How (not) to pick a golf course architect

By my informal count, golf course renovation work is at an all-time high. Many clubs I hear from are in the process of planning, or implementing, some sort of renovation work. Architects are busier than they have been in years, mainly with smaller projects than with the sexier (and more lucrative) new builds that dominated the news a generation ago.

I get a lot of calls from superintendents and committees wondering which architects to hire. Here’s my best advice.

Set reasonable goals

The basic question here is to find out where you want to be in 10 years. It is not reasonable to pursue your first U.S. Open, stretch the course to 7,100 yards or convert all your flat-lying bunkers to white-sand flash-ups. Start with fixing infrastructure: drainage, irrigation, shrunken greens, Barbie-doll-wide fairways, an overly forested golf course and/or forward tees of 5,800 yards.

Thinking more generally helps in terms of identifying the club or facility culture. It also helps to have a reasonable assessment of the strengths, weaknesses and potential character of your golf course based on its native landforms and what can be altered or recaptured. Few members can do this themselves. It takes an outsider’s eye to make that assessment without worrying you’ll offend sensibilities or rely on the bias of your own golf game.

Get a short list

Don’t just go with the big names or someone your green chairman read about on the internet. Cast the net widely, with designers from a variety of backgrounds: Solo practitioners, design/build folks, veterans with a lot of experience, young designers with a growing reputation and newcomers who cut their teeth as apprentices with established firms who know that by throwing themselves into your project they can dramatically enhance their profiles.

RFIs

I’ve seen clubs develop elaborate Requests for Proposals (RFPs) that include minutiae like tournament history from the 1930s and their club’s longitude and latitude. Keep it simple. For municipalities that must rely on competitive bidding, a better route is to pre-qualify experienced bidders by using a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) that specifies a certain range of demonstrated experience so that if you end up with the lowest bidder at least it will not be a cheap neophyte.

The best first step is simply a Request for Interest (RFI). Outline the basic nature of the facility, and the identifiable issues and goals, and then ask for their experience, work method, preferred mechanism of dealing with boards and members, who on their staff is actually doing the site work, what the deliverable materials are, and a set of projects and references you can check on. It’s too early to worry about fees; that ends up being a small part of an overall project and might depend on the scope of work that only becomes evident after a closer look.

How to interview

Don’t get dazzled by fancy graphics. Any backroom CAD jockey can make design plans look impressive. And don’t be overwhelmed by impressive-looking design brochures, half of which turn out to be company boilerplate. Only three things matter in the interview:

When you walk around the course with the architect, are you learning things about your place that you did not previously know or understand?

Does the candidate show an emotional investment in the project and the willingness to engage the time, resources and personal commitment to get things right?

Beyond all the success stories that get touted, ask the candidates about the one job they screwed up or regret having gone sideways and what they learned from it. If they tell you “It’s never happened,” you know they are not being forthcoming and they automatically DQ themselves.

Long-term relationship

You are not hiring someone to draw up plans. Think of the hiring as the start of a long-term relationship. Can you have lunch with this person for the next 20 years? Are you confident they will treat your golfers and staff with respect and listen to them patiently — even if they do not agree? You are hiring someone not only to work for with you but to embody your facility’s values in the public.