Sometimes the Truth is Shocking to Contemplate

[Chip Gaskins]

Mike-

What you said is wise...however, isn't this really a owner/developer issue?  Tom Doak has said several times that if he even remotely mentions how his designs may (or could possibly) lower operating expenses (by implementing many of the things you stated) he said the owner intermediately assumes then the end result will be compromised in some way. 

SO isn't this issue sort of stuck in a catch 22 until the owners/developers begin to realize less can be more?

All of you GCA at the end of the day work for the money men footing the bill, and those are the folks that have to have the vision (or lack of money) to actually WANT something different, no?  And it has to be across the entire playing field....otherwise one rich guy will always want their course to keep up with the other rich guys.

Chip

[Mike_Young]

Chip,
It probably is a developer deal....
But often such comments are used against you by competition....they will say it is inferior and will have a general contractor back it up etc etc..but why and how...because they have been using borrowed money in most developer cases( not private one owner golf only cases) and they consider all of this extra part of the marketing...they are not worried about the course itself making money...just an impression is what they want......meanwhile some young supt( AND I AM IN NO WAY BLASTING SUPTS HERE) has been trained at the best , most prestigious club in the area....needs 2000 irrigation heads with 50 contrllers and 2 computers, 3 assistants, personal carts for each ...6 ultralite fairway units....etc etc etc.....and is usually a good well educated supt but he has never had to get it done the way the guy down the street had to do it in order to make it go and meet payroll.....those are the elements I see that sort of direct us the way we have been going.....it's going to change....and some guy that read all the books will be standing there with his finger up his nose saying this isn't fair....

[Chip Gaskins]

Mike-

All you lawyers hold your ears.

All you GCAs should collude....everyone tell their client that the new coolest thing is brown...(brown is the new black you know)....and sprinkler heads 20 years in the rough and white sand imported from Fiji is bad....Collude!

Chip

[Mike_Young]

Chip,
Here is how I think it will happen....
For years if an architect always used his own people and built his own product..the general contractors would always collude to tell anyone that would listen that his construction was not as good etc etc...and a few archies would join in.....I have heard it re a few different archies...not just myself....
But let's use some analogies in other fields:
A good young lawyer:  in NY is 600 per hour, in ATL is 300 per hour, in Athens is $150 per hour....why? overhead....
A Northface Jacket: at the NY outfitters is $450 at the outlet store $270....
A good young shaper: at a "signature general contractor" estimate $4000 per week/  hire him on his own $1500 per week or less right now....
Irrigation head purchased by an owner $100.....irrigation labor and equipment from an irrigation cotractor working for an owner $250-300 per head.....add 25% across board for GC
And we can go on....
If the average upper middle class house was built the way the average upper middle class golf course was built then none of us could afford our homes......same for our cars.....most of these glf courses are not BMW's or Mercedes....they are Ferraris etc  and yet the industry promotes such because it has always been paid for as an element of the Real Estate and needed to be such in order to enhance the overall project...

So if I take the same shaper for $1200 using local materials and a few less irrigation heads and a few less supervisors and go from there..I have a pretty good start on building an economically efficient product for much less than is discussed here....problem is....nobody wants anybody to know it....

[Chip Gaskins]

Uh oh....now I feel like I have open up a can of worms.

Mike - thanks for the thoughful comments. Fascinating!

[Eric Smith]

Thanks for that Mike Young.  Always nice to read your take.  And Chip is always asking the type of questions that I'd like to know the answers to, so thank you too Chip.

May I ask a dumb question?  If irrigation is the single largest line item expense in the construction budget, upwards of $1M of a $2-3M budget I've been told, what alternatives, if any, are there to get that number down, besides cutting back on the # of heads? Are there any Chinese companies making heads and controllers at a fraction of the cost of using Toro or Rainbird or acme, etc? Is it at all possible that some new companies could emerge that could figure out how to irrigate golf courses at a fraction of the cost of today's market leaders?  I'm just wondering.  It is such a big expense and I'm just wondering if there is any way around it, even just a little bit. Thanks.

