Design and Maintenance

[Mark_Fine]

Ross and Flynn and many other early architects started as Greenskeepers.  They understood the maintenance balance for sustainable designs.

I remember visiting a course under renovation and watching the shaper adding a lot of gnarly and intricate bunker edging (which I didn’t think fit the original architect’s style anyway).   I said to the super who was a good friend,"that is a lot of extra maintenance, are you really loving what they are doing with the bunker edges"?  He said, "oh don’t worry about those edges, we will remove all that easily later on"!

Golf is booming these days because of the pandemic but cost to play (which is impacted by maintenance) still has to be a paramount objective for the far majority of golf courses to survive.  99% of golf courses have to worry about these things. 

[Adrian_Stiff]

Ross and Flynn and many other early architects started as Greenskeepers.  They understood the maintenance balance for sustainable designs.

I remember visiting a course under renovation and watching the shaper adding a lot of gnarly and intricate bunker edging (which I didn’t think fit the original architect’s style anyway).   I said to the super who was a good friend, that is a lot of extra maintenance, are you really loving what they are doing with the bunker edges?  He said, oh don’t worry about those edges, we will remove all that easily later on!

Golf is booming these days because of the pandemic but cost to play (which is impacted by maintenance) still has to be a paramount objective for the far majority of golf courses to survive.  99% of golf courses have to worry about these things. 

In the world that 95% of golf course architects work in, budgets and designing what is good for the turf are the main issues to work for. The dream landscapes on native sand with clifftops and seaviews are just dreams for 95%.

[Mark_Fine]

Adrian,
I think you are correct. 


As you say, some architects don’t have to worry about budgets or maintenance.  They are focused on designing the absolute best golf course they can and cost to do so or to maintain it is of minor concern.  Most others aren’t so lucky as money is very tight and much compromise is required to get the most bang for the buck.  Many golfers don’t recognize this and hold the architect accountable if the design is lacking in some way.  Fair enough but they just don’t realize what things cost to build and maintain.  At many projects, clubs might work on one or two holes at a time every year or so (when they have saved the funds to be able to afford the work).  [/size]


Sometimes I think this site could really make a difference if it focused more threads on helping the 99% of courses that don't make magazine covers or are on some Top 100 list.  It is these courses where most of the golf is played and many designs could be helped with ideas and discussion on a site like this to not only improve the architecture but help with cost maintenance.  Just my opinion. 

[Joe Hancock]

“There’s no money in doing less”. Will always be true.


Mark, that super that’s a friend of yours....would you want him taking over the maintenance of something you designed?

[Mark_Fine]

Joe,
I would want to make sure we are both on the same page as to what we are designing/building and how it will be maintained.  We both want to make sure the design is cost sustainable.  In the case I mentioned above, that was obviously not agreed ahead of time but as you know, there are always politics in renovation projects. 

[Jeff_Brauer]

In the world that 95% of golf course architects work in, budgets and designing what is good for the turf are the main issues to work for. The dream landscapes on native sand with clifftops and seaviews are just dreams for 95%.

I joined this board over 20 years ago, and often have tried to make this point, just to point out that the most often talked about courses are sort of unicorns to the rest of us.


It has not made me very popular on this board.....and Mark, I recommend against if you want to stay in good standing here!

[Mark_Fine]

Jeff,
Who said I was in good standing away    Honestly, I think if Ran chimed in, he would welcome the idea (even if we only focused on it for a month or so).  I think it could make a real difference for many courses. 


Like you, I am not trying to win a popularity contest.  I am providing frank commentary based on my experience as best I can and always looking to learn in the process.

[Tom_Doak]

When I worked for the Dyes, P.B. joked one day that "We have to build a couple of things that the superintendent says he can't maintain, or we haven't been trying hard enough."


I'm generally a lot more practical than that.  One of the advantages of minimalism is that if you don't disturb the landscape too much then it will take care of itself like it always has.


Occasionally, I have a client who wants to push the envelope and do something outrageous, and clearly can afford to.  But generally I'm good friends with the greenkeepers of our courses and I don't leave them anything they can't handle.


Pretending that you have to build less exciting courses in order to maintain them easily is just an excuse.

