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Eye on the prize
Planning for golf course maintenance during the
design phase is often overlooked, but can save superintendents plenty of headaches down the line.
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A focus on long-term maintainability during the design phase has paid off for the Shoals in Muscle Shoals, Ala., making it among the most efficient courses to maintain in the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail. This is the 18th hole on the Shoals’ Schoolmaster Course. |
The pesky maintenance problem that keeps you up at night and makes your staff grumble every morning could have been prevented with some additional planning — the kind that takes place among the developer, architect and superintendent during the design phase.
Planning efficient maintenance for a new course from day one is generally not at the top of the priority list for a developer. Construction costs, wetland restrictions, finances and other pressing issues usually dominate a developer’s time. But a short-sighted approach can make your life really painful down the road.
You have to talk with the developer and architect about maintenance issues the day you sign on — if not before. A project that hasn’t dealt with potential maintenance nightmares is just waiting for disaster to strike. You’d be better off passing on that kind of opportunity.
With more hazards than a Pete Dye layout, a new project must be approached cautiously. Work with the designer and developer/owner to make sure the features being put in can be effectively maintained later, as these veterans have found.
The customer is always right
Architect Lindsey Ervin designed the Woodlands in Windsor Mills, Md., which opened in 1998 and is a part of the Baltimore County golf system. The key to a successful course, he believes, is what the golfer experiences.
“I make it playable and exciting,” says Ervin, “but at the same time, maintainable.” The Class A superintendent at the Woodlands, 24-year GCSAA member Gary Crone, thinks Ervin did pretty well with planning there. Crone has been with the course since grow-in, and says the course is fairly simple to maintain.
“Lindsey likes to face his bunkers, which as a golfer I like, so I know what’s up ahead of me,” he adds. But as a superintendent, Crone wants his course to be easily maintained, especially when dealing with potentially high-cost features like bunkers. Ervin certainly takes maintenance factors into account on his courses.
“I like to see steep bunkers,” Ervin says, “but they can be a little more of a maintenance problem.” He gets agreement from superintendents he works with on how much slope is manageable within the budget.
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Strategically routing the course among native areas helped limit the Shoals to just over 100 acres of maintained turfgrass, which has helped keep maintenance costs under control. This is the 17th hole on the Fighting Joe Course. |
After being carved out of the woods, the aptly named Woodlands left a lot of the tree lines intact, making golfers feel secluded. Still, many holes are opened up on the right side to improve playability for slicers and limit course maintenance issues.
“That (approach) gives us some agronomic benefit by giving us some airflow and sunlight in there,” adds Crone, who also oversees maintenance at another Baltimore County layout, Diamond Ridge Golf Course.
Talking about the routing, Ervin hits the same note: “Down in low areas near water, sometimes you have an airflow and shade problem that can lead to more intense maintenance practices.”
So Ervin’s main challenge was adapting to the regulatory restrictions on possible routes while keeping maintenance in mind. Fish and wildlife regulators defined the stream running through the Woodlands property as a river. Due to the distance requirements, no holes could be placed within 300 feet of the normally dry bed of the stream, limiting the routing somewhat.
“The regulations determine where you can go, basically,” Ervin says. In this case, that was a factor that reduced maintenance concerns.
Ervin addressed water issues head-on, as well. Crone says the dramatic fairways at the Woodlands are well-designed because they take excess rainwater away to a catch basin, where it’s recycled for use on the course. That improves playability and maintainability. While water conservation is the kind of trouble spot superintendents like to address during construction, it’s far from the only one. Potential cost disasters are as common as choking at the Ryder Cup.
Checking the price tag
The first key battle in keeping up a costly feature is always won in the planning stages, Trent Inman believes. The features that are built into the course where he serves as CGCS, Old Memorial Golf Club in Tampa, Fla., must be factored into the yearly maintenance costs going forward.
A sure-fire road to failure is a lack of coordination between what an architect designs and what owners are willing to pay in maintenance. Inman says the way to assure successful maintenance operations is for developers, architects and superintendents to collaborate on the features as they are developed and keep the eventual budget for upkeep in mind during decision making. Coordination like that ensures that large, deep bunkers like those at Old Memorial can be properly maintained.
“We’re fortunate enough here that we’ve got the resources to take care of them properly,” the 15-year GCSAA member says. “They’re a very dramatic part of the property. They really stand out.”
Knowing what resources will be demanded by a certain feature is critical. An architect must know what the owner wants to spend on maintenance in coming years. Otherwise, the superintendent is handcuffed on day one, Inman says. Architects should discuss any areas with lots of handwork or anything labor-intensive with the developer, owner and
superintendent.
“The main thing,” he adds, “is to make sure that the architect is in tune with what the ownership is willing to pay as far as the maintenance level.”
Meticulous planning
Having an architect that focuses on making the work easier to accomplish is great, says Doug Tinkham, the Class A superintendent at the Shoals in Muscle Shoals, Ala., the 36-hole complex that is part of the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail.
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Golf course architect Lindsey Ervin and superintendent Gary Crone worked together during the design and construction of the Woodlands in Windsor Mills, Md. (the 17th hole is shown here), to ensure that the design features could be realistically maintained. Photo courtesy of Lindsey Ervin |
“I’ve found the way Bobby Vaughn built this golf course, it has been easier to maintain at the same standard for less money,” the 18-year GCSAA member says. Part of the reason the cost is lower is due to less mowing time. The tees were potted within natural areas, and most space between the tee and fairway remains natural fescue and switchgrass. Only about 100 acres on each course are bermudagrass.
Tinkham has been with the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail for years, but compared with older courses in the company, the Fighting Joe and Schoolmaster courses in Muscle Shoals are easier to maintain, he says. The Shoals has the same visual appeal as other RTJ Golf Trail courses, but a lower operating budget, thanks to meticulous planning.
Other aspects that make it easy to handle are the greens complexes, with multiple access points. Having bunker liners in place also keeps time-consuming repair of washouts off the maintenance list.
Lessons learned
Washouts have hampered Bart Miller, the superintendent at Whiskey Creek Golf Club in Ijamsville, Md., a Mike Poellot-designed public course that opened in 2000. While planning ahead for maintenance may seem like a luxury that architects, developers and superintendents cannot take the time to address, the alternative is painful and long-lasting.
“I wish I could say there was a lot of planning that went into helping make the golf course superintendent’s job easier,” the 11-year GCSAA member says. “It’s a really high-maintenance golf course. We have learned some lessons.”
What were those lessons?
• Lesson 1 — Bunkers without proper drainage suffer washouts.
• Lesson 2 — Bunker complexes need to be accessible to mowers, etc., otherwise you end up using an army of string trimmers.
• Lesson 3 — Be generous with the rows, size and number of sprinkler heads.
Pluses on the planning side, Miller says, include overall drainage, which he believes is great. The greens mix is also excellent. There are no ornamental plants to deal with, so all the work is focused on areas in play for the golfers.
Armed with the knowledge that eliminating potential trouble spots during design can make ongoing maintenance much easier, you know what you have to do when you join a course mid-construction — initiate that potentially awkward conversation with the developer and architect. You might just save yourself a lot of work.
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