By Ronald Fream^*

Inconvenient Truth

Remodeling of a golf course is at some point, inevitable, essential and unavoidable

Across South East Asia, where I now reside, golf course owners and club managers have an aversion to recognizing the need to consider remodeling, renovating or seriously upgrading their course. Letting matters remain unmentioned, ignoring increasing signs of wear and tear, avoiding the players protestations about how boring

or wet the course has become, overlooking the obvious deterioration of the turf surfaces, eventually leads to decreasing play and reduced profits. In some cases rehabilitation is the more correct term than remodel.

For golf to grow and prosper, golf must be accessible and affordable. Turf grass conditions must be better than “good enough.”

The need for remodeling, renovation, design renewal and general course enhancement emerges more rapidly across tropical Asia than it does in most areas of the United States, Europe or north Asia where cooler climates prevail.

Year-round turf grass growth with often heavy traffic speeds the effects of what I call"Green Usage." This constant traffic increases the effects of what I call "Green Creep", ”Tee Creep”, “Bunker Creep” and “Tree Creep”.

A salubrious golf course does not remain so from opening day onward without insightful attention. Even with quite well applied maintenance practices, the impact of foot traffic by players and the repeated impact of maintenance equipment induces a progressive deterioration on the soil base of all courses. Even the often intense downpour of tropical rainfall contributes to the decline. Compaction of native soils and the formulated seed beds of most putting greens lead to turf growth problems. The higher the volume of play, the more worrisome to management compaction should become.

Turf grass cannot grow correctly when the soil growing medium becomes compacted; oxygen, carbon dioxide and water cannot pass into or out of the soil. Turf grass roots do not grow through soil particles, but between those particles. There must be a continuous exchange of oxygen and free air space for the grass to survive. Soggy conditions kill grass. The more intense the play, the more stress is applied to the turf grass.

As compaction from traffic increases over time, absent ample counter maintenance measures, turf quality deteriorates, drainage problems expand and the appearance of the course degenerates.

For courses more than 15 years old, the vast reformation of playing conditions brought on by technological advances in the flight of the ball, the size of the driver head, more shaft options and general physical enhancement of many players places the ball farther from the tee upon landing.

When originally designed 15, 20, or more years ago, bunkers meant something to the better players. These days, those bunkers collect shots from seniors, or the longer women players, not the better golfer they were originally intended to challenge. Many older courses are short when measured against today’s accepted playing lengths.

Longer tee shots are not always straighter. Concern for player safety and adjacent property, due to longer miss hit shots, is a real factor to consider during remodeling. At some courses, fixing safety hazard situations should be done sooner, not later.

Older greens do not provide a defense of par against shorter approach shots from longer drives and second shots. Over time, the size of the greens has diminished; the once defending bunkers have creeped smaller as well and are substantially farther from the putting surface and flagstick positions. The original design intent of many greens has disappeared as the creep effects wipe out the aesthetic beauty of the green site. Round and small greens reduce flag stick positions and lessen playing challenge.

Green sites at older courses which have not been renewed, sport a bland and boring sameness. For better players, this sameness produces a game less interesting, less challenging. For average and high handicap players, par is still a dream.

Over time, even with exceptional and costly maintenance, courses evolve and visually change in appearance becoming more conventional; playing challenge declines, turf quality becomes more mongrelized and more plagued with weeds.

Greens once pristine with hybrid Bermuda grass, evolve into a mix of mutant strains and local weed invaders. Tee surfaces become smaller, creeping inward. This exacerbates the progress of cancerous compaction.

Trees, too, creep and expand. This expansion is often at only a slightly obvious pace, but without attention, fairways become narrower and trees cast more shade encouraging thin, weedy turf growth.

Once visible bunkers now have creeped smaller to the point of being barely visible, often saucer-like or are blind to the oncoming players.

Bunkers should be obvious to oncoming players. Bunkers often become ponds during even moderate rainfall. This is a common occurrence at older courses.

