"What's wrong with admitting you made a mistake and then trying to fix it?"

Well, let's see:

- someone has to pay for it;
- play is interrupted for existing members who paid their initiation fees only recently;
- the course is closed during the most important period for selling memberships;
- you get bad ratings from magazines for the first version;
- they may not come back to see the second version;
- if they do come back, the openning buzz is gone;
- your reputation as an architect is tarnished;
- questions are raised about how much time was spent on site - these sound like pretty big goofs;
- makes you wonder about the six holes they didn't fix.
- finally, and most importantly, it raises questions about the original architect's ability to get it right on a second pass if he was so far off on the first.

Other than the above, I can't think of any problems.

Bob

Cheezo, Bob

I'm tring to talk GCA principles and all you can come back with are crass marketing soundbites!  You must have had too much capiscum in your grits this morning!  Just breathe deeply and the bile will go away....

Rich

Craig

The Norman course in Arizona(I think it's name was Stonehaven) was bulldozed after new owners- Discovery Land Company- decided it was "too difficult" for a high end private club development. It is now Fazio's Mirabel.

Rich,

When you pay a $2.0 million design fee, where do you draw the line of tweaking vs negligence?

12 greens would be past my personal line if the 12 greens number is accurate from Tom Doak.

Oops, here come the lawyers.

Rich,
the client pays either way.
regardless of who pays for the grading/seeding (probably the least of developer's worries)

loses a year of prime selling
angry/embarrassed members
credibility
magazine rankings/publicity
competition-Ballyneal is as (in)accessible as Sand Hills

Not to beat a dead horse, but I think you are defending the indefensible
not that there's anything wrong with that
And of course we could have our "facts" all wrong

Dismal has on thing going for its future.......Sand hills is only a days ride away.  If you are travelling by wagon it might take a couple of days.  

The Dismal folks may be saved by those pioneers travelling to the middle of nowhere to see Sand Hills.  As for me, I really wouldn't be compelled to see Dismal if it were across town in its previous state.  That honor goes to Chambers Bay

I might be wrong but I got the Impression that JN was not involved directly with the changes being made.

This thread is glorious, it's like the old days when people did not pull their punches.

If I was the owner of Dismal, I'd think about a lawsuit.

Mr. Daley,

I don't like to have to come on this forum and defend anything, but I can't let just outright falsehoods be propagated for all to read without setting the record straight.

First of all, the only comments that I have ever made regarding DR was during a discussion about how much earth was moved on the site.    I didn't know, but the design associate that worked the project with JN told me at the opening that a very low amount was moved other than shaping.   I said I thought that was amazing considering all the contour I saw on the site.   That was my only contribution concerning DR.   I had never been on the site prior to the opening and therefore, I certainly didn't have anything to do with the routing or any knowledge of construction techniques, etc, that you said I should be aware of.
Bottom line is that you seem to want to question my abilities when I had nothing to do with the project.   I only know what I was told about the earthmoving and that is what I shared with this forum.
Please refrain from making any more false statements on this board.   There are many here that believe anything and everything they read.
Cheers

There is a tradition of revamping golf courses, sometimes early, substantial and often. Would you suggest that Tufts should have sued Ross or Jones sue MacKenzie because those courses were changed both early and often?  I would think that the more a course aspires to greatness, the more likely tweaks would be.

Seriously, I have often wondered why ANGC didn't pay Mac the last of his fees, when they had made arrangements to pay other vendors.  Could it be that early comments (from Sarazen and other early Masters particpants) got Jones or Roberts to thinking they didn't get Mac's best efforts, such as when he sent Marion Hollins over?  (albeit after they were in arrears)  

I believe the top gca's over time have always tried to get a "five year consulting" right, including rights to make changes at owner's expense.  Those are harder to come by, even for JN and others, but to a degree, I think most realize that a course isn't perfect at the beginning.

For that matter, how many times have we heard an owner gladly pony up to change one hole before opening (there was a well publicised $1M revamp of a par 3 at Dallas National, for instance)  perhaps just for the publicity, or to assuage his ego that he has built the best possible course.  I suspect the Owner is paying for changes at DR, but also that he had the right to tell JN no, or possibly even initiated them.

I don't know the facts, but I don't know of any lawsuits targeting "design quality" as it relates to golf since it would be hard to legally define.  Now, something that didn't drain would be easy enough in court terms, similar to a building just falling down, etc.  

I know I am biased against it for obvious reasons, but I don't think we really want to encourage an expansion of our lawsuit culture to include torts for "I don't like the 16th hole!"  Jeez, every gca would be in court after every bogey......  

