By Design - Fall 2018

24 | By Design T his is my third and final article in a series based on the findings of our research program, Golf Facility Market Trend Watch , developed with the American Society of Golf Course Architects. In the first piece we discovered that a golf course renovation was the most coveted enhancement for guests and members of a golf club. And in the last issue of By Design I highlighted what our survey respondents felt were the most important factors for facility management to pull the trigger on a golf course renovation project; confirming the cost, upgrading infrastructure to increase its longevity and, for private clubs, member retention. For this article, I am turning my attention to the type of projects that golf course architects are working on. We asked the golf course architects who participated in our survey (which was conducted in September 2017) to indicate which type of projects they had been involved with over the previous 24 months. Figure 1 shows that bunker work is the most common. Almost four of every five architects (79%) indicated that they had been involved in a re-bunkering project during that period. The ASGCA’s Expected Life Cycle Chart (available from the Resources section of asgca.org ) indicates that bunker sand has a lifetime of 5-7 years and bunker drainage pipes last 5-10 years (and are often replaced at the same time as bunker sand). These are among the items with the shortest lifespan, which is likely to be a contributory factor to projects like these being so common for golf course architects. Also notable is the potential savings in annual maintenance costs that can be made through a bunker renovation. Marc Whitney, ASGCA Director of Marketing, says: “One effective way for a golf club to reduce annual maintenance costs is to get an expert to review its bunkers. It’s possible that strategy can be maintained, or even improved, with fewer bunkers, and sometimes formal sand bunkers can be replaced by landforms or other natural features that are less costly to maintain.” Another specific project type that is associated with maintenance and resource cost savings is the elimination or modification of irrigated areas, an activity that 52% of golf course architects have been involved with in the past two years. (Download The Cost Factor via the What are golf course architects doing? EXPERT VIEW In the final piece in our series from Jon Last of Sports & Leisure Research Group, we find out about the different types of projects that architects have been working on. Golf Facility Trends | Jon Last One effective way for a golf club to reduce annual maintenance costs is to get an expert to review its bunkers