Irrigation systems age along with the course. Renewing the irrigation system is often an essential part of course remodeling. This work is not inexpensive. An experienced golf course irrigation engineer is the preferred means to realize the desired new results efficiently. This work should be coordinated with any remodeling work.

I have observed, in over forty years of golf architecture, that all these alterations and little-by-little evolving changes around the course are often not noticed by the General Manager or even the golf course Superintendent. The Owner or club President plays the course not noticing these minute but accumulating ongoing alterations. Being too close to the course on a daily or weekly basis obscures the changes that an experienced eye, visiting occasionally, will surely note.

What to do, when, and for how much? Often management is adverse to spending money to increase the maintenance budget as play increases and the course shows increasing symptoms of aging. Often the owner likes to see the profit margin increase. Limiting maintenance expense is a sure way to expand the bottom line, for a time, but deferred maintenance has a price. Remodeling in total to renew an aged and out-of-date course can be expensive. Even in some ASEAN and South Asian countries where labor is cheap and readily available, the cost to renew can be an unpleasant surprise.

Postponing remodeling once the need becomes obvious is short sighted. Compaction and “creep” impacts are a cancer on a golf course that will only expand and worsen if not attended to. Given the high annual rainfall and torrential downpours in tropical climates, compaction (which destroys soil porosity and drainage capacity) only adds to an increasingly wet golfing experience.

Green creep will change the shape and size of a course not to mention the strategic play value and aesthetics. Having putting greens 15% or 20% smaller, or at times even up to 40% smaller than the original design, does nothing to enhance play. Round and smaller surfaces eliminate the values of the original design strategy. The smaller the putting surface the more concentrated the golfer traffic further encouraging compaction, drainage problems and turf quality deterioration.

Spending money to upgrade the turf is not a common golf operator's goal. All too often I hear about the need to improve the locker rooms, enhance the bar area or refurbish the adjacent golf hotel rooms while no mention is made of the soggy fairways and brain-numbing, boring, round and bumpy putting greens. "If it is green, it is ok”.

Golf course improvements can be implemented sequentially: one bunker at a time, hole-by-hole, nine holes, in phases, or in total. Closing of the course is not always required. Some remodeling works can be implemented as play continues to help support cash flow. In some situations, the closing of nine holes, or the entire course is the fastest way to renew the course and return to income production.

Any renovation, upgrading, or renewal effort should have the help of an experienced golf course architect. It is common across Asia to see hands-on owners seek to direct or orchestrate remodeling. Greens committee chairmen often are instant experts too in remodeling efforts. At times, in the name of saving money, the Club Manager, golf course Superintendent, or the course Pro, is directed to implement changes. Playing golf well does not make one a golf course architect. There is no substitute for the expertise a well experienced course architect will provide. Contractors with successful prior experience in golf course construction will help assure quality execution of the golf architects design intent.

The "Do it Yourself" in-house method often results in mediocrity, unimaginative, often mismatched, even agronomically incorrect restorations. In many cases, the hoped for cost savings do not materialize. A better redo is often needed all too soon, at even more cost.

What approach is best for the renewal and remodeling must be: location specific, climate specific, site specific, user-market focused, agronomically attuned, and within budget constraints. The owner or the club representatives must define goals and limitations to clearly direct the course architect's scope.

In the ASEAN region and the Indian sub-continent there are approximately 925 courses serving a population of over 525 million inhabitants ranging from the very wealthy in Singapore to barely functioning in Laos and Myanmar. Adapting to diverse social, political, demographic, economic and labor utilization situations is essential to realizing lasting design results. Improving playing conditions at many of these courses can have significant impact on local and regional economies through expanded local play and golf tourism. Better daily fee courses and introducing junior golf programs are other ways to grow the game. The financial condition of many regional private clubs could be better with increased outside play. Improved turf conditions can be a magnate to improved profitability.

Remodeling, renovation and upgrading a course may be an inconvenient truth; however there are benefits to be gained.

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Credits

Originally posted by RonaldFream on 08 Jun 2010.
All contributors: RonaldFream,

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