Guess The 8 Finalists for the Olympic Design Job

[Jeff_Mingay]

Hilarious

[Mike Nuzzo]

I don't think they needed 8 finalists
What a waste
It is doubtful some of the committee could tell the difference between 1/2 of the firms

[Don_Mahaffey]

It is doubtful the committee could tell the difference between 1/2 of the firms

Does anyone know the make up of the "committee"

[Sean Walsh]

C'mon Mike where's your olympic spirit.  There's always 8 in the final for Athletic and Swimming events and only 2 or 3 of them are a chance of winning. 

Also because this is the Olympics I'm sure money and promotion have nothing whatsoever to do with the outcome.

Off to put the sarcasm genie back in his bottle now.

[Jud_T]

I know it's likely pointless, but here's hoping they don't squander this opportunity to do something outside their well-tattered box with this decision.  Maybe there's actually some golfers on the committee and one or two actually have a clue.  Pipe dream?  How many new courses will be built for future Olympics if this thing catches on?

[Steve Lang]

  from wiki...

On October 9, 2009 the IOC voted to include rugby sevens and golf on the program for the Games in Rio. The other 26 sports were also confirmed with a large majority of the votes.[7] International Golf Federation executive director Antony Scanlon told Olympic news outlet Around the Rings that the top players, including Tiger Woods and Annika Sörenstam, would show their continued support of golf's Olympic involvement by participating in the events.
 
In August 2011, President of the 2016 Olympic Committee, Carlos Nuzman, backed Sepp Blatter's request for including beach soccer in the 2016 games.[8][9]

i guess anika is a lock...

in perspective  from The Olympics of 1900.. held in Paris

The men played two rounds (36 holes), summing the scores. The entire competition was held on 2 October.
 
Place/Name/Round 1/Round 2/Total
 
1/Charles Sands (USA)/82/85/167
 
2/Walter Rutherford (GBR)/Unknown/168
 
3/David Robertson (GBR)/Unknown/175
 
4/Frederick Taylor (USA)/Unknown/182
 
Interestingly...

Margaret Ives Abbott (June 15, 1876 – June 10, 1955) was the first American woman to take first place in an Olympic event; she won the women's golf tournament, consisting of nine holes, with a score of 47 at the 1900 Paris games. These games were apparently so poorly organized that many competitors, including Abbott, did not realize that the events they entered were part of the Olympics. Historical research did not establish that the game was on the Olympic program until after her death, so she herself never knew it.[1] Abbott had traveled to Paris to study art under Edgar Degas and Auguste Rodin. Her mother, Mary Perkins Ives Abbot (a novelist and Chicago Tribune book reviewer), also competed in the event, finishing tied for seventh, making it the first (and still only) Olympic event in which a mother and daughter competed at the same time.[2]
 
Born in Calcutta, India in 1876, in 1902, Abbott married writer Finley Peter Dunne.
 
References
 
1.^ Ralph Hickok (2004). "Abbott, Margaret I., Golf". HickokSports. Retrieved 2008-08-12.
 2.^ Lester, John (July 9, 1996). "Recognizing First U.S. Women's Champion is a Step in the Right Direction".

[Ben Sims]

I'd put some stock into Mike Young's opinion on this one.  No one knows dirt like Mike, and he was also living in the Atlanta area during the buildup to Atlanta 1996.  Not to be cynical--really--but it's all about the money. 

[Randy Thompson]

It is doubtful the committee could tell the difference between 1/2 of the firms

Does anyone know the make up of the "committee"

Don,
Its seems there are people that know but can´t comment becasue of the signing of non disclosure deeds. It may come out from some other source but not from the architects that participated. You will probably have to wait until a winner is announced, when will that be,? who knows, but I would imagine six to eight weeks maximum juding by the original schedule which is no longer valid because all candidates were initially disqualified for non compliance.
Mike,
How do you get Player and RJT jr on the top of your list, when I have them closer to the bottom? Shed me some light. I uderstand how they got into the final eight but if there was a cut down to four, I don´t see how they would make that cut.
Anybody else that see´s them as strong contender and wants to shed light..jump in!

[John_Cullum]

I'd put some stock into Mike Young's opinion on this one.  No one knows dirt like Mike, and he was also living in the Atlanta area during the buildup to Atlanta 1996.  Not to be cynical--really--but it's all about the money. 

To be more precise, it's all about the graft

[Greg Tallman]

Anybody want to give me Tom and Gil and 3-1 odds?

You're on... $100? Give you good reason to come back to Cabo if you win.

[Don_Mahaffey]

I've been thinking about this and among all the talk about the popular picks being the big names, Jack, Norman, Player, RTJ jr, I believe its possible Doak and Hanse are in for very good reason.

Hosting the Olympics is a very costly endeavor. The Brazilians will do all they can to show the world how great Rio is as a host city, but they will be spending billions of dollars to build the facilities for these games. Throw in all the administrative, security, and all the other over head and its likely the Brazilians will lose a lot of $$$ when its all said and done. The IOC will get their TV deal, and while I'm not up to speed on how all that is divided up, I do believe that hosting the games in recent times has been a huge economic loss when measured in real dollars. The hosts seem to know that going in and trade that loss for the privilege of being on the world's stage for all the lead up and the games themselves.

