Jason, does the board feel that the addition of an artificial waterfall will boost interest in membership at your club or does it go beyond that? I guess I'm not sure how a man made feature such as waterfall elevates a hole to "signature" status unless it introduces a hazard that didn't previously exist?
You know, one of the things I like about this project is that I really don't think it was motivated by anything more than a board member seeking a way to improve our course. Also confirmed at our annual meeting is that we again have reached membership capacity, and have reestablished waiting lists. In that light, given the timing, I don't see expectations that this increases membership or membership interest. Rather, I really think it stems from a desire to make our club a better place for members. And really, that's consistent with the actions of our board over the last few years. We've executed a series of relatively small but impactful projects that have improved the experience of being a club member, and a few of them have also managed to tangibly improve bottom-line revenue and likely contributed to our current full membership and solid financial standing.
While I don't totally agree with the solution presented, I commend the desire to improve our members' experience. I love our course. It's not an architectural masterpiece, but it has a ton of variety and a lot of really fun holes and a great playing culture. One of the course's biggest drawbacks, to me, is a lack of true standout holes. There's not a bad one in the bunch, but it's hard to pick out stars. I truly think the goal of this project is to help "fix" that problem.
Now, I probably wouldn't have chosen to highlight such a short and one-dimensional hole. I'd have looked to dramatize the impact of one of the two or three stronger holes on the course, and I would've looked to do that through added playing interest rather than added visual interest. And we also have a master plan in place that I also might have looked to pull a project forward from, rather than doing something offscript. But in defense of NOT going in that direction, the most exciting components of our master plan are also MUCH more expensive than adding a water feature, which is something we'll be able to do in-house with existing funds while marrying the work with a couple other projects to capture some cost efficiency (the pond needs some maintenance anyways in addition to hopefully pulling off the aforementioned fairway expansion).