Looking for work....

[paul cowley]

Since last Oct I have made two trips to Morocco, two trips to Panama, one trip to China, and two trips to Mexico, and have drawn preliminary routings for each...all at owners requests. Nothing in the States. None have materialized as of yet, most reside in limbo status.

Anyone care to share?

[Peter Pallotta]

Can't share, Paul, as I'm at the opposite end of the spectrum, i.e. have not travelled once in the last year, but I have a steady job...and yet, strangely, that sucks too!!

But it struck me that most of reality has actually not "materialized as of yet", and that therefore most of us are "just in limbo status".

Eh? Heh? What do you think of THAT? Cool, huh? Sort of like what a stoned college kid would say to his room mate while watching Final Four basketball and eating Cheesies....

Makes me feel young at heart....

Best

P

[paul cowley]

....stoned could once again become an option....or blotter to maybe make something 'materialize'

best...paul

[paul cowley]

Peter....btw I love 'eh'...brings me back to my youthfull forays into Montreal and Quebec City and one of my first girl friends from there...Joanne Bejin...or was it Bejean? Wish she might materialize!

[Greg Tallman]

Peter....btw I love 'eh'...brings me back to my youthfull forays into Montreal and Quebec City and one of my first girl friends from there...Joanne Bejin...or was it Bejean? Wish she might materialize!

Just come hang out in Cabo Paul, things do seem to materialze round these parts... not sure it would involve golf course design but would likely be interesting.

[Bill_McBride]

At least you're going to interesting places!

[Tom_Doak]

Paul:

What you are describing is the nature of the business nowadays.  I've been to China, Spain, and France, and fielded calls from Australia, New Zealand, Costa Rica, and Argentina, but have only looked at one potential new project in the U.S.

And every single client in the world [rich, poor, or in-between] wants to set up the contract on what the NFL would call a "game-day decision".

Hang in there, dude.  You ought to get busy again if any of these clients gets up off their wallet long enough to make a grab for it.

[Mike_Young]

Paul,
I think what you describe is common...and was probably very common back in the ODG days....I have done a lot of the same things you describe re routings etc but have now begun to give it second thoughts....so many of these owners really have no idea and after seeing a few estimates etc they start to rethink....IMHO we have a ways to go before this thing is over....and I think we all have to devlop a "hybrid" way of remaining in this business.  While I love designing/building golf projects...I still want a decent living and there are not many architects doing that with golf design so they better figure out how to mix it up....buy a course or something....we wiil crawl out of this thing not sprint....long way to go...cheers...

[Peter Pallotta]

Sounds like those creeps know that times are tough and so a lot of them are just kicking the tires and playing at being big shots and happily taking advantage of you. Maybe it's time for you gents to start playing hard to get -- pretend it's boom time and give 'em nothing at all until you believe they are serious. Didn't Pete Dye play that game, play hard to get and disinterested until he knew the money was on the table? Granted, it takes more guts to do that when times are tough, but I think the alternative is worse -- a long recession because of self fulfilling prophecy.
P

[Travis Dewire]

....stoned could once again become an option....or blotter to maybe make something 'materialize'

best...paul

lol! Paul you are one groovey dude for "droppin" that line !!!

Look for work in Amsterdam!

[Tom_Doak]

Peter:

Your analysis is spot on, but it's pretty hard to bluff when there are 100 people standing behind you making faces at the other guy.

"A long recession because of self-fulfilling prophecy."  That's an excellent way to look at it.  I've been pretty gloomy about the state of the world for the past couple of years, and in thinking through it, so much of everything now is based on negative expectations, just like so much of everything in 2005-06 was based on rose-colored thinking.  It's the same world, and mostly the same players, but there is just no confidence anywhere today*, whereas before there was no thought of failure.  I always knew that attitude was a key to success, but never realized how much impact the collective attitude of the population could influence the real state of things.


(* That is, apart from the idiot bankers who think they are all geniuses again because they've managed not to blow up our bailout money for two whole years, and the cheerleading politicians and media who want us to think they have fixed things for us.)

[Mike Nuzzo]

Maybe it's time for you gents to start playing hard to get -- pretend it's boom time and give 'em nothing at all until you believe they are serious.

That is a good idea Peter.
Let me know about them so I can undercut those hard ballers.

