Summing It Up
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There is no room for a mulligan when a club or a resort launches a multi-million-dollar golf course capital improvement project. Superintendents agree that a major renovation never should get underway without a well-crafted master plan. In fact, they say, the most successful planning begins long before the first piece of earth is moved.
Planning Ahead
Charlie Fultz, the Golf Course Superintendent at Shenvalee Golf Resort in New Market, Va., is putting together a bunker renovation plan for the public golf resort.
For this project, Fultz will be able to draw on the experience he gained by overseeing a nine-hole bunker renovation in his previous superintendent’s position at the Country Club of Culpeper (Va.). But he actually started the process at Shenvalee when he interviewed for the resort’s top turf spot three years ago.
At that time, he toured the golf course with the greens committee chairman—and then again by himself, to formulate short-, mid- and long-range plans in his mind. Then he performed one of the most crucial—and most basic—aspects of the planning process: He put his list of priorities in writing for the Shenvalee Board of Directors.
“I don’t think there’s such a thing as too much information for the people who make decisions,” Fultz says.
Troy VanDenBerghe, the Golf Course Super-intendent at Willow Creek Country Club in Sandy, Utah, says plans to replace the golf course irrigation system at his club, which was built in 1958, spawned a $4.2 million renovation project that was completed in June 2005.
The project included rebuilding all of the tees and sand bunkers; replacing asphalt cart paths, which had been lined by railroad ties, with cement paths; rebuilding two greens, and digging three lakes on the property.
The club spent several years discussing the renovations before the membership approved the plans for the project that got underway in September 2004, VanDenBerghe recalls.
The superintendent got two price estimates, and the club took two membership surveys.
“We decided to hire an architect along the way,” he adds.
VanDenBerghe says the architect met with members three times during the summer of 2003.
“After everybody agreed on a plan, it was presented at a club planning meeting,” he says.
The club outlined a construction schedule, es-tablished a budget, and decided how to pay for the project. VanDenBerghe notes the importance of golf course properties keeping their renovation and operation costs within set budgets.
“I would definitely think that planning’s the only way to go,” VanDenBerghe adds.
Never Too Soon
Jeff Brocato, Superintendent at Baton Rouge (La.) Country Club, says his private club is considering a renovation project, and the Board of Directors has given the go-ahead to hire Rees Jones and David Toms to devise a master plan.
“We started the process probably about 3 1/2 years ago,” says Brocato. “We knew that our greens were aging.”
He says the club, which has about 1,000 members, took a membership survey several years ago. He also says planning is essential for any capital project.
“If it’s something that you jump into too quickly, and it’s not well thought out, a lot of mistakes might be made,” notes Brocato. “And then you’re stuck with something that the membership might not like.”
Charlie Fultz Superintendent at Shenvalee Golf Resort, New Market, Va. |
Keith Ihms, Golf Course Superintendent at Bent Tree Country Club in Dallas for 11 years before moving to his current Superintendent position at the Country Club of Little Rock, oversaw a major renovation project at Bent Tree. The golf course gained an updated irrigation system, newly constructed tee boxes and greens complexes, recontoured fairways to improve drainage, wider cart paths, and revamped bunkers.
“Basically, we built a new course on an existing site,” Ihms recalls.
Charlie Duty, Bent Tree’s Executive Vice President and General Manager, says the club started the $6.5 million project by assembling a long-range planning committee in 2000.
“We ended up with a long list of things to do,” Duty recalls. “We decided that we would, in prioritizing those things, do our golf course renovation first.”
The project was completed on time and within budget in 2003, he notes.
The changes to the golf course also forced Ihms to reevaluate the costs of Bent Tree’s maintenance operations. In the first year, he says, golf course operations increased by about $100,000. Overall, he says, the new design increased the annual budget by about 10 percent.
Bud White, Senior Agronomist for the United States Golf Association Green Section’s Mid-Continent Region, says every golf course needs a master plan to identify both short- and long-range goals. Major renovation projects should be contracted out to experts, White says, rather than performed in-house.
“The superintendent and the maintenance staff—they’re not geared for that kind of work,” he says. “If they’re doing the renovation, who’s there to take care of the golf course?”
“The most successful golf course operations are those that keep a greens committee, Board of Directors, and course officials fully aware of essential maintenance programs.”
—Bud White, Senior Agronomist, USGA-Green Section Mid-Continent Region |
Management by Committee
The key to successful capital planning begins with open lines of communication between golf course superintendents and their club and committee members.
“My main feedback comes from my grounds committee meetings,” notes VanDenBerghe. “I depend on the grounds committee to [tell me how to] keep the course the way they want it.”
Duty says he and his superintendent talked for years about the need to update Bent Tree’s irrigation system and cart paths, and also to replace the outdated grasses on the course.
Both he and Ihms also communicated regularly with the greens and golf committees and the Board of Directors about the renovations at the course, which was closed for a year while the reconstruction project was underway.
“Communication is vital to keep the members excited about it,” Duty feels.
Beyond keeping membership informed, White says superintendents also need to provide an element of education in their communications.
“Th
e most successful golf course operations are those that keep a greens committee, Board of Directors, and course officials fully aware of essential maintenance programs,” he writes in an article, “Super Educators,” in the USGA’s Green Section Record.
Ihms notes the education of committees, which undergo personnel changes every year, has long-lasting benefits. “Over time, you start educating more and more of your membership,” he says.
And superintendents can learn from their memberships as well. VanDenBerghe relied on the expertise of club members for the Willow Creek renovation. Several members who work as contractors reviewed the contract specs and offered input about the grade of concrete for the cart paths, he says.
“You need people who have done it before, rather than trying to learn it out of a book,” he adds.
Fultz agrees that communication between superintendents and committee members must be a two-way street.
“Sometimes we go in with our ideas in place, and don’t listen to what they have to say back to you,” he admits.
Superintendents should not hesitate to seek help from others, Brocato agrees.
“Don’t be afraid to pick up the phone and ask questions of those who are professionals in this business,” he recommends. “No detail is too small.”
Some superintendents invite their greens committee members into their world, to give them an inside-the-ropes view of maintenance operations.
“One of my committee meetings is always down in my area,” Ihms notes.
Equipped for Success
A visit to a golf course maintenance barn, in fact, can be an eye-opening experience for anyone who does not know an aerator from a fairway mower, and to show those who control the pursestrings how up-to-date equipment is essential to proper course care.
At Shenvalee Golf Resort, for example, the maintenance facility has taken on a decidedly new inventory since men armed with pick axes, shovels and horse-drawn wagons carved out nine holes of golf in the Shenandoah Valley in 1927.
But while the tools of the trade may have changed, the importance of keeping them in top condition has not.
One of Fultz’s chief priorities when he became superintendent at Shenvalee in 2003 was to set up a three-year equipment replacement plan, and he established another three-year plan this year.
Ihms maintains his machinery according to a five-year replacement plan. He also says he is setting up a tree maintenance program in Little Rock with an outside arborist.
Brocato has a tree maintenance program with an outside service as well. In addition, he closely monitors how much money he spends on equipment maintenance. “You can’t keep putting Band-Aids on pieces of equipment,” he says.
A 10-year equipment plan keeps the Willow Creek course running smoothly. VanDenBerghe, who says he spends about $70,000 a year on replacement costs, devotes about 10 percent of his budget to equipment. He also rotates his replacement schedule for machinery such as green, tee, fairway and rough mowers.
Otherwise, notes VanDenBerghe, equipment becomes expensive to maintain after it has been used for five or 10 years.
“The quality of your course can go down if your equipment is being worked on most of the time,” he notes.
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