The problem with golf in the States....

[Mike_Young]

Mike,

A number of recent mom and pop courses around here were built without GCA support.  They do well, but they invariably suffer from architectural issues.

If these are the courses thatvare going to make it, how do you get the builders and owners to engage professionals so the finished products avoid the avoidable flaws?

Dave

David,
You do get them to engage professionals....they will not do it...
For the last 50 years groups have tried to justify golf architecture as an industry or as a profession but I am not sure it is....it is a cottage industry at best....1500 people on this site become excited about it and the rest of the golf world really could care less...the day of paper without the ability to put it in the ground is not in demand.......they want good greens...and after that tees, bunkers and fairways....

[Terry Lavin]

I agree with MY's central thesis here, which I would colloquially describe as: "Overkill will kill golf in the States."  That overkill can come in terms of being too aggressive with design, too generous with chemicals, too generous with water, too fussy about the appearance of the golf course, too ritzy in general, etc.  "Keep it simple, stupid," could be a good motto here.  It works for many places, but not too many, unfortunately.

[Brent Hutto]

I'm one of the 1500 but, similar to my statements in another recent thread, if you give me an interesting set of greens in good condition and well-drained soil with firm turf you've given me at least 80-90% of a fine golf course. It's mostly a matter of not screwing up the routing too badly and incorporating at least a bit of contour from tee to green to get that up to 95%.

The other 5% comes from either a brilliant location (an ocean helps!) or an inspired architect. But I can live without that last 5%, especially if I can get a good hamburger after my round...or something better than Bud Light to drink...

[Joshua Pettit]

A picture is worth a thousand words...

[Bill_McBride]

Delamere Forest, one of the best maintained courses in Cheshire, is maintained all year round by five staff, including the course manager. That includes drainage, rebuilding bunkers, relaying tees, keeping woodland growth down, satisfying ecological demands and producing the quickest greens (day to day) in Cheshire apart from Hoylake.

The UK model for me any day.   Delamere Forest is one of the nicest days I've ever spent on the golf course.

[Bruce Katona]

I recently visited 3 courses here in the Northeast.  All doing ok, making an operating profit for their owners.  mainteence staff for each was 8 toatl, including the Super & his assistant.  Maintenance budgets were $525,000-$550,000 annually, which included labor, fertilizer, chemicals and some equipment leases.

Each course could use 2 additional full-time (or 4 part-time) laborers and an additonal $50,000 in the fert./chem budget, as the tees were a bit worn and traffic showed on the green walk-off areas. For $625,000-$650,000 each facilty could be best of class in their marketplace, thus capturing a larger perentage of available play.

All of the courses were not F&F, but not Augusta green either.  Very comfortable conditions for early June in the Northeast.

[Scott Furlong]

Steve and Grant,
If that’s your trophy, I can do it (major tournament) with less people, that’s great.  I don’t know what to tell you that might change your mind or make you understand.  What I do know; Congo sits on a very large piece of property and it’s not a crime to have 13 mowers on a fairway or 500 greens mowers.  They had volunteers from all over the world…….12 Aussie Sups, vendors, etc…   Great experience for all that helped and they get to put it on their resume…….that might be another problem with the States…..I don’t know but it seems a bit childish to criticize a bunch of people (or the States) working hard to prepare the whole property and get off the property before the first tee time of a major tournament.  On a serious note, I think I can do it with 3 people....check that 4 people.                     

[Jeff_Brauer]

Mike,

You are missing the obvious - if they had built a simple local course, would you have gone from GA to NC to play it?  Would you be discussing it?  How many threads here are about "my day at a bunkerless muni 500 miles from home?"

Granted, if its SN, the expense was probably more than justified.  But, how many courses are that overbuilt.  And, technically, its not a "golf in America problem" its a "Golf in Native America" problem.......

[Jim_Kennedy]

SN has the same deal that was mentioned in the first post, $300 to 'join' gets you $35 green fees.

