[Mike Vegis @ Kiawah]

Our former Director of Golf and I were on a conference call with Alice, Pete, Ron Whitten when Alice tore into the whole concept of "restoration."  She said that the only way it would make sense to restore a course to its original design was to restore the equipment used during that era.  So, toss out the Pro-V1x's, boys, and break out the Persimmon...

[T_MacWood]

Based upon that logic every golf course built prior to 1980 should be redesigned.  It is disapointing that architects who benefited so much from studying (and being exposed to) the work past architects have so little interest (apparently) in preserving these same designs for future generations.

[TEPaul]

" I do not believe all courses are candidates for preservation, only the very best of the best. And identifying the canidates for restoration requires tremendous amount of thoughtful consideration and research...in the absence of one or the other, I do not believe restoration is a good idea."

Tom MacW:

It's a little hard for me to understand what it is exactly you are proposing or suggesting. Yes the Mona Lisa has hundreds of years of patina to it but the fact is it's been behind bullet proof glass for many decades and presumably will be for the rest of time.

That can not happen to any golf course no matter how famous or historic or valuable it is. Every day the wind and weather, maintenance practices and golfers are all over all of them and the changes are slow but over time noticeable. In a way that's a golf course's patina.

NGLA is a good example of a course that 15-20 years ago looked very little like the way Macdonald had it. That's changed now and it's back to much more of the look of the way Macdonald had it.

Restorations like that I agree with. There have been some tee additions to it recently and over the years but that hasn't exactly changed the golf course.

I've learned a good deal with the restoration of our course and staying in close touch with numerous others. Of course any club has to do their research and do it right.

But I'm not sure what you mean when you say some courses need to be preserved. In a theoretical way that'd be nice but they are always changing little by little and that's just the way it goes. Again, that's probably THEIR patina.

For instance, you should see the look of Merion East, a course that was castigated on here for what they did in certain areas. The course looks really great right now. The tee additions are really something, I sure wouldn't have recommended sothng like that and I know I wouldn't want to play them but they really haven't hurt the golf course. The same goes for PVGC and what they did recently. Do you disagree with those things or are you aware of them?

As for Alice Dye, well Alice has always had her own unique ideas about things to do with architecture. She's always had a novel idea about women's tees and it's not something I'd personally agree with. Last time I talked to Alice a few years ago she also said she thought golf needed a single CZAR for the entire game and that's not something I personally agree with either. Alice is an interesting lady with some interesting ideas, though.

As for the old architects, well, they seemed to be all over each others courses all the time. Obviously TOC was always really special to most all of them but that may have been about the only one that was considered to be "off limits".

[T_MacWood]

TE
If you don't have solid research and/or your restoration is based heavily upon conjecture, don't do it. Remove trees, expand playing surfaces, add new tees, but nothing evasive...wait until you have solid info (and competent craftmen) before you start tearing up an important golf course...preserve the course in its present condition. And even when you have solid info, accepting the beautifully evolved look of Cypress Point maybe better than attempting to rebuild and recapture the sublime CPC of 1928.  

If you recontour greens....you are no longer involved in a restoration.

Other common restoration mistakes: Stereotyplical Ross, extremely geometric psuedo-Raynor,  modern bunker construction methods, inacurately interjecting an architect's style from another location or era upon a course from different local and era, not effectively supressing one's own style, loss of 3-D quality with complex bunkers, softening greens, blatent redesign, weak research, poor crafsmanship etc.

I agree many courses were altered by other architects, when Maxwell altered ANGC it was only three or fours years old (And MacKenzie was six feet under). RTJ was brought in when the course was about 15 years old...still relatively new. There are  many other examples: Royal Dornoch, Pebble Beach, Merion, GCGC, Sea Island, Chicago, Skokie, Muirfield, County Down, Brookline, Shinnecock, etc. Everyone accepts the fact these golf courses evolved into greatness through the efforts of more than one architect (in most of these cases the prior course was considered flawed in some way and I detect a respect factor between most of the respected architects of that era). The point is they are now recognized (decades later) as outstanding examples of their art and should be protected and preserved despite the fact they are the results of design and redesign.

