Give me Starting Pitching - Give Me Great Green Builders

[JESII]

My impression was the Peter thinks in the process of building a team, a Golf Course Architect / Construction Co would be well served by using an early draft pick on a highly skilled greens shaper/builder...similarly to finding strong front line pitching in building a baseball team should create sustainable success and a strong foundation to build around.


I can't dispute any bit of my interpretation of his comments...

[Peter Pallotta]

Thanks, gents - good posts.
To combine thoughts from a couple of those posts: yes, use an early round pick (and your second and third picks) to draft old fashioned, 8 inning-type *starters*, despite what the new analytics say about 'how the game is played these days', because (to paraphrase Shel's father in law) it's much better to have fascinating and challenging greens than dull and putt-able ones -- no matter how 'fun' (ugh) the rest of the course is because of width and tree-less landscapes and a handful of half-par holes (from the correct set of tees, one of 6 sets you have to pick from - ugh). That last is like having 12 guys in your bull-pen instead of one Stephen Strasburg.

[Tom_Doak]

My impression was the Peter thinks in the process of building a team, a Golf Course Architect / Construction Co would be well served by using an early draft pick on a highly skilled greens shaper/builder...similarly to finding strong front line pitching in building a baseball team should create sustainable success and a strong foundation to build around.


I can't dispute any bit of my interpretation of his comments...

I used three successive number one draft picks on great greens shapers, 18-20 years ago, and have never looked back.

[Ally Mcintosh]

My impression was the Peter thinks in the process of building a team, a Golf Course Architect / Construction Co would be well served by using an early draft pick on a highly skilled greens shaper/builder...similarly to finding strong front line pitching in building a baseball team should create sustainable success and a strong foundation to build around.


I can't dispute any bit of my interpretation of his comments...

I used three successive number one draft picks on great greens shapers, 18-20 years ago, and have never looked back.

If that’s what Peter means then he is - as he thought - just stating the obvious.


But I think he’s stating that in your example above, he wouldn’t actually need you. I say a great green shaper does not always make a great architect. I’d rather start with the great concept man, the router, facilitator, inspiration and sculptor of ideas. I’ll then pick the great green shaper as my no.2.

[Tom_Doak]

Ally:  it's easier when you can do both parts yourself.


Brian, Brian and Eric would be fine architects on their own, as they've proven at Stoatin Brae.  (I would bet they'd kick the butts of 80-90% of guys in the business if given the chance.)  I don't have to explain golf shots to them or tell them exactly what to build - they work things put quite well on their own.  They just wouldn't get to work in the same places we get to work together, and I'm a good editor so you always see their best side.


If they worked for Peter, he'd be a good architect, and they would suggest where to move some green sites to improve the design.  But that's the thing - the more he left them alone, the better they'd make him look.  If I wasn't really good at my part, they'd have all left to do their own thing long ago.

[Ally Mcintosh]

I get that, Tom.


But not all great shapers are like Brian, Brian or Eric. These three are architects in their own right.


Don’t really know why I’m arguing the point because I agree with the principle of it. I just want to make sure that people aren’t boiling it down to great green shaping guarantees great architecture.


EDIT: Incidentally, I’m excited to see what the set of greens look like up in Rosapenna because I do think that the greens there could form the great differentiator over most of the Irish links courses built in the last 50 years. I believe the links group were up there a few weeks ago but weren’t allowed to see the course because you were yet to sign off the greens.


The Narin and Portnoo ones I’ve seen look a little more “built” than I might have initially hoped. That is only from photos however.

[Ira Fishman]

My impression was the Peter thinks in the process of building a team, a Golf Course Architect / Construction Co would be well served by using an early draft pick on a highly skilled greens shaper/builder...similarly to finding strong front line pitching in building a baseball team should create sustainable success and a strong foundation to build around.


I can't dispute any bit of my interpretation of his comments...

I used three successive number one draft picks on great greens shapers, 18-20 years ago, and have never looked back.