[Tom_Doak]

Eric:

Irrigation is the biggest number by far ... it's 35% to 50% of many of my courses.

And you could save a lot of that if you hired a superintendent who wasn't afraid of installation and didn't want to put in too many heads, and did the irrigation in-house.  BUT in that scenario you don't really know what the final cost is going to be and whether it's all going to work perfectly, unless you've got a really good seat-of-the-pants superintendent you trust, and not one of the high-paid guys who insists on subbing out everything so that he can make his salary just to be a manager.

Also, there are some projects where trying to save on irrigation is a fool's errand.  If you are building a course in the sand hills and the whole thing might blow away while you are slowly installing the irrigation, then having a high-powered irrigation contractor who can put it all together is a good use of funds.

In the end many of these costs come back to the old saw -- "time is money".  You could save a bundle on up-front costs if you can afford to operate for the first couple of years at reduced fees and marginal conditions if the weather doesn't break your way.  The past twenty years, nobody has wanted to take that risk because first impressions are important and everyone wanted to win "Best New" -- but those assumptions may be out the window now.

[Eric Smith]

Thank you Tom.  And I do have THE guy for a super if we ever get to do it.  He is the reason I have always felt we could pull this off. Told him that today.  His budgets looked like a family of five's grocery budget, yet he delivered for his owners time and time again.

[Mike_Young]

Thanks for that Mike Young.  Always nice to read your take.  And Chip is always asking the type of questions that I'd like to know the answers to, so thank you too Chip.

May I ask a dumb question?  If irrigation is the single largest line item expense in the construction budget, upwards of $1M of a $2-3M budget I've been told, what alternatives, if any, are there to get that number down, besides cutting back on the # of heads? Are there any Chinese companies making heads and controllers at a fraction of the cost of using Toro or Rainbird or acme, etc? Is it at all possible that some new companies could emerge that could figure out how to irrigate golf courses at a fraction of the cost of today's market leaders?  I'm just wondering.  It is such a big expense and I'm just wondering if there is any way around it, even just a little bit. Thanks.

Eric,
Not a dumb question.
Irrigation has made giant strides in the last 20 years and there are several excellent companies at the forefront, IMHO Toro and Rainbird are the leaders.  They have done a great job and in so doing they educate the supts in their most current ways.  OK....good...BUT not many are educated in the OPTIONS if you don't wish to go with the finest.....

The object is to get water down in an efficient manner..right?    What can a course afford and do they have personnel that can operate it?  For instance I have/had a system in Costa Rica with all the whistles...they would rather just go to the controller and cut on the heads they need....my newest there....will have plenty of quick couplers and no central because that works better for that type of supt...AND at the other extreme I have seen some top of the line courses with the finest systems where the supt has several crews that just watch the greens and handwater..never using the system....
How do you cut?
One method....hire an irrigation contractor that actually gets in the ditch with his guys....right now this can go from $200 to $350 per head for a good contractor....
have the owner bid Toro and Rainbird against each other...( I just saw my home course where they let the supt handle the irrigation for a practice area project and he only wanted Rainbird so he paid what I can buy them over the counter ...he had zero clue)  An 855 toro head will end up around $100-$110...same for a Rainbird 900/950..don't buy the pipe from the irrigation distributor but from the pipe supplier...do the same with the wire ....
Now you have a contractor working at a per head price/ an owner buying materials directly and you have eliminated any markups from middlemen etc....
Really research the pumpstation.....
what type of water window will be needed....by this I mean if you have 1000 heads and they use 50 gpm and you have an 1800 gpm pumpstation that operates at 80 percent then you could run about 32 heads at a time..right?  OK if you need to run for 10 minutes per nite the you can figure from there....thats the window.....if you can use a longer window...you may get by with less station....

