If Doak wants to hand his client a parchment scroll with green plans drawn with a squid ink feather pen he can do that. But the standard isn't any lower from someone who uses GPS and AutoCAD. Not in the process with the client nor the final product for the customer.
Ian:
That's a fun analogy, but the truth is I don't hand anyone a green plan, full stop. I believe that if I try to draw the thing out, it won't fit in with the surrounds as well as if I stand there and work with my shapers to create it. Not many guys can get away with that method, but if your reputation is good enough, you can.
Why does the image of Tom with a long beard and rope sandals coming down from Mt. High come into my head?
Seriously, this is like listening to Dems and Repubs argue about about how to balance the budget. Raise taxes or cut spending (when everyone knows the real answer is probably a combination of both).
Since I haveDsigned and built greens using just about every way described in the preceeding posts, all I can say is every job is specific to to the people and conditions placed upon it.
In some cases detailed plans were the way to go while handcrafting worked best on others. Sometimes the client insists upon detailed plans because, in his mind, that is what he is paying for. It is hard for some clients to wrap their heads around the fact that they are paying for a finished product qualitatively, not quantitatively. We don't pay lawyers based on how many hours they put into the plaintiff's side of a lawsuit, they get a percentage of the take. we don''t pay Realestate brokers per page of closing docs or by how many hrs they put into a sale, they get a percentage of the sales price. But for some reason, this doesn't translate well into GCA.
We used to always have a field architect on-site to actually do the layout for the builders. But then the builders realized they could "hide" that expense in the unit price for earthmoving or "shaping" and get that pesky architect off-site. Since Architects don't get paid as much as most people believe, they couldn't afford to have to eat the expense and had to try to convey the design intent more accurately through plans. And the thence began the death spiral until the recent slowdown of the past decade. This has given architects more time to be able to devote to a project and they figured out that the builders couldn't build if they didn't have plans and hence, figured out how to NOT supply that critical information. If the owner wanted it, he had to pay for it.
As Tom says, much depends on what your reputation is. But that also runs the risk of a Chicken or Egg conundrum. Of course he has the rep so of course why not perpetuate it? But, just how many greens on Tom's courses have been handcrafted personally by Tom? I'm not calling him out but rather just using him as an illustrative example of some the mindset on this site. As Tom has stated, he does have assoc. in the field building greens. So, it is either up to those associates to "know" what Tom wants or do something that they think is cool. Now, I imagine that the more they work together, the more comfortable the assoc will be with finishing Tom's sentences. This is not unlike how it works in any Master/Apprentice relationship. You will also find that at some point in time, the apprentice will have ideas that no longer mesh with the Masters (one or the other goes of on a different philosphical path) or feels he is doing all the work but getting none of the credit or a large enough financial inducement and goes off on his own.
Personally, I like to start with some planning but nce the rough shapes are in place, free-lance the shaping myself (not through some surrogate) and then check what I have done to make sure the slopes actually work the way I intended.
If I use a GPS or a hand level and tape measure, it really doesn't matter. Whatever is at hand and the easiest/quickest. Just like what piece(s) of equipment I use to build the green. A dozer, a skidsteer, an excavator, minihoe, , a tractor and box sand pro and a landscape rake. I've use all the above and in various combinations. The tools has some impact on the final outcome but not to the extent that the outcome is dependant upon the tool.