Tom, aren't you writing a book about routing, not green shaping?  To push Peter's baseball analogy perhaps to the breaking point, I think you are the General Manager/Manager and Brian, Brian, and Eric are a great starting rotation.  It sounds as if any of them will  be a great GM/Manager when they get the opportunity, but for the time being you are making most of the major strategic decisions.


Ira

[Quinn Thompson]

I love baseball. Love g'alf. Her architecture as well...


two of the three belong in the same dugout I suppose...leave baseball alone.


World Series are won with the bat and timely hitting ( unless you're Whitey Ford )


Starting pitchers will get you there...it's the hitters who are in charge of the numbers on the scoreboard. The fielding as well...


somebody has to put a 1 up there eventually....and those are the Bobby Thomsons we remember.

[Peter Pallotta]

Ally
I am stating the obvious, I think. In a nutshell:
No, great greens won't necessarily and on their own make for a 'great course'. But all the other ways to try to build a great golf course -- ie the other parts of the team one might focus on -- pale in comparison.
I wish I was much smarter and more experienced and well traveled than I am: then I could analyze which of the best/award winning courses built over the last 30 years actually have greens that qualify as great and which don't -- and thus predict which of those courses will be seen as the cream of the crop 30 years from now and which won't.

[Mike_Young]

Ally:  it's easier when you can do both parts yourself.


Brian, Brian and Eric would be fine architects on their own, as they've proven at Stoatin Brae.  (I would bet they'd kick the butts of 80-90% of guys in the business if given the chance.)  I don't have to explain golf shots to them or tell them exactly what to build - they work things put quite well on their own.  They just wouldn't get to work in the same places we get to work together, and I'm a good editor so you always see their best side.


If they worked for Peter, he'd be a good architect, and they would suggest where to move some green sites to improve the design.  But that's the thing - the more he left them alone, the better they'd make him look.  If I wasn't really good at my part, they'd have all left to do their own thing long ago.

TD,The above  is a good explanation of the business. 
And it's why I am always cynical about the entire renovation/restoration process.  As with top notch cabinet makers who constantly remodel kitchens...they might not be able to build the house.  I have all the deserved respect for their ability to build a kitchen but I might not ever see a house they built. 

Thus, I vote routing first and then great requires the combination of really good greens.

For the last 15 years we have gone thru a period where the opportunity to route has almost been non existent. And so if it ever breaks out again there will be a lack of routing skills compared to bunker and green shaping skills.  And there will definitely be a lack of "from scratch" skills when it comes to greens complexes etc.  JMO

[Jeff_Brauer]

Mike,


Honestly, I'm not sure its limited to routing.  Does restoring a green show someone how to fit into a site from scratch?  Granted, not all renovations are restorations, so more transfers.

Even though few courses are getting built, most of us still see developers bring in concepts.  With time on our hands, why not let each associate have a crack at routing?  Also granted that never seeing the finished product limits the final stage of the learning process - seeing your mistakes get built.

I was just talking to Derek Duncan the other day.  I tend to think a lot of stuff gets forgotten in each new generation of gca's.  Just as I have heard young landscape architects take a new tack and suggest Elm Trees, not knowing why they aren't used, I see some young 'uns in gca trying things we tried, not knowing why we don't try them anymore.  Even small technical details - like keeping water from flowing into bunkers, onto tees or greens, from above seems forgotten by many.  Then they build it and they get washed out bunkers or soggy parts of the tee and green.  (Granted, I see some guys are age missing the same fine technical points, too, not just the yutes.


Maybe even more details get lost when things are so busy they get sent out in lieu of the more experienced boss without full training.  In reality, most minor construction short cuts don't become evident for a while. There are also a lot of items that got cut from traditional golf course building in the name of cost which really should be there.  (stripping topsoil for many builders to save time)


As I get older, it just amazes me that some parts of gca and building just go in circles, and I see similar mistakes to those made 20 years ago, when certain mistakes should have been eliminated long ago via collective experience.