OK..the downside.....some archies will call the above irresponsible etc...but if the owner is willing to be involved in order to make these things work....IS IT?   The downside- some will say if there is a problem who do you go to ?  Can the contractor blame the head..or is it the pipe supplier..or is it the glue???  Yep...something to all of this but it comes down to what you can afford....
If a client can afford to do it with all general contractors then so be it...and also if time is a factor and you need a specific date to be completed and a  guarantee....BUT YOU PAY FOR ALL OF THAT.....
This make any sense?

[Eric Smith]

Good stuff Mike, thanks.

Another question: any market for used irrigation equipment, say from a relatively new NLE?  What do they do with those heads and related equipment?

[Mike_Young]

sometimes but be careful..don't skimp on equipment just middlemen.....and layers of supervisors....

[John_Conley]

Mike, great stuff.  Reminds me of the architect that says laying out the holes is the fun stuff, but only 10% of designing a course.  Most of the rest is boring detail work.  Lots of guys on this site - me included - are quick to comment on layout.  How many know enough to even get started in a discussion on drainage, irrigation, soils, grasses, etc...

Your posts just reaffirmed that I would be totally lost on a job site.  Thanks for the reminder.

[Eric Smith]

Let me ask another question.  When designing parallel holes in opposite directions, could you end up using fewer heads to irrigate the two holes if you design the holes as one big fairway?  I'm imagining say three heads wide this way as opposed to 4 heads wide (2 in each fairway) with a native buffer separating the two.  I know this is very generic in concept, but any merit to this at all?

[Yannick Pilon]

How to save construction costs? Irrigation costs?

What if we only irrigated greens???
What if we didn't build cart paths???
What if we used local materials in the greens and bunkers???
What if we used good old surface drainage as opposed to catch basins and underground pipes???
There are many more examples.

But isn't it how it was done before?  A lot of clubs in Quebec still don't have a full irrigation system, or they are still watering by hand using quick couplers in the center of the fairways, at best....  Most if not all of them did fine for all those years.  You wouldn't even need to build huge reservoirs and move hundreds of thousands of cubic meters of soils in the process....

The fairways would be dead, you say?  Or they would be too dry?  Oh my god, the ball would actually bounce or roll down the fairways, and react to contours?  There would not be any of those nice water hazards with fountains to look at while playing for five hours.  No containment mounding to ensure that you stay concentrated on your target while you wait to hit your next shot because you just drove straight to your ball using that nice asphalt cart path....

Mmmmm.  No, just forget the idea....  Nobody wants that....  How much fun would that be??

Forget it.

YP

(In case you didn't notice, I totally agree with Tom Doak on this topic.  The model needs to change.  Unfortunately, I don't have the feeling the North-American golfer is ready for this quite yet.)

[Tom_Doak]

John Conley:

I know more than one architect who would be completely lost by Mike's last post, too ... but they've managed to design a lot of courses by bidding the expensive way.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Tom Doak,

How much of the "cost to build" budget is occupied by remediation ?

Not that many years ago a friend of mine was building a golf course for public play.
I advised him to have it designed to keep maintainance to a minimum, rather than have it designed in an eye catching manner.

The cost to acquire land is difficult to overcome.

As to "pure" non-remedial construction costs, have they escalated over the years, or has the construction process become more streamlined, more efficient.

I don't see how many of these "costly" clubs are going to survive, especially when the have a "bring your own game" flavor.

Your thoughts ? 

[John Kirk]

Actually he is a slouch. He's bright as hell but he slouches. Every time I see him I try all kinds of ways to get him to stand up straight. I've told him to throw his shoulders back; I've told him to get the very tippee top of his head as high as he can and it works for a little while but then he seems to lose concentration----I guess he starts thinking of how to save the world economy or something---and he's right back to slouching again.

"Don't sell yourself short Judge, you're a tremendous slouch. ..."

Actually, I do slouch, hunching my shoulders forward in a submissive fashion.  Until today, when someone was kind enough to compliment me on (spoken very slowly with echo)  predicting the future.

No, I've never meet TE Paul.  How...did...he...know?