[TEPaul]

Tom:

With your post #28 you're pretty much preaching a sermon to the choir on here it's heard about a thousand times before and agreed with about a thousand times before in the last five years of GOLFCLUBATLAS.com.

I'm of the feeling though that if an original hole did not make it with the respect of a membership it's gonna probably get changed and hopefully improved. I feel that's the right of a membership to do. It's their golf course, they play it every day and the hope is they have the architectural understanding to do the right thing by certainly understanding their course's architect.

When you say things, Tom, like some of these courses have earned the right to be preserved because their architecture and architects have become so respected, the question becomes respected by whom? By you or me? The most important thing is not the respect for the architecture or architect by us---the most important thing is the members feel that way about their courses and its holes.

Doing architectural research on wonderful old courses is a great thing to do but if that understanding can't be passed along to the membership properly it's really going to be for naught---it ain't gonna happen.

Good restorations are like two sides of a coin---the architecture itself and the membership. You just can't have one without the other.

[T_MacWood]

In too many cases when an original hole did not make it with the membership, it was altered...a long time ago. The 12th at GCGC comes to mind.

I'd say most significant works are respected by the members, by definition a significant work must have some age on it, if it didn't survive, you could argue it wasn't deserving. There are exceptions: Lido, Ponte Vedra, Mill Road Farm and Stone Harbor.

In identifying important works, I look to the discerning minds who have made a study of golf architecture. IMO Darwin is a great resource... Jones, Simpson, MacKenzie, Wethered, Hunter were all astute judges, there have been men who standout over the years...Ran is an excellent modern example.

It may be the work of a famous architect or the work of an obscure architect or maybe an amateur one-course-wonder. The course may have univeral significance, cultural significance, aesthetic significance, perhaps an unusual site, recognition due to historical value, a creative and unique expression of a particular artist (or of the art in general), a one of kind resource for study.  It doesn't necessarily have to be the best, but express a particular creative quality, a uniqueness or originality.

I'm much more leery of restoration than I was five years ago.

[TEPaul]

"I'm much more leery of restoration than I was five years ago."

Tom MacW:

I just can't imagine why you say that. Just take a look at the amount of restorations that've taken place and have been so successfully received in recent years. Before perhaps 15-20 years ago the concept of restoring these old courses was something hardly considered and almost never done.

What had happened was 40-70 years of either redesigning or benign neglect. For the latter just look at and appreciate the before and after photos of PCC's #11 to see the extent of it.

And look at and appreciate the way these courses were once and are now;

NGLA
PCC
GMGC
Skokie
Aronimink
GCGC
Shinnecock
Beverly
Kittansett
Charles River
Plainfield
Gulf Stream
Mountain Lake
Fox Chapel
Seminole
Bethpage

Those are only the good ones off the top of my head--the real list is probably ten times longer. After some minor concerns amongst members at some of those above the memberships of all of them seem absolutely delighted.

I can guarantee you that all those courses are now far more true to the way they once were and should be than they were 20 years ago. Why would you or anyone else want to disagree with that or be concerned about it? Are you really trying to tell us you don't think these restorations should be done because you think there's some tragedy that a course like Aronimink decided to restore to Ross's original bunker drawings rather than those of perhaps C.B McGovern?

In the general scheme of things, and in all that these restorations are accomplishing something like that is truly "small potatoes"!
 

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

In fairness, I wouldn't classify tree clearing as restoration work in the context that we usually identify or categroize restoration work in.

Restoration, to me, implies recapturing lost or altered features, and while I applaud tree removal/management programs, I don't view them in the same light that I view work in the dirt.

All too often work that is labeled as restoration has more then a tint of interpretive modernization thrown in.

I understand and tend to agree with Tom MacWood on this issue.  While you can site a few, high profile golf courses, many lessor known courses, designed by MFA's embark on projects labeled restorations, that are really interpretive modernizations, and I think that there is a danger in that process.  One that shouldn't be applauded on the surface without looking further, into the substance of the work.