[Kalen Braley]

Jeff,

What you described in that last bit happens in a lot of professions.  When you first start out, you just don't have the wisdom of why you do or don't do some things, even if you have the knowledge that some grizzled vet shared with you.  Probably mostly an issue of wanting to stand out by doing things no one else is doing, instead of just good old fashioned hustle and being a sponge...

P.S.  I'm really digging this conversation, fascinating insights from those who have done it!

[Jeff_Brauer]

Kalen,


And sometimes, experienced gca's just aren't that good at passing it on, i.e., being mentors. Others go by intuition as much as fact and may not really know why they do things.  Still others do things the way their mentors did, and never really question it. (They never turn out to be that successful, IMHO)


Have probably told the story at some point on this site, but my first day at Killian and Nugent, they let me design a par 3 hole at a local remodel.  I put in a forced carry pond.  Dick Nugent came back to review, got a bit angry and left.  Thought I was going to be fired the first day.


An hour later he comes back in, calmly, and say they tried a forced carry par 3 the first year they were in biz, and the ladies at that club gave them a hard time, so they agreed that they would never do a truly forced carry par 3 hole ever again.  That said, the 3rd at Kemper Lakes which opened later that year was essentially a forced carry, but I think the lake was already there.

[Tom_Doak]

Tom, aren't you writing a book about routing, not green shaping? 


To push Peter's baseball analogy perhaps to the breaking point, I think you are the General Manager/Manager and Brian, Brian, and Eric are a great starting rotation.  It sounds as if any of them will  be a great GM/Manager when they get the opportunity, but for the time being you are making most of the major strategic decisions.

I got a chuckle out of your question.


Honestly though, I don't know that there would be any way to write a book about shaping.  It's sculpture on a large scale; you learn in the medium, not on paper.  (Are there books on how to be a great sculptor, that any great sculptor learned from?).


My book will include a few green sketches from some of my early courses, but I don't even draw greens anymore, we just talk through them while standing on the green site.



Ally is right, though, that I'm making the mistake of assuming other "great greens shapers" would get to the level of my three guys (or some of the others I've trained who are now architects themselves).  Some, but certainly not all; there are lots of things that can get in the way, ego top of the list.


Also we are not talking about drafting a guy to route golf courses, because we all make the assumption that the guy doing the routing IS the de facto architect.  But if you were, say, Brooks Koepka trying to decide whom to draft first to start your business, you would draft the best guy to route courses.  That's really what Ben Crenshaw did differently than his peers, although it's interesting to note that Ben had to make that decision based on the greens shaping at Bill's earliest courses, because he didn't really route either of them.

[Peter Pallotta]

I just had an 'ah ha' moment:
As he confirmed for Ira, Tom's writing a book on routing, not on building great greens. And why? Because you can teach/learn routing through & from a book, but you can't do the same with shaping greens great.
One is a skill, the other is an art -- one a functional/logical faculty, the other an aesthetic & feeling one.
And the ah ha is:
- since you can't teach it/develop it in the minors, you'd better draft it, and
- you can 'massage' a routing and mowing lines and bunker placements & looks and length of holes etc etc, because they are all based on skills and logical thinking, but the artistry of a great green either is there or it's not:
So - better put great green builders/building first, cause you can fudge all the rest later.

[Ira Fishman]

I just had an 'ah ha' moment:
As he confirmed for Ira, Tom's writing a book on routing, not on building great greens. And why? Because you can teach/learn routing through & from a book, but you can't do the same with shaping greens great.
One is a skill, the other is an art -- one a functional/logical faculty, the other an aesthetic & feeling one.
And the ah ha is:
- since you can't teach it/develop it in the minors, you'd better draft it, and
- you can 'massage' a routing and mowing lines and bunker placements & looks and length of holes etc etc, because they are all based on skills and logical thinking, but the artistry of a great green either is there or it's not:
So - better put great green builders/building first, cause you can fudge all the rest later.

Peter,


I would have thought the ahah moment was Tom saying if someone were starting an architecture business, they should draft a great router first. Just as Mr. Crenshaw did.


Ira