Myrtle Beach, S.C. – During one of the general sessions at the Carolinas GCSA Conference & Show (Nov. 14 through 17), a panel of superintendents, architects and a U.S. Golf Association director were asked about pressing issues facing the game of golf. The panelists were golf course architects Michael Hurdzan, Ph.D., and Richard Mandell; Tim Heirs, CGCS, at The Old Collier Golf Club in Naples, Fla.; Bob Randquist, CGCS, at Boca Rio Golf Club in Boca Raton, Fla.; and James Moore, director of construction education with the USGA. Here’s what they had to say:
Mandell: I hope the game goes backward because it will be more successful and be less difficult as a business. If we go back, golfers need to lower their expectations.
Hurdzan: There is less reverence for the game now because of the changing demographic.
Maintenance is more important than design, and visual aspects are more important than playability. As an example, several of the Golf Digest top-rated courses are unplayable but have great views. But that’s what we have to deal with.
We need to have an easy point of entry into the game for people to help bring golf to communities. We need to be creative in bringing people into the game, and using existing facilities are the easiest way to do that.
If you are a golf course owner, you can service a market or build one. We try to tell owners who want to build new golf courses that they don’t have to build a top 100 course. Instead, they can build a brand and bring people into the game, which is good business. We also focus on building learning centers – i.e., practices facilities – to help build a market.
Randquist: The game isn’t about the look and condition of the course, it’s about the internal battle you have with yourself when you play.
Corporately, we have to educate golfers and bring sanity to the expectations they have. We need to educate the golfer about the cost of maintaining bunkers and also re-educate golfers about bunkers, which are supposed to be hazards.
Moore: Younger kids – ages 8 and 9 – have extremely high standards, and it will be tough to sell the “backward” philosophy.
The gap between the pro and the amateur is widening, and in the future, we might see special courses built just for the pros.
You can save money by putting fewer bunkers on courses.
When players are complaining about hazards, we’ve come along way and are doing a pretty good job.
Heirs: The cost of golf course maintenance has increased 675 percent since the mid-1970s. Courses are competing for water and fuel. We’re going to have to become better managers, providing great conditions with less input.
We need to develop relationships with those who don’t know what we do, such as the media.
Additionally, Mandell discussed renovating Donald Ross courses and presented six characteristics of Ross-style bunkers:
1. They can’t be pigeon-holed
2. They have concave bottoms but many flat bottoms
3. Form follows function
4. He always wanted players to know sand is present
5. Faces were never meant for carpeted turf
6. There’s always variety.
Great design shouldn’t be expensive, according to Mandell. With some recent redesigns he has worked on, he showed examples of where he put bunkers as cross hazards because there were too many bunkers on the sides of holes.
Mandell also offered steps to approach a restoration:
1. Conduct research
2. Find old photos
3. Interview people who were around then
4. Make sure you’re historically accurate.
“Design can be simple if form follows function,” he says. “We are too much into length, aesthetics and difficulty.” GCN