Best Value Architects

[Brian Phillips]

I can assure you nobody in the UK has been cheaper in the UK building golf courses to the quality I have over the last 20 years.
In the UK we are bare bones because we dont do the real estate thing, I am very limited what I can spend and typically I get it all done for about £1,000,000 (2010 price) a lof of my 90s projects were coming in at £600,000. With the right site and landfill I can probably build a golf course for minus £1,000,000.

That is a statement you cannot justify Adrian and I am sure there are a number of Architects that I know would strongly disagree with you including myself and Graeme.  How much do actually know about the Scottish market and what has been built or rebuilt in the last 20 years?

Cheap (IMHO) does not always mean value for money.

[Jud_T]

From the cheap seats:

Best Value Architect-  Mother Nature

[Tim Nugent]

Intersting list.  Another reason why the Golden age architects were better than modern day architects.  You could have got Alister MacKenzie for 1/1000th of the cost of Jeff Brauer.

Really???  You could get Mac for $250? (without accounting for inflation?)  Did you even think before penning this? Since Economics doesn't appear to be your strong suit, here's a little Rule of Thumb that may help - The Rule of 72.  Money doubles when the time multiplied by int rate = 72.  So 90 years ago @ say 5% inflation per annum,  money to double every 15 yrs. So in 90 yrs it is worth a factor of 6.

So, even straight-up Jeff would have charged $3,906 - Oh but wait, he  has alot more to do to satisfy a much more restrictive deveolping environment and he has to account for insurance and a different tax system. 

[Adrian_Stiff]

If there is such a thing as a best value archie it has to be a guy who delivers what it says on the tin he sold to the owners.  Cost has nothing to do with it.  Whether or not courses close has nothing to do with it.  

Ciao

Have another think about this Sean.

A lot of golf course constructions go over budget and that can hurt the client so not delivering what it says on the tin.
A sucssessfull golf course is a popular one, people like it, like = good value.
The posts question was more about "value" than who does the best work. So Cost must come into it.
I can assure you nobody in the UK has been cheaper in the UK building golf courses to the quality I have over the last 20 years.
In the UK we are bare bones because we dont do the real estate thing, I am very limited what I can spend and typically I get it all done for about £1,000,000 (2010 price) a lof of my 90s projects were coming in at £600,000. With the right site and landfill I can probably build a golf course for minus £1,000,000.

Adrian

A successful, money making course, may have little to do with the design.  Much of this has to do with the management of the course and other factors.   I fundamentally disagree here Sean, if the golf course is no good, you cant manage it to be good, I am not taking about municipal type golf I am talking about a product capabe of staging a county championship. I accept you can just have a field do very little and it yields dollars.

Any competent archie can build very expensively or very cheaply.  Doing either is no great skill. Getting a product that is capable of staging a county championship and buiding it cheaply is a great skill The skill is in the finished product as outlined on the tin. Other than the usual suspects of on budget, on time and meeting the brief, one of the most important questions is did the archie make the right choices on where he should cut corners due to the budget? I think I know where I can cut corners more importantly I know where I cant Are the holes compelling? If the course stages a county championship then I would say yes. Does the course drain well? Thats an early decsion in and suitability rather than good/bad architecture. Its an aspect of construction that can be added to in time, its never easy to know what your wet areas are going to be until after construction, but there are some obvious descions that may go into shaping to deflect water What does it cost to maintain the course? That can be discussed at an eary stage with a client and what he wants to spend you can design too, but that is very clearly in my process All archies say they will deliver a great course for the money, but we all know there are only great courses and the rest.  That doesn't mean there isn't worthwhile golf to be played that isn't great, but the punter doesn't care about budgets, legal issues etc.etc.  The punter cares about the course he will play and what it costs to play.  If the owner thinks cheap and cheerful will sell and thats what you give him - you are a high value archie because you met the brief.  To say its a great skill to build a course for a miilion when the budget calls for a million is an odd thing to boast about.  Now if you can come in under budget and show how saving that money hasn't hurt the quality of the course or raised maintenance costs - excellent - you are even a better value archie.  Like the golfer can believe that both expensive and costly golf can be great value, so too is it true about archies.  Most clients wants someone that keeps to the plan, sady in ife most people dissapoint and do not deliver ontime and on budget, my last course I built cost -£1,350,000... thats I built it for nothing and made a profit of £1,350,000. The previous 4 courses I have done have all been built for net nothing, now you ofcourse have to factor that by quality and they might not be courses you may like but my best got ranked 113 in the 2006 Best in GB & Ire, at least half of them got **** 4 stars in Golf World, 12 Europro tour events have been held on them, countless Jamega tour events, 5 West Region PGA championships, County championships etc.

Ciao

[Sean_A]

If there is such a thing as a best value archie it has to be a guy who delivers what it says on the tin he sold to the owners.  Cost has nothing to do with it.  Whether or not courses close has nothing to do with it.  

Ciao

Have another think about this Sean.