[Kelly Blake Moran]

In some way people are leery of architects being engaged to restore or renovate a course because so many of them are incompetent at that work, either through a willfull disregard of the strategic and aesthetic qualities of the original course, or through negligence because of workload and a corporate structure that assigns less competent junior architects to do the work, and because of their own lack of presense during construction.  That is why some architects have favorite contractors because they can tell them to just do what we did in the past and I'll see ya in 3 weeks.

Most of you are in a higher stratosphere of courses and only employ the chosen architects to accompany you in that stratosphere, but for the common man at the common courses it is equally disturbing to see the crimes committed on existing courses in the name of renovation.  One course I visited yesterday has 3 different styles.  8 holes of the original architect, 7 holes from a modern architect, probably 6 year old work, which by the way has done so much bad renovation work I would say 80% of the renovation projects for which I interview they have done work at those courses earlier and haven't been invited back and the members now agree was horrible work, and 3 holes of another architect just last year.  The 2 renovating architects gave no consideration to the original style, and the last architect gave no consideration to either style.  What a mess. Another course for which I did a master plan has had virtually nothing done to the course over their history probably because they are tight with their money, but from an architectural stand point what a blessing, they have nice greens which should not be touched and some magnificant terrain, a fine course that is just a little rough in some spots and does not need a modern architect to come and impose their style on it.  

And I just read Pat's post above and could not agree more.

[TEPaul]

Pat:

I could not disagree with you more. Any effort at good restoration is restoration to me and should be encouraged at all costs. That very much involves courses that remove decades of unmanaged tree growth, even if that's all they do.

I don't think we need outsiders trying to micro-manage and discourage the things some courses are trying to do in the restoration area simply because those outsiders disagree with some specific little detail.

That mentality is unnecessarily adverserial to me and frankly is not much more than an attitude of throwing the baby out with the bath water.

In my opinion, there have been enough really great restorations now where a critical mass has been created for other clubs to follow.

This is far different than that age of perhaps 40-60 years where all that was really happening on these old courses was endless and indiscriminant tree planting and "flavor of the month" architctural redesigning.

We're into a really good restoration phase now that has never existed before and the best thing to do is get on the train and not try to stand in front of it because you don't agree with some minor issue of some passenger on it!

[TEPaul]

The only caveat I'd give any club who's interested in having work done to their course, whether, redesign, rennovation or restoration is to get out there and see what the architects they're interviewing have done elsewhere.

To me this is just such a no-brainer and so few clubs seem to have done this (I think this is now getting better as clubs and some members from them are starting to communicate and collaborate now).

To me the theory that Pat seems to have that if a club hires any architect and tells him what they want they'll get what they think they want. To me that's complete hit and miss madness. What these clubs need to do is get out there and see what the architects they choose to interview have done elsewhere!

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

I indicated that I applauded tree removal programs.
I continue to encourage them.

You choose to categorize them as restorations, and the danger lies in those projects where trees are cleared, but the golf course is modernized in the name of an interpretive restoration.

I think there is a substantive distinction between a true or sympathetic restoration and an interpretive modernization cloaked as a restoration.

I would ask you to view the process by excluding your experience at GMCC.  Look instead at other clubs that are embarking on projects to alter their golf courses.
Are those alterations true or sympathetic restorations, or modernizations, claimed to be interpretive restorations ?

I have recently witnessed one endeavor where the architect was directed to create a Master Plan, preserving the design integrity of the original architect.  But, the committee, which was expanded to be politically correct, insisted on imputing each factions ideas.  Six renderings later a Master Plan, altered by faction after faction was presented as the "Architects" recommendation.  And, the final result hardly represents a restoration, despite the inclusion of a tree removal/management program.

Tom MacWood appears to be leary of projects labeled as restorations, and I tend to agree with him.
I think you have to look at the originating intent of the project, it's ability to withstand outside influences, and the final product produced before you can call it a successful, true or sympathetic restoration.

And, while I would agree with you, that more golf courses are exploring a potential restoration, which is good, it doesn't guarantee that the work actually done will be a restoration.

"many's the slip tween the cup and the lip"
 

[TEPaul]

"You choose to categorize them as restorations, and the danger lies in those projects where trees are cleared, but the golf course is modernized in the name of an interpretive restoration."

