Is poor mounding the fault of the architect or shapers?

[Joel_Stewart]

I played a course today that is typical of so many new courses and architects.  The problem is unnatural shaping of mounds that dot golf courses throughout this country.  It is so fake and contrived (lacking in natural or spontaneous quality).

Is this the fault of architects, shapers or construction companies?

I really want to post some photos but I was a guest at this course and don't want to upset anyone.  To describe the mounding, it's very smooth mounding pushed up around most of the greens and symmetrical.  Same with mounds that boarder the fairways.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Could be both, but in my experience, its the architect.  A shaper can and will shape whatever you want in most cases.

On the other hand, when the plan calls for extensive mounding, its hard to make each one different and most shapers have only so many tricks to make them look different.  Lastly, it might be the contractors fault for not giving them enough earth to fill the bases properly and tie them into natural ground.

But, in the end, the gca approves it, and probably wanted it, or at least drew it that way.

[Mike Nuzzo]

The Architect is responsible.
The shapers follow their directions - print or verbal.
Joel - no pictures please - I've seen enough of them in my lifetime.
Mounds suck.
Cheers

[Sam Morrow]

The Architect is responsible.
The shapers follow their directions - print or verbal.
Joel - no pictures please - I've seen enough of them in my lifetime.
Mounds suck.
Cheers

Mike,

 What percentage of courses in Greater Houston have ugly, out of place mounding?

[Mike Nuzzo]

100%

[Don_Mahaffey]

I think too often good finish work gets confused with good shaping.

I've heard it a few times where someone has bragged about the finished look of a shape only because it was so polished off, when in fact the shape itself was just another pile of dirt that someone spent a lot of time smoothing off.


While certainly the architect takes the blame for repetitive looking mounds, a talented shaper (and I spent some time watching two today) can create land forms that look a lot better than the mounds we so often see lining the edges of holes.



 

[Sam Morrow]

100%

I wasn't going to say that high but I bet it's in the 70's or 80's, really.

[Sean_A]

If the archie gets credit for the good stuff he must get flack for the bad stuff. 

To me mounding (like any hazard) is about its placement - not its look.  A well placed mound can be a terrific feature regardless of how it looks.  I grow to love good features and my bottom line is good architecture will have at least to some degree an appealing aesthetic regardless of the style of shaping.

Ciao

[Tony Ristola]

I played a course today that is typical of so many new courses and architects.  The problem is unnatural shaping of mounds that dot golf courses throughout this country.  It is so fake and contrived (lacking in natural or spontaneous quality).

Is this the fault of architects, shapers or construction companies?

I really want to post some photos but I was a guest at this course and don't want to upset anyone.  To describe the mounding, it's very smooth mounding pushed up around most of the greens and symmetrical.  Same with mounds that boarder the fairways.

Both, but in the end it's the architect's problem, for he ultimately is responsible. It doesn't apply only to mounds.

This reveals something I've been pounding potential clients about for some time; The shortcoming of "detailed plans" and hit-and-run architecture. You hand plans off to builders, have the architect abandon the site for days, weeks or months at-a-time and you'll have 10 different builders build 10 different golf courses. In the chamber of that gun will be a handful of bullets; do you want to put the gun to your head and pull the trigger for your investment of millions?

When hit-and-run is used, most developers won't have the cash or time to correct all inferior work, and the following is proven by studies in other industries and transferable to golf architecture because we are all humans; many architects won't improve everything that requires improving, as it would reflect poorly on their working method. Regardless, it's the investor who pays. Too many have taken the chance and not knowing until it was too late, were unlucky, their project was hit by the fatal shot.

[Adrian_Stiff]

Largely architect, but sometimes the client gets tight on the purse string and over rides things either financially or the plans.

[Tony Ristola]

Largely architect, but sometimes the client gets tight on the purse string and over rides things either financially or the plans.

You can still do great work with tight budgets. It requires focus and commitment, not a bushel of $$$. Time is and always will be the greatest asset an architect can provide his client. Time, not money... is the great equalizer.

[Adrian_Stiff]

Tony - In this case they cut my time, the course chose to save money by stopping my site visits. One green complex is now horrible. They have altered another as well which is dire, but in years to come some will say "why did Adrian Stiff do that...what an idiot"

[Tony Ristola]

Tony - In this case they cut my time, the course chose to save money by stopping my site visits. One green complex is now horrible. They have altered another as well which is dire, but in years to come some will say "why did Adrian Stiff do that...what an idiot"

It's precisely why my contracts are for daily on-site leadership; I've seen your situation too many times; luckily I learned this before I hung out my shingle and decided on another path.

I know a set of detailed plans with notes, regardless of how into the nitty-gritty they get, are not any better than anyone else's and would be subject to the interpretation of others in my absence. Even with my Simpson/Ravielli hand drawn illustrations of every detail that shows what I want, the builders won' get it right and there will be scores of opportunities missed because no matter how "good"... plans are sterile, rigid documents demanding conformity. In this business, shortcuts truly are the longest road.