The Indians ought to be ashamed of themselves, along with RTJ jr and anyone else who was involved with visiting such a blight on what was a  relatively  pristine woodland. 

[Tom_Doak]

I'm one of the 1500 but, similar to my statements in another recent thread, if you give me an interesting set of greens in good condition and well-drained soil with firm turf you've given me at least 80-90% of a fine golf course. It's mostly a matter of not screwing up the routing too badly and incorporating at least a bit of contour from tee to green to get that up to 95%.

The other 5% comes from either a brilliant location (an ocean helps!) or an inspired architect. But I can live without that last 5%, especially if I can get a good hamburger after my round...or something better than Bud Light to drink...

Brent:

I wonder if your above statement is literally true.  If it was, you'd only be willing to pay 5-10% more than your usual green fee at a club that meets your general criteria, to play anywhere else.  Is that true?

[Brent Hutto]

Well I guess you can kind of choose which perspective to look at it from. Sometimes, maybe once a year or so, I'm willing to pay way more than it's "worth" for a special-event trip somewhere. But leaving aside the rare occasions, yes I'd pretty much pay 90% as much to play a basic course with the conditions I mentioned as to play a more special course.

Not that I always have to pay that much. Sometimes I stumble on a course that really, really suits me and only spend 30, 40, 50 bucks to play there. But I think I'd probably be willing to pay 2-3x that much if I new in advance they had great turf, fun greens and were a good walk. The real rip-off is when I end up paying $100+ for a course of some distinction (due to location, architecture, exclusiveness, etc.) and it's an awful routing for walkers with soft fairways, boring greens and wall-to-wall green lushness.

The course at my club is pretty much as I described. It's a step above a plain-vanilla design (originally Ellis Maples, 1960 with some reworking a decade ago) but mostly it's a great walk, fairly good turf and drainage and a great set of greens and surrounds. I end up spending something over $4,000 a year for maybe 50 rounds there. Plus of course the privilege of private-club membership and so forth. But realistically I'm paying $80-odd per round which I think is reasonable. Maybe not 95% of what I pay every 3-4 years to play the Ocean Course but probably 95% of what I'd be willing to pay to play regularly at a more architecturally distingushed and elaborately design course.

In other words, I'm exaggerating but not by much...

[David Harshbarger]

Mike and Brent,

My take on the mom and pops is that if they did a better job on the design they'd be more successful.  To me, it only takes a couple of architectural miscarriages to not want to play a course much more.  One local course has nice greens, but too many holes with 90 degree doglegs.  Maybe I've grown that out of step with the masses that matters just to me, but my education in architecture is pretty early, and this issue seems basic.

Many of the local mom and pop courses have these same type of fundamental problems, which I believe limits their potential success, even among local golfers.  These courses I think find themselves limited to play to the folks who go there as the closest acceptable option.  Better architecture, not world class, just professional, would IMHO distinguish these courses enough to expand their draw 10-15-20 miles.

The expansion wouldn't be from architecture buffs, per se, but rather golfers who "feel" a better course: better scale, better flow, better variety, fewer golfability mistakes.

Dave  

[Mike_Young]

Mike and Brent,

My take on the mom and pops is that if they did a better job on the design they'd be more successful.  To me, it only takes a couple of architectural miscarriages to not want to play a course much more.  One local course has nice greens, but too many holes with 90 degree doglegs.  Maybe I've grown that out of step with the masses that matters just to me, but my education in architecture is pretty early, and this issue seems basic.

Many of the local mom and pop courses have these same type of fundamental problems, which I believe limits their potential success, even among local golfers.  These courses I think find themselves limited to play to the folks who go there as the closest acceptable option.  Better architecture, not world class, just professional, would IMHO distinguish these courses enough to expand their draw 10-15-20 miles.

The expansion wouldn't be from architecture buffs, per se, but rather golfers who "feel" a better course: better scale, better flow, better variety, fewer golfability mistakes.