A lot of golf course constructions go over budget and that can hurt the client so not delivering what it says on the tin.
A sucssessfull golf course is a popular one, people like it, like = good value.
The posts question was more about "value" than who does the best work. So Cost must come into it.
I can assure you nobody in the UK has been cheaper in the UK building golf courses to the quality I have over the last 20 years.
In the UK we are bare bones because we dont do the real estate thing, I am very limited what I can spend and typically I get it all done for about £1,000,000 (2010 price) a lof of my 90s projects were coming in at £600,000. With the right site and landfill I can probably build a golf course for minus £1,000,000.

Adrian

A successful, money making course, may have little to do with the design.  Much of this has to do with the management of the course and other factors.   I fundamentally disagree here Sean, if the golf course is no good, you cant manage it to be good, I am not taking about municipal type golf I am talking about a product capabe of staging a county championship. I accept you can just have a field do very little and it yields dollars.

Any competent archie can build very expensively or very cheaply.  Doing either is no great skill. Getting a product that is capable of staging a county championship and buiding it cheaply is a great skill The skill is in the finished product as outlined on the tin. Other than the usual suspects of on budget, on time and meeting the brief, one of the most important questions is did the archie make the right choices on where he should cut corners due to the budget? I think I know where I can cut corners more importantly I know where I cant Are the holes compelling? If the course stages a county championship then I would say yes. Does the course drain well? Thats an early decsion in and suitability rather than good/bad architecture. Its an aspect of construction that can be added to in time, its never easy to know what your wet areas are going to be until after construction, but there are some obvious descions that may go into shaping to deflect water What does it cost to maintain the course? That can be discussed at an eary stage with a client and what he wants to spend you can design too, but that is very clearly in my process All archies say they will deliver a great course for the money, but we all know there are only great courses and the rest.  That doesn't mean there isn't worthwhile golf to be played that isn't great, but the punter doesn't care about budgets, legal issues etc.etc.  The punter cares about the course he will play and what it costs to play.  If the owner thinks cheap and cheerful will sell and thats what you give him - you are a high value archie because you met the brief.  To say its a great skill to build a course for a miilion when the budget calls for a million is an odd thing to boast about.  Now if you can come in under budget and show how saving that money hasn't hurt the quality of the course or raised maintenance costs - excellent - you are even a better value archie.  Like the golfer can believe that both expensive and costly golf can be great value, so too is it true about archies.  Most clients wants someone that keeps to the plan, sady in ife most people dissapoint and do not deliver ontime and on budget, my last course I built cost -£1,350,000... thats I built it for nothing and made a profit of £1,350,000. The previous 4 courses I have done have all been built for net nothing, now you ofcourse have to factor that by quality and they might not be courses you may like but my best got ranked 113 in the 2006 Best in GB & Ire, at least half of them got **** 4 stars in Golf World, 12 Europro tour events have been held on them, countless Jamega tour events, 5 West Region PGA championships, County championships etc.

Ciao

Adrian

When did the proviso of holding a county championship get introduced into the discussion? For that matter, I think there are a lot of excellent courses that will never hold a county championship.  What the heck difference does the it make?  Its almost a dead certainty for a new course to hold a county championship it must first be relatively long.  I am not biting on this artificial criteria.

Ciao

[Adrian_Stiff]

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so your good or my good are gonna be hard to measure. In my eyes a course that holds a county championship is a reasonable course, I would be very suprised if you could name me a top 200 course that has not held one, but then again we are down to whose top 200. The information I have has Brora which was ranked 99 in 2006 GB & I as the highest ranking course never to have held a tournament at County level or better ( I dont have Irish info) others are Queenwood, Archerfield, Carneigie Club, Fraserburgh, Shiskine.

[Sean_A]

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so your good or my good are gonna be hard to measure. In my eyes a course that holds a county championship is a reasonable course, I would be very suprised if you could name me a top 200 course that has not held one, but then again we are down to whose top 200. The information I have has Brora which was ranked 99 in 2006 GB & I as the highest ranking course never to have held a tournament at County level or better ( I dont have Irish info) others are Queenwood, Archerfield, Carneigie Club, Fraserburgh, Shiskine.

Adrian

While it is true that we likely disagree, at least to some degree, on what is a course of reasonable quality (my standard would actually be quite low), I still contend that reasonable quality is nowhere near the measure of a good value archie. I continue to put forward that course design is not all that is required for a course to be successful nor is success a proper measure of a good value archie. 

BTW - Lord help us if the standard for course quality is hosting tournaments, especially ones which are virtually insignificant to all but the handful of folks who participate in them.

Ciao

Ciao 

[Adrian_Stiff]

Sean- What this once again shows is how this sites mindset can be minority opinion. Logically in 90% of peoples minds tournaments go the best courses. Its only this site that has thoughts away from that. If you looked at anyones UK top 100 (unless they were compiled by a madman) The courses nearer the top would have staged the better tournaments and as you go down the list the courses would have staged lesser events until number 2576 which might be a 9 holer on the side of a hill. There are aspects how you can benchmark the better courses and create objective lists (highest price of green fee - long courses ) you wont like them for starters but they will readily appear against the higher placed courses on the list. I am with you that Pennard should be placed much higher on the lists but it must slip up for the quirky things  that you love and conditioning that you overlook when you evaluate your best courses, it is opinion and theres nothing wrong in that.... what is true is the Belfry is a top 10 UK course on many peoples list. Hard to argue with subjective stuff I suppose.