I couldn't sleep at night knowing at some point the gun will go off, and well... the folks that would rather play Russian roulette and cost themselves (and the architect's reputation) more through inferior quality or increased costs (for redesign at a future date) aren't my type of clients... for when the gun does go off, it doesn't only hit them.

[Adrian_Stiff]

Tony I agree, I am more concerned now with end product rather than just taking a job, when I first started out I just did not think about those situations happening, but when your eager you dont want to foul the contract with 'your wants' I suppose.  Now its important I tick everything off.

[Tony Ristola]

Tony I agree, I am more concerned now with end product rather than just taking a job, when I first started out I just did not think about those situations happening, but when your eager you dont want to foul the contract with 'your wants' I suppose.  Now its important I tick everything off.

Cheers.

One thing I have learned the hard way is post construction participation. Not all clubs understand, with time they forget or Board of Directors change. Today I have the tools to help prevent disaster... Like one club back in 97, where I'd built a set of mildly wild bunkers, with some not wild at all, and the superintendent hadn't seen anything like it. There was nothing like it done in the country to that point, and he was limited in his golf knowledge. I should have been better at communicating how it would have saved maintenance time and how it would have been far better looking if he'd had let them go a hair wild; how it was vital to differentiating the course...especially then. The super (who didn't and doesn't play golf) was from the school of perfectly clean and cutting everything short because it was all he'd had seen. Well, unfortunately the super had a mini-excavator in his maintenance building and put it to use nuking the capes and bays from all the bunkers! When I visited the course 18-months later I nearly projectile vomited. We spent a month with 5-guys detailing those bunkers! The Board member I was touring the course with could see I was distraught. Lesson learned. Amazingly the course is still rated in the Top 20 in the country, and now some 14-years later I've spoken with a member of the board to restore what was undone.

I don't have it at hand, but Cleve Trimble (Prarie Club) had a great and succinct quote about the importance of the architect's participation after construction.

[Melvyn Morrow]

Whoever is in charge of the overall project, hopefully the Designer as all aspects of design must rest upon his/her shoulders.

The builder/shaper needs to look to quality of workmanship but design is the sole responsibility of the Designers or what’s the point of Indemnity Insurance.

Melvyn

[Mike Benham]

I really want to post some photos but I was a guest at this course and don't want to upset anyone. 

I'll post them for you ...

[Joel_Stewart]

I really want to post some photos but I was a guest at this course and don't want to upset anyone. 

I'll post them for you ...

LOL, thanks but no.  You can post photos of Olympic and show bad construction.

It is a public course located in the Bay Area, and had a large construction budget, $20 million.  I thought the choice of the architect was strange at the time and as it turned out, I was correct.  Doing a little research, it turns out they may have used in house construction for the golf course.  The work shows, it's really amateurish.


Here is a photo of Stonebrae in the Bay Area.  They used David Kidd as the architect and Jim Haley of Highland was the construction company.  It looks very natural.

[Michael Huber]

Ugly mounding is a lot lot bellbottoms.  They really aren't anyones fault, but they sure did get out of control.  We are looking back and just wondering: what the hell were we thinking ?

[Philippe Binette]

if you do something called mounding... it's ugly and it's the architect fault.

good architects design contours in a united and integrated flow, not mounds

[Mike Nuzzo]

Ugly mounding is a lot lot bellbottoms.  They really aren't anyones fault, but they sure did get out of control.  We are looking back and just wondering: what the hell were we thinking ?

Michael
Have you seen new construction lately?
Bell bottoms galore outside the US!
They aren't going away...

[Kevin_Reilly]

I really want to post some photos but I was a guest at this course and don't want to upset anyone. 

It is a public course located in the Bay Area

It was a public course but you were a guest?  Color me confused.  I thought public courses by definition were fair game for public scrutiny. 

[Joel_Stewart]

Kevin:
Typical you would be interested in minutia.

I was a guest as a Golf Digest panelist.  Are you happy now?

[Kevin_Reilly]

Joel, spare me.  I have a bot that alerts me every time you sling an insult at Olympic.  I stopped paying attention when the alerts passed the #100 mark.  That was probably a couple of years ago.

As for this thread, really the question at hand was probably an easy one to answer even for an athlete at your alma mater.  So your posing of the question was more likely just an indirect way to throw dirt on some other architect who has done work in the area.  Members of the $20MM public course club in the Bay Area....Harding Park (Chris Gray), and .... who else?

[Niall C]

Tony/Adrian,

I understand what you're saying, that you only want to do it your way now, and require to sign everything off and that has to be in the contract at the outset. Tell me though, what do you do, indeed what can you do, when half way through the project, the client who you thought was minted and had bought totally into what you were proposing either runs out of money or simply wants to make savings which compromises your design ? You can do the due diligence but you are in the lap of the gods when a financial sunami comes along, are you not ?

Niall