Dave  

Dave,
The course I am calling mom and pops are the same courses you are describing.....I'm not talking about the junkers...I'm talking of sucessful community courses that are functional and are not burdened with excess....

[David Harshbarger]

Mike,

What can be done to get the farmer with 200 acres to pay you to layout their farm conversion, as opposed to them doing it themselves?

Dave

[Mike_Young]

Mike,

What can be done to get the farmer with 200 acres to pay you to layout their farm conversion, as opposed to them doing it themselves?

Dave

Dave,
That's not a problem....as long as you can design it and build it...they are not going to pay you to send a bunch of drawings and show up here and there...and bid it out to a general contractor....the kind of client you are talking about usually sees thru most of the smoke and mirrors. 

[Terry Lavin]

In other words, I'm exaggerating but not by much...

Oh, sir, you do disappoint!

[Steve Okula]

Steve and Grant,
If that’s your trophy, I can do it (major tournament) with less people, that’s great.  I don’t know what to tell you that might change your mind or make you understand.  What I do know; Congo sits on a very large piece of property and it’s not a crime to have 13 mowers on a fairway or 500 greens mowers.  They had volunteers from all over the world…….12 Aussie Sups, vendors, etc…   Great experience for all that helped and they get to put it on their resume…….that might be another problem with the States…..I don’t know but it seems a bit childish to criticize a bunch of people (or the States) working hard to prepare the whole property and get off the property before the first tee time of a major tournament.  On a serious note, I think I can do it with 3 people....check that 4 people.                     

Scott, I didn’t criticize Congo or call their tournament prep a crime. I only wanted to correct your statement that all tournament venues around the world do the same thing with volunteers. They don’t.

[Grant Saunders]

Steve and Grant,
If that’s your trophy, I can do it (major tournament) with less people, that’s great.  I don’t know what to tell you that might change your mind or make you understand.  What I do know; Congo sits on a very large piece of property and it’s not a crime to have 13 mowers on a fairway or 500 greens mowers.  They had volunteers from all over the world…….12 Aussie Sups, vendors, etc…   Great experience for all that helped and they get to put it on their resume…….that might be another problem with the States…..I don’t know but it seems a bit childish to criticize a bunch of people (or the States) working hard to prepare the whole property and get off the property before the first tee time of a major tournament.  On a serious note, I think I can do it with 3 people....check that 4 people.   

Scott

Its not just the open prep I have issue with. Im sure the golf course was in wonderful condition but I am also fairly confident that the players would still be able to play if the mowers were finishing up on the other side when they teed off.

My problem is that course maintenance has reached such ridiculous proportions in many cases that it is having a negative contribution towards the ever increasing cost of the game. The quest for perfection is being pursued in areas where no one but other greenkeepers are likely to ever notice. To me it has become just another form of comparing dick size and the guy with the biggest budget wins.

I thought the point of this thread was to discuss ways in which a golf course can be operated in a successful manner. For a course to be successful, its income needs to exceed its outgoing costs which include servicing any set up costs. I see course maintenance as an integral part of that success and feel far too many examples exist now of self indulgent maintenance practices which only serve to inflate the egos of those in charge. People need to stop trying to grow great grass and go back to trying to produce good golfing conditions. Those two most certainly are not the same thing.

I dont want to be part of the problem. I want to be part of the solution.

[michael damico]

Grant, its funny you bring this up...have you ever read "Practical Greenkeeping" by Jim Arthur? It is my first serious venture into the turf side of things of the educated literature realm, but this guy is AWESOME! I spoke with a Brit I made buddies with in my experiences at Oak Hill and he explained it to me as an old school mentality; I only had Beard's book as contrast thus far in my exposure. Not to mention he is from that side of the pond. It is quite the read thus far.

[Grant Saunders]

Michael

If everyone owned Jim Arthurs book golf course maintenance would start heading in the right direction.

Grant