Bill there is nothing fun about going to interesting places at a loss.
Even Tom is thinking about that crazy contest for the free plane ticket to China.

Cheers

[Bill_McBride]

Maybe it's time for you gents to start playing hard to get -- pretend it's boom time and give 'em nothing at all until you believe they are serious.

Bill there is nothing fun about going to interesting places at a loss.
Even Tom is thinking about that crazy contest for the free plane ticket to China.

Cheers

Hmmm, wouldn't those "clients" at least front the airfare for such a mission?   You could run through some serious cash on Paul's itinerary!

[Mike_Young]

Maybe it's time for you gents to start playing hard to get -- pretend it's boom time and give 'em nothing at all until you believe they are serious.

Bill there is nothing fun about going to interesting places at a loss.
Even Tom is thinking about that crazy contest for the free plane ticket to China.

Cheers

Hmmm, wouldn't those "clients" at least front the airfare for such a mission?   You could run through some serious cash on Paul's itinerary!

Cheers
[/quote]



Bill,
That's the problem...you got to weigh it out....in the last few months I have decided I have zero desire to work in China....nobody there can play golf..the guys i have dealt with don't do business like we do here and we are doing the same thing we did here for the last twenty five years....all for RE development....and we know it...
I will take my chances in Latin America and a few here and there in the States....

[Brett_Morrissy]

I feel for you guys, and hope that you will all get to fight another day - to me it seems the 'good' projects seem to involve good working relationaships and genuine people who are up front and straight with each other. It seems it has always been that way? a bit like life, and perhaps working on your genuine people radar may be of greater benefit than using tactics to to fool potential project partners - look for a stronger 'filter' for the real opportunities and don't bother with the tire kickers.

Paul: that is a lot of travel in the 6 months - how many do you think are real potentials? I know positives don't pay the bills - but there must be something to glean from each time you investigate a new project?

Tom: can you expand on NFL reference - [set up the contract on what the NFL would call a "game-day decision".] please?

[Jeff_Brauer]

I guess I have been a little luckier than most, with Firekeeper last year and La Costa this year in the States, plus the usual little stuff.  Not a great living, but a living.  Someone at GIS estimated that with those two projects, I had 20% of the US market the last two years! Its not true, of course, but there still aren't loads of projects out there.

I have had trouble in the remodel market.  It seems someone drops price, does a lot of free stuff, adds services, or just plain out hustles me on many of those.   I am currently doing lots of little feasibility stuff for guys buying existing or bankrupt courses, and others in the feasibility biz report being swamped, so it appears the slow trickle of money back into golf is starting.

I am looking in China, of course, but not going to spend bazillions running to golf shows.

I agree on the confidence thing.   In reality, it will keep going because it has to keep going - America isn't going anywhere, and everyone needs it to keep going.  We all have too much invested. 

[Tom_Doak]

Brett:

The NFL requires teams to prepare an injury report every week detailing all the players who are injured and whether or not they will play, dividing the players into probable or questionable or a few other categories.  The coaches always say it's a "game-time decision" whether the questionable players will play that week or not.

It's the same with developers now.  They all want to put off the decision on whether to move forward (and whether to pay the architect) until the absolute last minute, and after that, they want to be able to pull the plug at a moment's notice and stop paying.  There is zero confidence in the business world nowadays ... they are all waiting for the other shoe to drop on the economy, genuine people or not.  You seem to be insulated from this in Australia ... so far!!!

[Don_Mahaffey]

Jobs are tough to come by for sure and I do believe here in the states we're going to see a new way of doing business. I don't think there is going to be as much money in design and if your going to make it you'll need to bring a lot more to the table then construction drawings. But even then, its still really tough to get work.

I'm not an architect, but I have helped on a few proposals with construction budgets/time-lines, irrigation ideas, maintenance plans, those sorts of things.

I worked on one recently where we made what I thought was the perfect pitch to solve a problem. City course, city struggling to make ends meet, yet they wanted to do a lake renovation project. Lake served no functional purpose and was basically a mud hole. Budget was right around 1 million. They had all kinds of lake contractors and water feature guys involved. We pitched an idea that got rid of the lake and used a barranca type feature that was very low maintenance, added strategy, and was way, way under budget...thinking they wanted to save money with the project and future maintenance costs. What did they do? Took our proposal and reissued the RFP using our plan and of course hired the firm they'd wanted all along.. How you like them apples? That's the business we're in.

