From episode 9 of my series last year on Cybergolf.com, chronicling the building of the Quarry at Giants Ridge:
My owner's representative has given me lots of latitude, but a couple of frowns crossed his face with the idea of a blind shot. I think his words were: "A golf ball to the forehead is no kind of souvenir to take home from their day at Giant's Ridge. I'd rather they buy a shirt."
So, we decided to make a narrow gash through the ridge to provide vision to the fairway from the tee. This both mirrors the narrow entry to the green and retains the look and feel of the seacoast dunes. The first cuts were made the day I was leaving from a construction meeting. I couldn't wait to get back to see the initial results.
As it turned out, I didn't have to, thanks to modern technology. When I opened my e-mail at the office the next day, there were some pictures from Al Olsen, Park Construction's superintendent. He was asking some questions, including how I liked the results. From the photos, however, I could tell that the shaping was much too soft to replicate the rugged spoil piles that I wanted to impersonate dunes. We sketched out some steeper dunes on the photo, scanned it, and e-mailed it back. A few days later, another picture came back closely resembling our sketch, and we were thrilled. It was exactly the result we were looking for. More than that, we saved the contractor time, which probably saves him and the owner money. This is a good thing!
Another technological improvement Park Construction has implemented is staking using Global Positioning Software (GPS). They have invested considerable funds in a GPS system that takes our computer drawings and puts them on a hand-held screen. Formerly, setting out line and grade stakes meant setting up a survey instrument and elevation rod, doing numerous mathematical calculations, and using a two-man crew to set out stakes, which usually took a good day to do a hole. With GPS, one man can set grade stakes on a hole in about an hour. Again, a great time-saver for the contractor, but great for design, too!
They set out several holes in advance of my site visit. We can walk them together and quickly spot necessary adjustments for rock, trees, vision, or just because something seems overdone. My general trend has been to reduce earthmoving to keep the site in its current state.
This may be the greatest advance in golf construction since the advent of the bulldozer or irrigation systems. It's certainly the biggest thing to really speed up the construction process while getting better results. Most of the other changes in my career have been more incremental – like replacing heavy, difficult-to-install concrete drainage pipe with lighter, stronger plastic pipe.
Of course, it has its down side. Moving faster has historically reduced some of the finer nuances of older design/construction. And, as Al Olsen pointed out, perhaps not all architects like the idea of their plans being staked out accurately: It may reveal they are flawed! In the past, architect types could always claim the contractor wasn't "interpreting the plans correctly"!
We are moving full steam ahead. We are even stepping up our own 3D efforts to make doubly sure that our plans are correct before they go out. Of course, all architects will fiddle with the design on the ground.