[Peter Pallotta]

I’m one of the few posters here who’s played 99% of his golf on the 99% of golf courses no one has ever heard of built by the 95% of architects that Mark and Jeff mention.

I’m grateful for every one of those golf courses, and one of the main benefits of my years on gca.com is the ability to ‘see’ these courses in a new and better light: reading about great architecture (that I don’t get to play) has helped me better appreciate whatever ‘thoughtful designs’ and ‘strategies’ and ‘lay of the land’ aesthetics and ‘minimalist’ ethos that exist in the courses I do get to play.

But in seeing more clearly now the good of what I have I think I also see more clearly the ‘bad’: architects (and supers) who too easily settle for 2nd best, who use their limited budgets or mediocre sites or average golfer market/clientele as excuses for not aiming higher and striving for more, as if being pretty good is good enough and (worse) as if golfers like me are too dumb to notice and too grateful to care.

[Mark_Fine]

It is always about striking the right balance.  I agree with Tom about using maintenance as an excuse to build less and I also actually agree with P.B. Dye that at times you need to push forward with certain things that might not be so easy to maintain.  We all know most supers would cut down every tree and put in wall to wall cart paths so golfers stay off the turf and limit contour in greens and if they could, get rid of most bunkers (and those that are kept must be machine raked), ... I could go on.  But also most supers out there realize their job is not easy and if their course is not exciting, void of strategy, and not inviting to golfers they won’t have a course to maintain for long and will be looking for another job.  This is where balance and good communication and a good understanding comes in on both sides as to why the architect wants to do something and the challenges for the super to maintain it.  If both sides understand each other their is a much better chance of success.  Like in any good relationship there is always some compromise on both sides. 

[Thomas Dai]

Doesn’t generally make much difference what the subject matter or business or industry is, if you don’t or for some reason can’t, put enough time and money into maintenance then what was designed and built will change and likely not for the better. And the easy-way and/or penny-pinching (unfortunately) have a tendency to prevail.
Sensible design should of course incorporate or at least take into consideration ease and thus ultimate expenditure on maintenance. Even positioning and set-up of the maintenance compound can have an effect one way or another on the productivity of the maintenance crew and equipment usage and thus ultimately on finance.

Atb

[Tom_Doak]

We all know most supers would cut down every tree and put in wall to wall cart paths so golfers stay off the turf and limit contour in greens and if they could, get rid of most bunkers (and those that are kept must be machine raked), ... I could go on.   

And you'd be wrong.  A lot of greenkeepers are avid golfers and they like the challenge of maintaining a course that challenges the players.


When we were building Pacific Dunes, we kept asking Ken Nice if he didn't want us to soften one or another of the natural contours in the fairways, particularly at the 16th and 18th holes.  He would look at them from a couple of sides, and invariably tell us he could maintain the one in question.  I've met guys who were just the opposite, too, but I've been lucky to work with a lot of guys who were every bit as invested in the construction of the course as we were.

[Tim Martin]

We all know most supers would cut down every tree and put in wall to wall cart paths so golfers stay off the turf and limit contour in greens and if they could, get rid of most bunkers (and those that are kept must be machine raked), ... I could go on.   

And you'd be wrong.  A lot of greenkeepers are avid golfers and they like the challenge of maintaining a course that challenges the players.

+1-More supers I meet are in Tom’s camp.

[Mark_Fine]

Come on Tom, this time you might be wrong!  Of course not every super thinks like that BUT MANY ARE FORCED TO BECAUSE OF MANPOWER AND BUDGET!  You work on different courses than the rest of us and might have lost touch with reality


Here is a sample list of some of the challenges/compromises “the rest of us” have to deal with:


1) Bunkers - Not only do we have to be concerned about how many (which we should be anyway) but also their size, their depth and how they are maintained.  Many courses I work on for example, don’t have the manpower for hand raking and as such that dramatically impacts design.  With few exceptions many of my projects require all the bunkers to be designed for mechanical raking.  That can be pretty challenging when you are working mostly on older golf courses with bunkers that are very three dimensional.  Also the amount of sand flash needs to be factored in as most of the clubs don’t have anywhere near the budget for fancy linings which dramatically increase the up front cost of a bunker.  I don't care for linings anyway but I usually don't have that option if I wanted it. 


