important still to do something
truly special on each project. The
reason, he said, was that in golf,
differentiation is everything. To be
a success, a course needs to stand
out in some way. It needn’t be the
biggest, the fanciest or the most
expensive—indeed in many cases,
those are actually negatives—but it
does need something that identifies it
from all the competition. “In general
it is pointless penny pinching on
the course,” he said. “Design it right,
budget right, understand the ongoing
investment and build it properly and
maintain it afterwards. I think an
enjoyable golf experience in a great
landscape and environment will
stand the test of time.”
The problem with this is that
standout features often cost money.
Lots of large, high impact bunkers
will make a course visually dramatic,
but the construction cost and the
ongoing maintenance bill will make
operators wonder whether the choice
was a wise one.
So what else do clients value?
Consensus from a range of architects
is that personal care and attention is
a highly rated aspect. “You have to be
authentic, to be yourself, and you have
to be able to deal face to face with key
people,” one told me. “People do not
like being sold to by one person and
then transferred to another.”
What’s really crucial to remember
is that, as we said at the top of this
article, value is different to everyone.
From an individual golfer’s point
of view, a $30 greens fee might be
poor value for a particular course at
a particular time, while a $100,000
membership initiation might seem
like a steal for another course.
Therefore, the key way that golf
architects add value is to understand
the goals of the client, and deliver for
him a project that meets, or ideally
exceeds, those goals within the
budget available.
This sounds simple, but it’s not. Not
all clients, whether they be developers
trying to put together a large golf
and housing project in an emerging
market, or the board of directors
of an old established golf club, can
necessarily explain their goals in clear
terms. “We want to be the best” is
a common refrain, but what does it
actually mean? Much of the time, it
is for the golf architect to figure that
out, which reflects another key way in
which designers add value. They are,
or should be, the client’s closest, most
independent advisor.
Examples of how this manifests
itself abound. Many architects—
including Bobby Weed, ASGCA,
at Deltona Club in Orlando, Fl.,
and ASGCA Past President Erik
Larsen, in a current project at Selva
Marina Country Club in Atlantic
Beach, Fla.—have helped course
owners transform the economics
of their businesses, by remodeling
courses to allow the sale of some
land for real estate development.
Examples of great design work
turning around courses that were
struggling are also common, as are
cases where designers have been
able to help clubs access funding for
development work, such as the First
Links program sponsored by ASGCA
and the PGA of America. Or projects
such as the Island Hills remodel in
Michigan, previously covered in
By
Design
, where Ray Hearn, ASGCA,
created a new routing that enables
the golf course to be played in many
different ways for beginners, junior
golfers and experts alike.
Big money projects are just as much
in need of value-based thinking as
small ones. Golf projects don’t come
bigger than the two Mission Hills
complexes in China, the original in
the city of Shenzhen and the other
on the tourist destination of Hainan
Island. But here too, value thinking
was at the heart of the way the
course designers, led by Brian Curley,
ASGCA, and ASGCA Vice President
Lee Schmidt, went about creating
the golf. The Hainan location, for
example, was chosen not for its
natural golfing features, but rather
because of its convenience. To build
COVER STORY
10
|
By Design
The key way that golf architects add value
is to
understand the goals
of
the client, and deliver for him a project
that meets, or ideally exceeds, those
goals within the budget available
