[David_Tepper]

Garland -

It has been a good 8-10 years since I read the book.  My recollection is that the book is a good account of how the GCA had to design a golf course in the land allocated to him by the property developer and how that land was very much less than optimal.  I suspect that is often the case.

Having recommended the book to others, I think I will re-read it myself!

DT       

[Garland Bayley]

...My recollection is that the book is a good account of how the GCA had to design a golf course in the land allocated to him by the property developer and how that land was very much less than optimal. ...

Presumably land "very much less than optimal" is less expensive land. My question is in the long run does it turn out less expensive or more expensive. Build homes in a reclaimed swamp and you have to fight decay and termites, and I don't know what else. Build the same home on the sand belt, and I presume building cost will be lower, and maintenance cost will be lower.

So aren't all better off using land suited to the purpose?

[JC Jones]

Why can't you all get it through your heads that there are NO courses in Florida built on swamps or land that has every been a swamp.  In fact, there aren't even any swamps in Florida.

[Steve Lang]

  must be the cold numbing brain cells

[David_Tepper]

Garland -

At the risk of re-stating the obvious, to be commercial viable, most golf courses have to be built near where most people live.

Most golfers who live in Ft. Lauderdale or Miami or Naples would prefer to play golf within 15-20 minutes of where they live rather drive an hour or two or more into the center of the state to play golf built on a course built on land perfectly fit for purpose.

DT    

[David_Tepper]

Garland -

I have found my copy of Strawn's book. It appears your recollections of it are more than a little hazy.

From Herbert Warren Wind's review of the book, "Building a first-class golf course these days in the harsh wetlands of North Palm Beach has become a Byzantine undertaking."

From the NY Times Book Review, "A golf course (especially a Florida golf course) is a triumph of technology over nature." (italics mine)

From the Los Angeles Times, "Readers get crash courses in real estate, government, drainage, landscape architecture and (naturally) grass"

This book was written in 1991, about a golf course built 20 years ago. I cannot imagine the red tape and other obstacles needed to be over come before building a golf course in Florida (or any where else) have become any easier since then.

DT

[Dean Stokes]

IMHO, flat land cost more to build in many cases and if the water table is just a few feet below then it will cost even more.  BUT IMHO it is easier for an architect to design because an architect can do it without really having to "find" the golf course.  In other words he doesn't have to have good routing skills to put the course there.  It's all made by him.  Actually there are Florida courses that one could take from site to site...
I still think that this site doesn't give some of these premier courses the credit they deserve for the routings.  The routing is still IMHO the most critical part to a golf course and is the hardest aspect to learn.....that's is why I have such a problem with some "restoration expert" hype.  
So in my book......the flat Florida course is easier...especially for a production house ..finding a contiguous course ( not one hole) on a piece of land takes much more talent than creating one....     P.S.  same thought process for some of these development courses with holes a half mile apart.....

Thanks for answering my original question Mr. Young. Appreciated. In fact what you are saying is the opposite of what I thought. I did not realise fully the impotance of routing and presumed that on a rolling piece of land it would be easier to find the holes as the movemant was already there - you don't have to build it. Wong again

[Garland Bayley]

Garland -

I have found my copy of Strawn's book. It appears your recollections of it are more than a little hazy.

From Herbert Warren Wind's review of the book, "Building a first-class golf course these days in the harsh wetlands of North Palm Beach has become a Byzantine undertaking."

From the NY Times Book Review, "A golf course (especially a Florida golf course) is a triumph of technology over nature." (italics mine)

From the Los Angeles Times, "Readers get crash courses in real estate, government, drainage, landscape architecture and (naturally) grass"

This book was written in 1991, about a golf course built 20 years ago. I cannot imagine the red tape and other obstacles needed to be over come before building a golf course in Florida (or any where else) have become any easier since then.

DT

So you're telling me that because the reviewers didn't mention the horse ranch, it wasn't built on a former horse ranch?

Read the book David!

Obviously there may have been wetlands. Even arid Montana cattle ranches have wetlands.

[Garland Bayley]

Garland -

At the risk of re-stating the obvious, to be commercial viable, most golf courses have to be built near where most people live.

Most golfers who live in Ft. Lauderdale or Miami or Naples would prefer to play golf within 15-20 minutes of where they live rather drive an hour or two or more into the center of the state to play golf built on a course built on land perfectly fit for purpose.

DT    

As you saw, my example was Sawgrass. I asked why would a golf organization (PGA Tour) choose to build on a land not suited to the purpose.

Clearly metropolitan areas need to have their golf courses nearby.

However, the lead post on this thread mentioned a golf course built on a swamp. My intention was to discuss the choice of building the course on a swamp, presumably because the land was cheap, vs. building in a location suited to the purpose. I don't know for sure there are no swamps in metropolitan areas of Florida, but I presume they would be few and far between if there were any.

[David_Tepper]

Garland -

If I have a choice between siding with Mr. Wind or yourself over what are the most salient features of the book, I think we both know who wins that vote!

DT

[Garland Bayley]

Iron horse was built on Grier Ranch that was used to pasture horses and graze cattle.

Quoting John Strawn in Chapter 6 beginning. "I spent a lot the the summer of 1988 walking the grounds of Ironhorse, a copy of Art Hills's routing plan tucked under my arm, trying to discover what in the site might have inspired the shape or encouraged the features he planned for the golf course. What I saw mostly was an accumulated tension between Ironhorse's native south Florida flatness, its topographical ineffability, and the contours proposed by Hills's design. At Ironhorse, unlike a site with geographically derived shapes, the cavas was blank. Laying it out was a pure problem of design. Every bump, every swale, every mound and bunker grew first on a drafting table in Toledo, Ohio. Ironhorse had no gullies to ford, or hills to level, just a flat receptive surface awaiting what Mike Dasher called the "sculpture by addition" that golf architects perform in south Florida. Ironhorse had lots of vegetation, but no movement in the ground."

Naturally when you do "sculpture by addition" you create wetlands (ponds) by subtraction.
I think Mr. Wind used a bit of hyperbole.

[David_Tepper]

Garland -

The only reason the Grier Ranch became as pasture land for grazing horses and cows was that Mr. Grier used ditches, canals and pumps to drain the wetlands & marshes that covered the property 20-25 years before the golf course was built. Today, those actions would violate Federal law.

But that is not really the point, is it? What the book clearly illustrates is that building a golf course is a complex process that consumes both time and capital, whether it is built on land fit for purpose or otherwise.

DT       

[Garland Bayley]

Agreed. It was drained well before the golf course seed was implanted in Mr. Sher's head.

Building a shanty in the Ozarks takes time and capital.

My point is, and Tom D seems to be making the same point on the parallel thread. The question is relatively how much time and capital.

...So, I do not agree with you that there's nothing on that list I wouldn't want to have.  Maybe there ARE sites that need all of them, but maybe that's a sign that you are treading on thin ice building a course on that site.  Nevertheless, it's the fact that such things have become considered "top of the line" instead of "over the top" that drove construction costs to the breaking point in the past 5-10 years. 

I.e., you build on the wrong site and your costs are "over the top".

Unfortunately for Sawgrass, Bill and Ben, and Tom hadn't been around showing how it could be done better back then.

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