Just hold on there Pat. I've never said that just because some golf course removes decades of tree overgrowth that constitutes a successful restoration. And I've always said that any club and course worthy of restoration needs to do their homework and do their restoration correctly--not simply redesign the golf course. Obviously, I don't resist a club redesigning a green or whatever as we did on GMGC's #7. There was no question at all from decades of play that hole was just nowhere near as good as it could be. Now it is or it's a lot better and our membership is definitely saying so!

It just seems to me there're far too many on here who are too ready to criticize some detail rather than applaud golf clubs for all the good these restorations have done for these courses compared to how they may have been 10 or 20 years ago or last year.

I named you a pretty large list of courses that have undergone really good restorations almost all including the removal of years of tree overgrowth. As I indicated the real list could be ten times longer. I'll add Piping Rock and Creek to that list right now as they just came to mind.

Why don't you give me a list even half as long as mine where a club has launched into a tree removal project in the name of restoration and then gone on to completely redesign and screw up the course architecturally.

If someone like Tom MacWood is actually saying something like this has happened at Aronimink, or Bethpage or Merion East amongst others I just would not agree with him on that.

All in all those restoration, rennovations, improvements, master plans or whatever else anyone wants to call them have been a good thing not a bad thing for those golf courses.

Point out the net effect positives if you want to help this cause with some of these old golf courses and not some minor detail you don't agree with.

My God, did GMGC do everything during it's restoration that I wanted them to do? Of course not! But am I delighted they did all they did do? You bet I am!

And the membership feels the same way as hard as it was to get there. There're so many courses like us, it's already created somewhat of a critical mass, in my opinion, and that's the trend to encourage to continue.

[George Pazin]

I've always said that I think this topic remains the most difficult to evaluate on this board.

Other common restoration mistakes: Stereotyplical Ross, extremely geometric psuedo-Raynor,  modern bunker construction methods, inacurately interjecting an architect's style from another location or era upon a course from different local and era, not effectively supressing one's own style, loss of 3-D quality with complex bunkers, softening greens, blatent redesign, weak research, poor crafsmanship etc.

I understand what you're saying and agree, for the most part.

Does your "extremely geometric pseudo-Raynor" include a place like Fox Chapel? I haven't seen any other Raynor courses in person, so I don't have a good basis of comparison, but their "restored" bunkers are certainly quite dramatic - I believe Tom Paul described them as being Raynor on steroids. (Forgive me if I'm mistating anyone's views - feel free to correct me.) When I compare them to the relatively recent pre restoration photos that were in the Curtis Cup program, they appear to be a significant improvement to me, but I don't know whether they are a restoration to the originals or not. They certainly aren't a preservation, but that ship appears to have long sailed - i.e. the features had been softened so much I don't think they were worth preserving.

Also, do you have any sort of criteria or guidelines for determining whether or not any specific course is worthy of preservation? Should one look to preserve only the best of an architect, or should one establish that a prominent enough architect deserves to have as many good examples preserved as possible? Who is to make any such determinations?

These are all really difficult (and interesting) questions to me.

[T_MacWood]

George
I don’t know much about the restoration of Fox Chapel; I haven’t seen any pre-restoration or early photos to compare. The pseudo-Raynor comment was based upon the restoration at Mountain Lake…a super angular interpretation of Raynor.

TE
What is your definition of a restoration?

IMO before you can restore something it had to have existed at some point, I do not consider Aronomink a restoration. Maybe a speculative restoration, but I’m not even sure that would an accurate description…a Ross-ian redesign maybe? On a related note, IMO Ross courses, including some of his most distinctive courses, are being homogenized (in the name of restoration) into a perceived Ross style.

I would characterize Seminole as speculative restoration. It was difficult for the restoration architect to find good photographic documentation, so he felt obligated to speculate…unfortunately it appears his speculation was off.