[John_Conley]

Let me ask another question.  When designing parallel holes in opposite directions, could you end up using fewer heads to irrigate the two holes if you design the holes as one big fairway?  I'm imagining say three heads wide this way as opposed to 4 heads wide (2 in each fairway) with a native buffer separating the two.  I know this is very generic in concept, but any merit to this at all?

How wide of a buffer?  I'd hate for someone to get plunked in the temple, die, and be the reason a lawsuit came to life.  "So you knew, Mr. Smith, that the hole widths weren't safe when you built the course and instead tried to reduce the construction cost by a few dollars by eliminating a couple sprinkler heads..."  Doesn't sound so good in that light.

I'm guessing the buffer would be too wide to eliminate heads.  Of course, if you can come up with non-irrigated areas that may accomplish the same thing.

[Tom_Doak]

Yes, John, that is one reason American courses cost so much more than courses in other countries ... we've got to design everything on the assumption that nobody will use any common sense when they are out there playing, and won't wait for a minute when there's a player on a different hole who might be in danger due to an errant shot.

Actually, it's even worse because we have to worry not only about where people hit the ball but where a cart will be driving ... the cone of safety has to include the cart paths on the side of the hole, and not just people walking down the middle from tee to fairway.

[Mike_Young]

Let me ask another question.  When designing parallel holes in opposite directions, could you end up using fewer heads to irrigate the two holes if you design the holes as one big fairway?  I'm imagining say three heads wide this way as opposed to 4 heads wide (2 in each fairway) with a native buffer separating the two.  I know this is very generic in concept, but any merit to this at all?

Eric,
Again....I am not saying to change design intent as such when trying to change cost....if what you suggest works in a specific area then sure...but only if you would have done it anyway..not to save on heads....I am saying just cut thru all the BS....eliminate the layers of consultants....As Tom says..get a supt that really wants to get in the dirt and do this stuff....
A stuffy as it can get with some archies..I still say we are close to a day when the architect will be on the site much more involved in the construction or he will not be working....plans are pretty but we do not play them...(don't say I said you don't need plans) a good routing plan....a good mainline irrigation plan....etc....    Understand that what I am telling you gets me in trouble..why..because ....it screws up the chain...so the other parts of the chain have to justify why it cannot work as such....and it doesn't in all cases...but will more and more in the  future....
Mike

[Eric Smith]

How wide of a buffer?  I'd hate for someone to get plunked in the temple, die, and be the reason a lawsuit came to life.  "So you knew, Mr. Smith, that the hole widths weren't safe when you built the course and instead tried to reduce the construction cost by a few dollars by eliminating a couple sprinkler heads..."  Doesn't sound so good in that light.

I'm guessing the buffer would be too wide to eliminate heads.  Of course, if you can come up with non-irrigated areas that may accomplish the same thing.

I would hate that too.  One of the many reasons I would have an architect on board.

I was asking a general question as to possibly eliminating heads and if it made sense.  The buffer I was picturing was longish fescue, precisely what we do today in many places on the property.  We mow down most of the fields, but also leave these long runs of the fescue to grow tall for the little animals, ducks and such to have to themselves.  We don't irrigate it.  It's really beautiful right now, blonde in color, reminds me of the drive into The Honors, with a view.  So the type buffer I had mentioned previously would be a non-irrigated area.

[Bill_McBride]

How to save construction costs? Irrigation costs?

What if we only irrigated greens???
What if we didn't build cart paths???
What if we used local materials in the greens and bunkers???
What if we used good old surface drainage as opposed to catch basins and underground pipes???
There are many more examples.

But isn't it how it was done before?  A lot of clubs in Quebec still don't have a full irrigation system, or they are still watering by hand using quick couplers in the center of the fairways, at best....  Most if not all of them did fine for all those years.  You wouldn't even need to build huge reservoirs and move hundreds of thousands of cubic meters of soils in the process....

The fairways would be dead, you say?  Or they would be too dry?  Oh my god, the ball would actually bounce or roll down the fairways, and react to contours?  There would not be any of those nice water hazards with fountains to look at while playing for five hours.  No containment mounding to ensure that you stay concentrated on your target while you wait to hit your next shot because you just drove straight to your ball using that nice asphalt cart path....