2) Fairway widths - I love to widen fairways, especially when and where the width makes sense.  But fairways are more expensive to maintain than rough.  They require more man power for mowing and more chemicals that many clubs just can’t afford.  There is one of the reasons many clubs have reduced their fairway acreage.  Sometimes (many times, irrigation can't reach the wider fairways so we get constrained).  Moving/adding irrigation is not cheap!


3) Grass selection - In the Northeast, most of the top clubs have bent grass fairways.  Many of the courses I work on would love to have bent but they can’t afford the cost and maintenance compared to rye or blue grass,…  In many closely mown areas, I need to use something like low mow blue vs bent which can work well but provides a different playing surface from bent. 


4) Cart paths - If I had my druthers I would use very few if any cart paths on the courses I work on.  They would be walking courses only (with trollies if you’d like or caddies if available).  But that is very unrealistic on most of the golf courses out there especially the ones most of us work on.  Carts mean revenue and they also mean we have to design for them.  Most wall to wall paths (which sometimes are requested or are already there) are like having scars all over your golf course especially when you are NOT working on courses that are spread out over 200 acres. 


5) Tees - I would love to have beautiful tees on every golf hole but often times, fixing existing tees are one of the last things courses have money for.  Everything has to be prioritized and sometimes only the worst offenders get any attention (or funds).


6) Drainage - As much as I believe drainage is one of the most important aspects of golf course design, in can be a tough sell to a course that has limited funds.  I usually win out but it is a battle for the funds because it is underground and golfers don’t see it like they would fresh sand in the bunkers or tree work or,…


7) Green expansions - While it might seem a no brainer to many here to expand greens that have shrunk over the years, larger greens mean higher maintenance costs.  Many clubs simply don’t have the money (which is sometimes why the greens have got smaller to begin with).  Again, we often win out but it is not as simple as you would think.  Again, if they can’t afford to maintain it, it will just go back to what is now.  Also keep in mind that many courses don’t have the money or the manpower to hand mow greens.  As such this impacts design as you have to accommodate for triplex mowers and their turning radius.  At most of the elite courses this is not a concern and architects don’t have to worry about it.

I could go on and on but this is just a sample of some of the things the rest of us have to deal with that might not matter at a place like Bandon Dunes or on most of the elite courses that someone like Tom Doak is working on.  Just curious Tom, did you design all those Thomas bunkers at BelAir for machine raking 

[Carl Rogers]

So the starting point should be:
- 5800 yards from the middle tees, par 70
- single height mowing not to short
- no formal bunkers
- 90 percent pinnable green area
- multiple informal teeing areas


And then figure out how to make an interesting course??

[Mark_Fine]

Carl,
I think you are not far off 


There are roughly 38,000 golf courses in the world and roughly 16,000 in the U.S. (despite Covid, numbers still seem to be declining every day).  On this site we tend to talk about elite designs so let's call that the top 10%.  Honestly if someone did a count, the courses we concentrate most discussion on probably numbers only a few hundred.  It's those other 35,000 or so golf courses that don't get all the attention where most of the golf is played.  Very few enjoy the $1MM+ maintenance budgets of the elite courses, in fact most have budgets of half that or less. 


Superintendents in my opinion have the toughest job in all of golf especially the ones that have to work miracles with no staff and no money because their golfers want their course to look like the ones they see on TV.  All I am saying is that maybe a little more attention should be given to what is happening out there with those courses and how a site like this can might help with ideas and advice.  As Jeff Bauer said, that is not something that will be popular on Golf Club Atlas.  I work with some courses that have maintenance budgets of roughly $350K a year.  Some of the top clubs might spend that much in a year just maintaining their bunkers    But we will still make a difference and hopefully provide more interesting and more enjoyable golf to all the golfers who play there. Most architects are in this same boat and trying to do likewise. 

[Ira Fishman]

Carl,
I think you are not far off 


There are roughly 38,000 golf courses in the world and roughly 16,000 in the U.S. (despite Covid, numbers still seem to be declining every day).  On this site we tend to talk about elite designs so let's call that the top 10%.  Honestly if someone did a count, the courses we concentrate most discussion on probably numbers only a few hundred.  It's those other 35,000 or so golf courses that don't get all the attention where most of the golf is played.  Very few enjoy the $1MM+ maintenance budgets of the elite courses, in fact most have budgets of half that or less. 