I’m with you regarding removal of trees and expanding playing surfaces, I do consider that a form of restoration, a very positive form. But there are cases where there is mix of positive and negative. GCGC is an example, the removal of trees have been positive, but for some odd reason bunkers have been added that bear little relationship to the historical design. The strange thing, some of these new bunkers are located where old bunkers once resided (#17 as an example). Should we remain silent on the negatives and only focus on the positive developments?

Pat mentioned courses that embark on projects labeled restorations, that are really interpretive modernizations. I agree, too often this is the case: Bethpage, Riviera, Yale, Augusta CC, LACC, Banff, Cape Breton, Hollywood, etc. From your comments a few months ago wouldn’t Gulf Stream fall into this category?

“All in all those restoration, rennovations, improvements, master plans or whatever else anyone wants to call them have been a good thing not a bad thing for those golf courses.”

There has definitely been a blurring of the lines between authentic restoration and other forms of ‘improvement’. I agree with you, the restoration movement has been a positive development generally, especially when compared to the wholesale redesigns of previous decades, unfortunately we still have cases like those described by KBM, and some of the positive work has been marred by some negative change…we have ways to go. Critically reviewing the restoration trend is important.

[TEPaul]

Tom MacW:

I don't think it makes much difference to Aronimink or anyone else if their bunkers fall somewhat short of what you think they should be or are only what you call some form of a restoration such as a form of 'speculative Ross-ian restoration'.

I watched them make that decision with Ron Prichard and I couldn't agree more with the decision they made. At least they are sure it was Ross himself that drew those bunkers they did recently.

As for Seminole the club may have thought they were restoring bunkers done by Dick Wilson but they actually turned out to be Ross's.

At Gulf Stream, Silva did some Ross restoration of bunkers and such and he also did some of his own interpretive design on the golf course most of which made the course much better than I ever knew it and probably better than it ever was.

Of course this is all subjective stuff how well the course turns out and the ultimate goal is to make the course as good as it can be for those that play it (the membership) not necessarily to conform to what someone's specific definition on here of what a true restoration is specifically. If that makes the course the best it can be, so be it. If not then do the best to make it so is my philosophy.

Some of our Maxwell holes are exactly that. Should they be removed now and restored back to the way Ross once had them which didn't work well for our membership 70 years ago? Of course not---we know why they didn't work--we have all the minutes---so we simply went with what works best for us.

It really doesn't matter to me what someone technically calls that.

[T_MacWood]

TE
"Of course this is all subjective stuff how well the course turns out and the ultimate goal is to make the course as good as it can be for those that play it (the membership) not necessarily to conform to what someone's specific definition on here of what a true restoration is specifically. If that makes the course the best it can be, so be it. If not then do the best to make it so is my philosophy."

You sound like an architect out of the 60's or 70's era of "making golf courses as good as it can be".  Wasn't that the rational for so many redesigns?

You shouldn't redesign a significant golf course based upon speculation.

Re-read my post #28 regarding multiple architects.

You have some courses interested in authentic restoration, you some courses interested in restoration and redesign, and you have some courses interested in redesign....you shouldn't lump these projects all together. Likewise you have some architects selling authentic restoration that produce pseudo-restoration and some architects selling authentic restoration that produce redesign....we should know these things.

[Mark_Fine]

Tom,
Not all of those you mentioned are "restorations" but your point is well taken.  
Mark

[TEPaul]

Tom MacW:

I must say I really am growing weary of your ponificating on the golf architect of various golf clubs you've probably never even been to about what's best for them. You should try to get involved in a restoration of a classic golf course or a few of them sometime that has a normal sized membership. If you did that you very well may have a slighltly different outlook on some of the things you say on here. You should talk to a guys like Paul Richards, David Gookin and others on Golfclubatlas.com who were apparently central to taking their golf clubs through the best restorative architectural projects they could for their classic golf courses.  

[Tom_Doak]

In general, it's simple to tell whether a project is a true restoration or not.  Just look at the budget.  Bringing features back is not expensive.  Moving them around, is.

One of my favorite lines I've ever written was for something in the Donald Ross Society newsletter many years ago ... that I looked at a $3 million golf course restoration the same way you would look at someone "restoring" the Mona Lisa with two ten-gallon cans of Sears Latex.