Mmmmm.  No, just forget the idea....  Nobody wants that....  How much fun would that be??

Forget it.

YP

(In case you didn't notice, I totally agree with Tom Doak on this topic.  The model needs to change.  Unfortunately, I don't have the feeling the North-American golfer is ready for this quite yet.)

Have you been talking to Melvyn Morrow again?   

[Bill_McBride]

Yes, John, that is one reason American courses cost so much more than courses in other countries ... we've got to design everything on the assumption that nobody will use any common sense when they are out there playing, and won't wait for a minute when there's a player on a different hole who might be in danger due to an errant shot.

Actually, it's even worse because we have to worry not only about where people hit the ball but where a cart will be driving ... the cone of safety has to include the cart paths on the side of the hole, and not just people walking down the middle from tee to fairway.

So, Tom, I guess we won't see any Painswicks built in the future?   That place was too funny, with the walkers, picnickers, dogs, golfers coming at you from the opposite direction on most of the holes, and lots of blind shots thrown in.  I am so happy to have visited there a couple of times, otherwise I wouldn't believe it existed!

[Eric Smith]

Eric,
Again....I am not saying to change design intent as such when trying to change cost....if what you suggest works in a specific area then sure...but only if you would have done it anyway..not to save on heads....I am saying just cut thru all the BS....eliminate the layers of consultants....As Tom says..get a supt that really wants to get in the dirt and do this stuff....
A stuffy as it can get with some archies..I still say we are close to a day when the architect will be on the site much more involved in the construction or he will not be working....plans are pretty but we do not play them...(don't say I said you don't need plans) a good routing plan....a good mainline irrigation plan....etc....    Understand that what I am telling you gets me in trouble..why..because ....it screws up the chain...so the other parts of the chain have to justify why it cannot work as such....and it doesn't in all cases...but will more and more in the  future....
Mike

I have to head out now, but Mike I appreciate you answering my questions and the details you continue to provide, but please don't get yourself in trouble!    Again as I answered John Conley, I don't have specific reasons to save heads, I am just asking general questions about saving costs.  I sort of recall Don Mahaffey once describing his and Mike's irrigation design at Wolf Point - I'll try to find that thread and reread it tonight.

I'll call you sometime soon.

Eric

[David Lott]

One bit of good news is that well designed courses that are relatively inexpensive to maintain will increase in value as new construction remains in the tank. This will be true of private courses, privately owned public courses and munis, all in different degrees. It will especially be true of older courses in relatively densely populated areas, where the land cost was minuscule in comparison to replacement. These courses will become economically more viable over the next 5-15 years, not less.

After 1929 a lot of courses closed, and most that stayed open had to cut costs ruthlessly. This resulted in a maintenance standard that we would find unacceptable today, but even today we will find that maintenance practices will change in reaction to cost. Also many courses will get repriced. The current ownership and members will be washed out, and new buyers at lower and more viable prices will appear. This will not be a uniform or fast process, and some courses will be unsuitable to this evolution. Others will probably be able to survive in the current form, assuming that another economic earthquake does not hit (not necessarily a correct assumption.)

The archies are like everyone else--hurt by something that is largely not their fault or within their control. Though not without fault, they have been responding to demand, by and large, rather than creating the demand for the megacost project.

The best courses will mostly survive, as they did after the 1920's, though it will be a close sometimes as it was then. (Think Cypress Point.) But the game will probably prosper, especially if it gets relatively cheaper.

The architects deserve our sympathy and support. They will have to slash overhead, rethink processes, become experts at reducing the cost of production. It has been done in manufacturing and can be done be done in building golf courses. Architects might also do well to become even more expert in maintenance issues, and to create maintenance consultancy that will add value.

There are not many people who can build a great golf course with an unrestrained budget. There will be even less who will be able to do so on a lean budget. Those who learn how will likely build some real gems and create a wonderful legacy.