Jeff,
This is your second post in relation to you don´t seem to see any difference in construction cost on which design team is selected and in the last one you stated you were not really familiar what the JN group usually spends in constructing a course. I will try to shed some light on my point of view. I think there is a big difference and will try to explain why I think the winning team should be budget concerned and its important sending the proper message to the world of future golf development that cost should be controlled and in my opinion a maximum five to six million dollars should be allocated.
The JN group almost always to my knowledge works with an outside contractor compared to other teams that have small efficient in house staff. General contractors normally make somewhere between 25 to 35% of the overall price, so there is the first major difference. Another major difference is they spent a lot of effort through the years creating a marketing name in golf development similar to Rolex in the watch market. They will do everything to protect that market perception and is always a priority and whether the client makes makes money or not is secondary. They protect their business and their reputation and how the clients pays for their request and whether the project has an overall success is of little concern, as long as the client doesn´t go bankrupt, obviously that could have some market drawbacks on them indirectly. Who can blame them, most large corporations all do the same. Four Seasons is a good example, they make money, a flat management fee if the hotel makes money and they make money when you lose ten or twenty million dollars. They won´t cut corners in any way or form, or lower their superior level of service to lower losses for the owner because it could affect their overall market perception. After 9-11, 42 out of 45 hotels in their management lost money but they had a banner year! Where am I going with this? Sometimes the criteria and the demands of large corporations such as the JN group, ask for specific construction techniques that are really not necessary in my opinion and the owner is asked to absorb these expenses in order to protect the design team´s superior market image. For example, most all of the Buenos Aires area has heavy clay- loam topsoil. Not ideal but not bad especially for Bermuda grass that seems to grow very well in that particular climate. Bermuda grass does well in all areas in Buenos Aires including concrete and asphalt. My wife´s grandmother is 104 and has a spectacular lush Bermuda grass lawn. Most courses are designed with good surface drainage and some catch basin and can open up in couple of hours following a heavy rain. In a recent project in that area they insisted on 12 to 16 inches of sand be brought in for fairways and tapering down to six to four inches in the rough. Cost for the client an extra four million dollars. They started out doing just that, the project stopped for a couple of year before completing construction and they went in and stripped some of the sand off from some of the first nine fairways and the driving range completely. Not sure how the final holes were done but it wasn´t with12-16 inches of sand. This is just one example, there are more and I like to pretend, I don´t like to bad mouth anybody, so we will leave it at one. (It’s a market perception thing for me) The owner just came to the conclusion there was just no way, to recuperate the investment, the numbers were not working. In my opinion, 9 points out of ten can be achieved for lets say five million dollars, 9.1 will cost 6.5 million, 9.2 eight or nine million, the more one strives for perfection the cost rises dramatically to the point if you seek perfection or ten point be prepared to spend over twenty million and let´s not forget to add on the 25 percent let´s say for a contractor. Some of the young guys are having success because they are creating courses that get rated higher and seem to appeal to a broader market at reasonable final price. We have lived through sixty million dollar golf courses being built in the dessert and flying in trees to be transplanted via helicopter. I feel golf will have a better chance of growing world-wide, when we can leave this era behind us and thank god there are a few boutiques firms out there that specialize in creating quality golf experiences and can get it done in a reasonable number, that’s their niche they have created! By doing so, the cost saving are passed on to the end user and more people can have access to these quality golf experiences, which should directly or indirectly help grow the game. The overall cost becomes an even bigger factor in cultures such as South America where it is still mainly practiced on weekends only.
One final comment, you mention the high cost of bulk earth movement for spectators mounding ect. It seems to me with all the new construction of hotels, roads, stadium ect., from the upcoming World cup in 2014 and Olympics in 2016 there has to be lots of contractors looking to get rid of dirt and the cost of hauling it out of the city is a big number. I would imagine the city could get all they wanted for free and maybe even get paid to take it off the hands of contractors. I forget the number of new hotels being built but I think it was double of what they currently have, that’s a lot of dirt coming out of those foundations and no place to put it.