I recognize that a lot of people here are fans of the restoration craze and I do believe it is possible to do accurate restoration work, if you take the time.  But a lot of what is going on out there is change in the guise of restoration.

Kelly, I could not agree with you more about how many little courses are changed for no good reason, so that there is no style of any kind left to them.

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

To me the theory that Pat seems to have that if a club hires any architect and tells him what they want they'll get what they think they want.

I never said that.
That's your distorted view[/color]

To me that's complete hit and miss madness. What these clubs need to do is get out there and see what the architects they choose to interview have done elsewhere!

What they've done is a reflection of what the membership wanted and not necessarily what the architect wanted.
And, how would you be able to distinguish between the two ?[/color]

You have to bifurcate the process into two categories.
1   Tree removal/management
2   In ground golf course work

A club can remove trees but go in the wrong direction with their in ground golf course work, and just because they remove trees doesn't mean that they are doing justice to the design or design integrity of the golf course.

If Kelly Blake Moran agrees with me, and.....
Tom Doak agrees with Kelly Blake Moran.....
What does that say about your opinion and disagreement with me ? [/color]

[TEPaul]

Pat:

I'm not too sure what you think you're disagreeing with me about, or what you think Kelly Blake Moran or Tom Doak is disagreeing with me about.

How do you tell what an architect wanted to do at some golf course vs what the membership wanted? Pretty simple, really---just pick up the telephone and speak to them, and then go see for yourself.

I think Tom Doak made a pretty interesting point just above about one interesting way to get a feel for what's a restoration/rennovation----simply look at the budget! When some old classic course gets up into the $3 mil and above range they're probably getting into some kind of redesigning. Isn't it interesting that GMGC's project which will take 2-3 years is still under $1 mil?

But when you start getting into defining a restoration as Tom MacWood might be which seems to be putting everything back to the way it may have been decades ago--to be honest I've never seen a restoration or any recent architectural project exactly like that.

Even the really good restorations I've seen do have some interpretation to them generally in the name of the modern game. That almost always includes adding some tee length where it's obviously needed and where a hole can take that. If a hole can't (doesn't have the room) then sometimes mid-body features get shifted. Where we did that at GMGC one would have to really scrutinize before and after to tell where it was done and how!

Were some holes changed slightly? Sure they were, and the reason they were is we (the architect and the club's committee responsible for the project) felt it was the right thing to do---and it seems our membership, and others wholeheartly agrees now that they've had a chance to play the course after the project.

What better can one do? What better would a club or architect want to do than that? Should a club really be concerned because some guy in Ohio who considers himself an ultra-purist and has never even been to the course doesn't think the project was right because some bunker now has a cape in it when a photo of 70 years ago shows there wasn't one? Or where the club decided to do bunkers to Ross's drawings instead of an early aerial that showed a style Ross never did but J.B McGovern did twice on two courses where hs was the project foreman?

Personally, I don't think so. To me the best evidence of a good project is how those that use the course feel about it over time. If they don't like it or don't like some little details about it then something probably went wrong and will probably end up getting fixed. But if they like it and particularly wholeheartedly, then in my opinion, the project is a success, no matter what someone somewhere else wants to call the project or how they choose to define it.

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

Looking at a budget can be deceiving.

As an example, many, if not most golf clubs prefer to upgrade their irrigation system while undertaking a project, be it a restoration, renovation or modernization, so sometimes a million to 1.5 million might be in the budget.

The club might also decide to repair their bunkers after 80 years of useage, without changing their location or configuration, so that might add anywhere from 400,000 to 700,000 to the project.

The club might also decide that their tees are grossly inadequate for the increased volume of play 80 years after the tees were originally built.  Expanding the tees, and perhaps lengthening the tees without changing angles of attack can run a few hundred thousand as well, depending on circumstances.

So now you have a project approaching 3 million just in three basic areas, so the size of the budget might not, on the surface, tell the entire story.