I once dreamed that a golfer sued me over a design that caused him to lose a substantial bet, claiming it was a design related cost to him!  While that was just a bad dream, there are some real life lawsuits (like one against a gca claiming loss of sexual performance when he slipped on a steep bank) that do keep me awake at night.

There is a tradition of revamping golf courses, sometimes early, substantial and often. Would you suggest that Tufts should have sued Ross or Jones sue MacKenzie because those courses were changed both early and often?  I would think that the more a course aspires to greatness, the more likely tweaks would be.

Seriously, I have often wondered why ANGC didn't pay Mac the last of his fees, when they had made arrangements to pay other vendors.  Could it be that early comments (from Sarazen and other early Masters particpants) got Jones or Roberts to thinking they didn't get Mac's best efforts, such as when he sent Marion Hollins over?  (albeit after they were in arrears)  

I believe the top gca's over time have always tried to get a "five year consulting" right, including rights to make changes at owner's expense.  Those are harder to come by, even for JN and others, but to a degree, I think most realize that a course isn't perfect at the beginning.

For that matter, how many times have we heard an owner gladly pony up to change one hole before opening (there was a well publicised $1M revamp of a par 3 at Dallas National, for instance)  perhaps just for the publicity, or to assuage his ego that he has built the best possible course.  I suspect the Owner is paying for changes at DR, but also that he had the right to tell JN no, or possibly even initiated them.

Jeff,

Spin it however you want, but to my mind there is a large difference between tweaking a few holes here and there over the course of a few decades and redoing 12 greens and regrading numerous holes only one year after completion.

I would think any logical person would agree something was not done right in the first place.

And I venture to guess that "something" was trying to adapt "Nicklaus" styling to a parcel of land which it is not suited for.

IMHO

Jim Lipe, I can't speak for Dick Daley, but I'm sure he meant no disrespect to you, personally. He obviously mixed-up who made the claims he remembered reading. It was likely one of the owners, Tim Kratz(?) who came on here and answered questions about the project. Your comments about the earth moving were made more recently, and he likely got them confused.
 I'm sure he'll respond when he reads your post because Mr. Daley is just not the type of guy who goes around making factual errors intentionally.

Mr. Lipe, I'm sorry if I kept you waiting on a respectful response ( I was out squeezing the last drops of golf out of the soon to be frozen tundra).  

I did shoot from the hip before- or in lieu of- trying to use the darn inadequate "search" function of GCA.com, to get exact quotes and attributions to the previous discussions that took place about DR, pre-construction, during, and during grow-ins.  As a matter of fact, back then,  I asked one of the moderators who JWL was, as I didn't know.  I have at this moment a search going to find some of the stuff written under DR thread titles.  But, I can not find that you said anything about the construction at all (as I eroneously reported above) and when you say you didn't even work the site, well that is good enough for me, my apologies, sir.

Just for the record, I did find this thread, where I vigorously defended the "rumormongering" that had been placed on GCA.com about the over the top degree of difficulty of DR, and I said how it was unfair to say those things as a third party told by someone who posted the information as hearsay, prior to the course even opening.

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forums2/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=24316;start=0

As I defended DR from the stink of the rumor at that time which was at or prior to official opening, I just want to be clear that I tried to be fair minded about the whole issue then.  

As it now appears, there is mounting evidence that only one year out of the box, DR does have enough design problems to require significant rework, which could indicate a certain amount of lack of care and research into completing a sand hills design by the JN team.  It ties in with the thread of who you read, respect, study, to learn about the craft.  And, that being a player, even the best, and having seen most of the great courses, still isn't enough if you are a craftsman and serious about your work.  I believe you need to study the craft from the cradle and ground up and pay proper respect, or it will show in the quality, IMO.  

As unfair as it was to drag JWL into the matter mistakenly on the minor point of who was overseeing the project, my greater point is that it would appear a great degree of arrogance was in play when JN&co did not seem too interested to review issues and conditions at SHGC by paying a visit and talking to folks involved out there.  What could it have hurt?  And I am now coming to an understanding of what DR. Klein referred to - that a routing which only took 2 days - is one more piece of evidence that JN&co mailed it in.

In my humble opinion, if JN&co received 2 million dollars for a signature design fee above actual cost to build, it makes me a bit sick to think there are proven experienced sand hill design/builders that could have done the whole damn course, design and build, for that and would have studied SHGC, talked to everyone they could about issues encountered, and respect the craft, not just themselves.