Superintendents in my opinion have the toughest job in all of golf especially the ones that have to work miracles with no staff and no money because their golfers want their course to look like the ones they see on TV.  All I am saying is that maybe a little more attention should be given to what is happening out there with those courses and how a site like this can might help with ideas and advice.  As Jeff Bauer said, that is not something that will be popular on Golf Club Atlas.  I work with some courses that have maintenance budgets of roughly $350K a year.  Some of the top clubs might spend that much in a year just maintaining their bunkers    But we will still make a difference and hopefully provide more interesting and more enjoyable golf to all the golfers who play there. Most architects are in this same boat and trying to do likewise.

Mark,


I remember that you said that you have not updated your website. I cannot remember why you have not done so.


However, in light of your post, on what muni/public courses have you worked? Did you waive your fee? If not, why not given the constraints that they have on their Budgets?


Thanks,


Ira

[Tom Bacsanyi]

So the starting point should be:
- 5800 yards from the middle tees, par 70
- single height mowing not to short
- no formal bunkers
- 90 percent pinnable green area
- multiple informal teeing areas


And then figure out how to make an interesting course??

Your course could be maintained to an acceptable standard with a staff of 3-5 regulars and perhaps some part-timers. Because the mowing could be done with a triplex or two and a gang mower the crew could get the mowing done really quickly. When you get out of the way of golfers, you get out of the way of DOLLARS.The course would be presumably walkable, so more people would do so. I would play your course frequently.


I don't agree that you need boring greens to be budget conscious though. As the marginal cost of interesting greens vs. boring greens isn't a huge figure given a similar sq footage. The thing that makes greens really hard to maintain is not necessarily their internal contour, but what's directly adjacent. For example, a green that abruptly and steeply falls away on 3 sides creates some headaches. Greens such as this might need to be spray hawked vs. boom sprayed and walk mowed vs. triplexed. Similarly, the surrounds might have to be walk/string trimmed/flymowed vs. a rough mower or fairway mower. One or two greens of this nature won't kill you, but 18 of them will add some serious labor dollars to the budget.

[Mark_Fine]

Tom B,
Lots of good points!  Simple doesn't always have to be boring. 


Ira,
I haven’t updated my website in years.  I probably should but I stopped because I found it was better (at the time) to not disclose where you were working (especially when jobs were few and far between and competition for work was crazy).  I've managed to stay busy every year so it hasn't seemed to have hurt me.  Most projects come from word of mouth anyway not from websites.   


As far as how many muni/public courses I have worked on; the answer is quite a few.  It wouldn't be smart to disclose fees on a public website but I will say that I try to be "accommodating" and most of my clients know it.  I recently worked on the renovation of Bethlehem GC in PA (opened for play in the spring this year) and I treated that project as giving back to the local community since I am based not too far away.  It was the right thing to do but I did charge enough to take my wife out for coffee 

[Ira Fishman]

Mark,


I didn't ask you to disclose your fees, but I am curious about the list of muni/public courses on which you worked and what was the nature of the work. And kudos for charging them less.


Ira

[Mark_Fine]

Ira,
Here is an article that came out this month on one public course that I worked on.  We touched every aspect of the design (the course was close to fallow when I first saw it and was close to becoming a housing development).  We found old aerials, original plans and lots of old photos that really helped guide our work.  Actually I think you would love it if you ever had the chance to play it.  Good example of a course with a “VERY LOW” maintenance budget and a very low renovation/restoration budget as well.  We had to work smartly and be very creative with our limited funds.  Course has a great super and without his efforts and support, we would have never gotten done what we did.


https://golfcoursetrades.com/copake-country-club-turns-towards-100th-anniversary/

Another one you might have heard of that Forrest Richardson and I worked on years ago were the two George Thomas courses at Griffith Park in Los Angeles, CA.  We didn’t get to do all we wanted there (costs/budget,... was a major challenge) but we got a plan in place and some modest changes/improvements were made.  Sometimes the idea is to just get the ball rolling and show the owners/management a vision and see where it goes.  Sometimes they can take it from there and go at their own pace.  Patience is key as money (or lack there of) drives many of these kinds of projects. 