But, I would agree with Tom Doak, in general, that size does matter  

With respect to phoning the architect or club, I'm not so sure that an architect would want to share what might be deemed confidential information.  In additon, you'll usually get that architect's opinion, which may not reveal the entire story.
Likewise, talking to those in power at the club may not reveal the necessary information you seek.  I think you have to be intimately involved with the process to understand what really took place.  Otherwise, you're like the judge listening to the couple who's getting divorced, you'll never really ascertain what, where and why things went wrong.

I'm not so sure that Tom MacWood is asserting that "everything" should be put back the way it was.
I think tee lengthening is universally accepted, by architects and golfers, as within the framework of the theory of elasticity, provided angles of attack and methods of play aren't changed.

I may be wrong, but I think Tom MacWood's perspective is one of enlightened suspicion when a club, architect or third party declares that they're going to restore their golf course.
And, I think he's right about that.

The first thing I would ask you, when you posture the merits of an interpretive restoration, is, who's doing the interpreting ?
That's a critical issue.
And, is that interpretation universal, or practically universal ?
That's also a critical issue.

I can't speak for GMCC or any other club, but all too often, like bills before Congress, amendments get attached to well intended plans, and those amendments, usually the whims of political interest groups or factions within a club, result in a deviation from a true or sympathetic restoration, and quite often disfigure the design integrity of the golf course.

So, I lean more in Tom MacWood's direction on proposed restorations, not having the blind faith that you seem to espouse, that any project, cloaked in the term, "restoration" is automatically a worthy project.

Lastly, I totally disagree with your last paragraph.
When a large scale project has been undertaken, and I'm talking about the financial end, and it's recognized that the work on a given hole or a few holes didn't turn out so well, it's usually ten to fifteen years before money will be alloted to "FIX" the problem.  And, memberships usually feel, that if the current people in charge screwed it up, they're not going to let those same people try to fix it.

[TEPaul]

"TEPaul,
Looking at a budget can be deceiving."

Pat:

It seems to me from dealing with you on here for years that you think anything anyone says to you is deceiving! Perhaps what you might try to do is look to see how it might be edifying, for a change. You just might be one of the world's most natural born "devils advocates".

That's OK from time to time, I guess, but if you do it as much as you do it must be really tiring and a rather large waste of time!

[TEPaul]

"The first thing I would ask you, when you posture the merits of an interpretive restoration, is, who's doing the interpreting ?
That's a critical issue."

Pat:

Sure it is. That's critical alright but no matter how critical that is it's not as critical as what the membership and others thinks of what got done, no matter who it was who made the decisions. At some point somebody's got to pull the trigger and common sense would seem to suggest the architect you hire is a pretty good candidate if the club has bothered do their homework and to go out there and see what he's done and how the clubs he's worked with have gone about it!

We did that with Gil. We checked out what he'd done with clubs that were somewhat like us. I know a lot of those people anyway who took their clubs through restorations with Gil (or others) before us so it sure wasn't hard talking to them about what their problems were and how they solved them. That way you learn how to not repeat the mistakes others made before you. I know a number of other architects too and a lot of people at the clubs they've done restorations on. The whole thing is a great learning process-- a real education. And it can be a whole lot different, in a number of ways than just sitting on Golfclubatlas and pontificating some unnrealistic ideal!

God knows why so many clubs seemed to think they can't collaborate with others that've done similar projects before them. They can---my experience is those clubs are more than willing to help and collaborate with others. God knows why so many clubs assume their projects must be the first of their kind and they have to feel their way along in a vacuum on their own! It's probably because so many people think they know everything anyway. The greatest adage to me in golf course architecture is to always know what you don't know!! If you can understand and accept that educating yourself through others who've done these things before you isn't that hard!

And Gil didn't have any problem discussing with us what went on at other clubs if he felt it could help us understand the process.

Lastly, one of the primary reasons we hired Gil is he did his own shaping and he's from here. And he had both Rodney Hine and Jim Wagner either of which could act as the daily project manager. I know both those guys---I've seen them work before. I know what they do and can do. In our case we got Rodney in the first phase and Jim in the second and they were on site almost every day. This to me was key!

You can throw a lot of negatives in front of the things I'm saying Pat, but if it worked out well for us, you tell me why it shouldn't work out well for other clubs?

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