Money may actually matter. Golf is not a major sport in Brazil, it hardly even exists. Why would the Brazilians spend extra millions of dollars that come with using a big name when they have two of the worlds best at building great golf for a reasonable amount of investment? I believe when you view this selection within the context of the enormity of the preparation and expense required to host the games, the big names get dwarfed a bit. Throw in the fact that Brazilains don't play golf, at least not many of them do, and I'm not so sure pure competence isn't the #1 consideration over hype and stardom. (Seriously, why else is AS or LO involved? Whats their qualifications for designing a world class golf course?) All the firms have shown competence, but a few have a better history of delivering high quality for less investment.

The IOC and international golf federation are full of heavy hitters, they will not be asking for Norman's or Jack's autograph when they make their presentations.  We're all excited because its a big deal to us, but the Brazilians have much bigger fish to fry and they have huge expenditures coming up in the next year. Choosing the golf architect may seem like a big deal to us, but its just one more in a long list of items on the Brazilian's checklist as they try to get ready for the games. Economics may matter here and that site looks like its going to require some work. I'll bet the proposals are all over the map and I'm betting TD and GH get serious consideration.

[Adam Lawrence]

Don - I think there may be something in what you say, and that's why I think Hawtree is the sleeper - given he has already laid out a course on that piece of land.

[Randy Thompson]

Don - I think there may be something in what you say, and that's why I think Hawtree is the sleeper - given he has already laid out a course on that piece of land.

If its done right the best plan submitted with the numbers that work will be the deciding factor. Hawtree should only be the sleeper if the plan done in 2002 is superior to anything else that may be submitted in the near future. He has a head start but that has a limited advantage. There are no golf builder contractors in Brazil, so and in house crew will most likely need to be formed. Doak and RJT seem to have the most experience going international and getting it done.

[Ian Andrew]

The outlier may be "the office".

It's unlikely that any have their own office, but rather have entered into a collaboration with an engineer or architecture firm in the area.
Knowing who might bear some fruit on whom ...

[Jeff_Mingay]

I need someone to explain to me why there's a requirement that the successful bidder has an office in Rio. What does that have to do with anything? I mean, to my knowledge, golf architects don't open an office in every city where they work!

[Randy Thompson]

Tax reasons, work permitts and ease of communications for the committee.

[Garland Bayley]

When I asked a Pierce County commissioner why they chose RTJII for Chambers Bay, I got the answer, "They had the biggest name."
Sadly I suspect Jack and Annika are going to get this job.

[Mike Tanner]

I think Don Mahaffey made a good point about the selection of the golf course architect and construction of the course being just one item on a very long and expensive to-do list for the Olympic organizers in Brazil. While he goes on to say that this might bode well for a lower-cost build/maintain bid, I'm not so sure.

I don't see the modern trend of hugely expensive, hyper-political Olympic games being turned a round in Rio. When I look at the list of finalists, the Nicklaus/Sorenstam partnership and RTJ II stand out as the likeliest contenders. Nicklaus/Sorenstam tops Norman/Ochoa and RTJ II edges Player. My gut feeling is that the job will go to JN/AS.

I'd love to be wrong about that and I'd happily cheer the selection of Tom Doak and Renaissance. Selecting TD might possibly demonstrate that the world outside our circle of interest is paying attention to a model of golf that's less expensive to build and maintain than than the over-ripe model of the last 20 years.

[Brad Klein]

So, it turns out that great minds can think alike.

In writing Sunday night/Monday morning for Golfweek about the Olympic Course (http://www.golfweek.com/news/blogs/biz-blog/#finalists-selected-olympic-course-design), I used an analogy that a World Cup committee would not hire a Pele to design a soccer stadium. Amazingly, I wrote that before I ever saw Mike Young's eerily similar reference to Pele in post #30 above.

[Howard Riefs]

Unless I missed it...

Is there any insight on who actually sits on the selection committee?  Peter Dawson?  Mike Davis?  An established architect (e.g., Dye, Fazio, etc.)? 

[Randy Thompson]

Howard,

The architects that know the answer to that have signed a non disclosure agreement and can not comment until after the winner has been announced.

[Niall C]

With it being the Olympics, does it not come down to the size of the brown envelope the gca is willing to slip the organising committee or am I being too cynical again. I sincerely hope thats not the case and that everything is done transparently even if not everyone agrees with the outcome.

Niall

[Howard Riefs]

Howard,

The architects that know the answer to that have signed a non disclosure agreement and can not comment until after the winner has been announced.

Thanks, Randy. I thought word may have leaked out by now -- albeit not by the GCAs.

[Jeffrey Prest]

I've been thinking about this and among all the talk about the popular picks being the big names, Jack, Norman, Player, RTJ jr, I believe its possible Doak and Hanse are in for very good reason..... Throw in the fact that Brazilains don't play golf, at least not many of them do, and I'm not so sure pure competence isn't the #1 consideration over hype and stardom. (Seriously, why else is AS or LO involved? Whats their qualifications for designing a world class golf course?)

I really hope you're right, Don, but as Jeff Mingay has recently blogged, I suspect the irony of this project is that the two architects who could give Rio a course for the ages are now outsiders in what I fear will become a beauty pageant decided by starstruck suits. It's a pattern I've seen repeated too often in business to be willing to hold my breath now.

I was going to hold fire on the female involvement because I have no knowledge of just how much Sorenstam and Ochoa have contributed on the design front. It would be interesting, though, to know if either partnership would have been forged had golf not been on the Olympic agenda.


[upon further review, I should point out that Jeff Mingay isn't so much suggesting whom might be the outsiders as whom he'd like to see as favourites. The pessimism is my own...]

[Michael Goldstein]

Karrie Webb has also joined the Thomson Perrett pitch

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