I already mentioned Bethlehem which was a wall to wall renovation.  I also worked with Allentown Muni which is another local design but the scope of work there will be stretched out over a much longer time frame.  So far we have done a lot of work on changing grassing lines, tree management, bunker edging,…, but in time more improvements are planned.  Overall, I don’t work on too many muni courses but I do work on public courses that are privately owned (Copake is one example).  The scope of work varies all across the board but one thing they all have in common is there are no blank checks and careful management of limited improvement costs/ongoing maintenance expenses are always paramount.  I listed in an earlier post some of the challenges these kind of projects face. 

[Ira Fishman]

Ira,
Here is an article that came out this month on one public course that I worked on.  We touched every aspect of the design (the course was close to fallow when I first saw it and was close to becoming a housing development).  We found old aerials, original plans and lots of old photos that really helped guide our work.  Actually I think you would love it if you ever had the chance to play it.  Good example of a course with a “VERY LOW” maintenance budget and a very low renovation/restoration budget as well.  We had to work smartly and be very creative with our limited funds.  Course has a great super and without his efforts and support, we would have never gotten done what we did.


https://golfcoursetrades.com/copake-country-club-turns-towards-100th-anniversary/

Another one you might have heard of that Forrest Richardson and I worked on years ago were the two George Thomas courses at Griffith Park in Los Angeles, CA.  We didn’t get to do all we wanted there (costs/budget,... was a major challenge) but we got a plan in place and some modest changes/improvements were made.  Sometimes the idea is to just get the ball rolling and show the owners/management a vision and see where it goes.  Sometimes they can take it from there and go at their own pace.  Patience is key as money (or lack there of) drives many of these kinds of projects. 

I already mentioned Bethlehem which was a wall to wall renovation.  I also worked with Allentown Muni which is another local design but the scope of work there will be stretched out over a much longer time frame.  So far we have done a lot of work on changing grassing lines, tree management, bunker edging,…, but in time more improvements are planned.  Overall, I don’t work on too many muni courses but I do work on public courses that are privately owned (Copake is one example).  The scope of work varies all across the board but one thing they all have in common is there are no blank checks and careful management of limited improvement costs/ongoing maintenance expenses are always paramount.  I listed in an earlier post some of the challenges these kind of projects face.

So "quite a few" means five over a long number of years.


Ira

[Mark_Fine]

Ira,
Why would I provide a whole list of courses here if I don’t even post them on my own website? I gave you a few to look at and even an article from two weeks ago that talks about what I did on one of those courses.  If you really need a few more course names (not sure why as this is not about just my work) I did note a couple on my old website that are public like Willow Brook GC, Tumble Brook, Chestnut Ridge Golf Resort (Tom's Run and Chestnut Ridge), Pocono Manor, … 

I will admit most of the courses I have consulted with over the last 20 years are private.  It just worked out that way.  My sweet spot is classic designs with some history.  I do know the public design area especially the muni courses tends to be very competitive, requires detailed bid packages, and lots of bureaucracy.  I do more design/build with a few construction teams that I like to work with so the muni area is not really my focus except in certain situations.  I do sometimes work as part of an architect team like Forrest Richardson and I did for example with Greg Martin at The Preserve at Oak Meadows in Chicago.  We had a lot of fun out there and it was nice for me as I had another private project underway down south in Champaign so I could swing by more often. 

[Thomas Dai]

So the starting point should be:
- 5800 yards from the middle tees, par 70
- single height mowing not to short
- no formal bunkers
- 90 percent pinnable green area
- multiple informal teeing areas
And then figure out how to make an interesting course??

Sounds pretty good to me.
In fact it would seem like the original starting point for a whole bunch of the now drooled over GB&I courses!
atb

[Sean_A]

I tend to lean toward good design not needing great maintenance to be seen as good design. I think great maintenance makes it easier to appreciate good design and can perhaps even increase the quality of the design. But if a design needs great maintenance to be considered great, something is amiss. I wonder how much better courses could be maintained over the long term if green speeds, crazy short fairway grass height and bunker maintenance weren't the primary focus. Many courses have enough budget to present courses in good nick, but their priorities don't feed a long term plan of sensible maintenance.

Ciao