[Adrian_Stiff]

Other than the far east, there is virtually no work. I think the situation will be the same until 2025. We will lose this generation of architects. I turned a job down in Korea as it was somewhere I did not want to spend a year, if one landed on my mat tommorow I would be the same. Mike Young is spot on .... do something else.... IT IS OVER.

The little work that is out there, lots are chasing. I just lost a 9 hole par 3 design to another architect. I quoted £22,000 for routing, grading, tree planting, green design drawing, sectional drawings for planning, plus 40 half days on site.... I got beat by another architect who sliced my price by £10,000. If the client is going for an architect on price and he has been happy with two other course I did for him... its NO HOPE for me. To be honest £22,000 was cheap, if it was 100 miles further away I would have been £42,000.

[Scott Warren]

Adrian:

I just lost a 9 hole par 3 design to another architect. I quoted £22,000 for routing, grading, tree planting, green design drawing, sectional drawings for planning, plus 40 half days on site.... I got beat by another architect who sliced my price by £10,000. If the client is going for an architect on price and he has been happy with two other course I did for him... its NO HOPE for me. To be honest £22,000 was cheap, if it was 100 miles further away I would have been £42,000.

That's the second time you've made allegations about that and I reckon it's pretty poor form.

[Adrian_Stiff]

Adrian:

I just lost a 9 hole par 3 design to another architect. I quoted £22,000 for routing, grading, tree planting, green design drawing, sectional drawings for planning, plus 40 half days on site.... I got beat by another architect who sliced my price by £10,000. If the client is going for an architect on price and he has been happy with two other course I did for him... its NO HOPE for me. To be honest £22,000 was cheap, if it was 100 miles further away I would have been £42,000.

That's the second time you've made allegations about that and I reckon it's pretty poor form.

Scott - I might make them a third and fourth too. As for what you think *********

[David_Elvins]

As for what you think *********

Classy.

[James Boon]

Scott,

Until you've experienced that type of thing happening to you, it does look like poor form to make such statement, but unfortunately these type of things happen all the time in the building line of architecture, so I'm not surprised they happen in golf course architecture. Competitive fee bids, especially in such market conditions can be so daft, its just not worth thinking about. But having said that, there are often other circumstances that one wont always be aware of and what can seem like a stupidly low fee to one will be perfectly reasonable to another.

I really feel for a lot of the golf course architects on here! 17 or 18 years ago when I was trying to decide what to study at university, I really, and I mean really, wanted to be a golf course architect, so I was looking at landscape architecture as a starting point, but ended up studying building architecture instead as I always thought I could switch at a later date. As it turns out I fell in love with building architecture, but even back then I could see that there was a limited amount of work for golf course architects, with most of the work appearing to be abroad, and loving links and heathland courses I just didn't want that.

As far as the UK market is concerned, perhaps in the future there will be a boom in renovations of the classic Colt or Mackenzie or Fowler courses, similar to how there appears to have been in the US? There was also an article in Golf Course Architecture that was seeing Holland as a boom location so perhaps there is some work there? Fingers crossed that things pick up for everyone!

Cheers,

James

[Adrian_Stiff]

I dont see the 'poor form' bit. What is poor form? We are discussing the lack of work in golf course architecture, I am relating a story of what is happening in my little world, few jobs and the price cutting. I am lucky I don't need the work to survive, I really don't see the problem...I put a price in, someone undercut it...they need the work.... its life.

[Jud_T]

It may be little consolation, but I can tell you that on the building architect side things are as bad or worse.  Clients are asking architects to do huge proposals gratis just to get a chance to compete with 25 others for the few scraps that are out there.  In addition, some of the professional organizations have relaxed rules so now this practice is much more prevalent.  World renowned architects are either retiring, closing up shop, teaching, or doing major downsizing.  Not surprising in light of the RE bubble bursting I guess, but I'm talking about big name guys with long careers simply packing it in because there's no work or it's simply too hard at their age to bother.  Talk about thinning the herd.  If my kid were going to Architecture school I'd tell him/her to take a bartending class as well.