two years, I believe we have learned the true definition of minimalism.  If a large green is there, and a medium sized one will do, then it gets reduced.  If a bunker doesn't see too many balls (its just their for looks) it will probably get removed, etc.  The good news is, I think a lot of back tees and length will go away for similar reasons - why maintain 7700 yards for 25 guys a year? 

Yeah, the first point is the same lesson learned from the 30's to the 50's (because of the depression and WWII) but it was totally forgotten and had to be relearned.  The current length issue is fairly new from 1997 on and we are still struggling with that one, since no one is quite to the point of just not building 7200+ courses quite yet.

[Sean_A]

I would hope that the number one thing learned in the past 25 years is there is NO SUBSTITUTE FOR AN INTIMATE ROUTING.  All manner of awesome looking shots cannot replace a well conceived course which is meant to be walked in pleasant surroundings. 

Ciao

[TEPaul]

I'd say what we learned in the last 25 years of GCA is that there comes a time when some want to cycle back!

[Craig Van Egmond]

RJ,

   2 things..  The GCA enrollement is now down to 1204 and how the heck do you score 83 points in a football game?!? 

[Dan Kelly]

If you build it well enough, they will come.

[Mike Hendren]

RJ,

   2 things..  The GCA enrollement is now down to 1204 and how the heck do you score 83 points in a football game?!? 

Apparently by settling for two field goals.

[Mike Hendren]

If you build it well enough, they will come.

For every Pacific Dunes there's an Apache Stronghold - or two.

Mike

[Ian Andrew]

That golf is still a business and a business must eventually generate a return to survive.

[Dan Kelly]

If you build it well enough, they will come.

For every Pacific Dunes there's an Apache Stronghold - or two.

Mike

Mike --

I never heard a single comment about Apache Stronghold that didn't include a line about terrible conditioning. Maybe that doesn't come under "build it," but...

What are the other examples (or two) that you're referring to? What courses the quality of Pacific Dunes have failed?

Dan

[Tim Nugent]

That the pendulum swings.

Mike Y.  I didn't see that many RE driven courses "conceived" in the past 10 yrs.  When developers could put up 400 houses in a farm field and sell them, they didn't need an ammenity - golf or otherwise.  The fact that golf frontage was and still is considered a Premium  is precisely the reason you may indeed see a resurgance in Golf/RE developments once the current mess is worked through.  Developers will be building fewer houses on cheaper land and will need to offer something to entice buyers.  Just because there are 5/100 more unemployed doesn't mean the world coming to an end (Relax KBM - this too, in time, will pass).  People were saying the same thing during the S&L criisis and the 80/81 recession and the 74 oil crisis, etc.  Remember recently when the DOW was at 6666 and the talking heads were talking 2000?  And now it's 11,000.  Have faith my friend, What goes around, comes around.

[Tim Nugent]

KElly, perhaps that's because many were only ever expose to one facit of the business - design.  And in a time when even a blind squirrel could find an Acorn.  When the environment changed, they were left without a basis from which to operate. In the 90's, people would look at me sideways when I told them "in the 70's, if my mom wasn't a school teacher, we would have starved". To them, golf development was like Housing, it could go up.  Now the music has stopped and they are left without a chair, but can't do anything else. So they are frantically searching, as RJ states "for validation". The reason they can't differentiate is they have a herd mentality and are looking to see which way the herd will turn so they can follow.