Golf Course Design Consulting:

How can you be sure of a great result?

He then must fully detail and communicate the design ideas by drawing a set of design contours which correspond to those visions. Thereafter the consultant puts strategies in place to ensure these designs are built according to the vision and that the appropriate standards are met.

It sounds fairly straightforward, however in order to undertake golf course design consulting on a very proficient level, one needs to possess an amount of specific design talent that has been refined through experience.

This requirement is such because in design, and golf course design consulting, one must have the knowledge of a multitude of possibilities stored away in one's head at all times. This enables the consultant to avoid conceiving ideas that are either dull and boring or that cannot be practically achieved.

It is a kind of chicken and egg situation. If you don't know the details you can't draw them, but if you dont know how to communicate them (draw them) you can't fully or properly conceive the great design ideas.

This is one of the dilemmas of understanding and communicating golf course Architecture.

The Basic Attributes for Golf Course Design Consulting

It is rare that one person will have the natural ability to be able to come to grips with so many pieces of information from different subject groups. Another factor is that virtually every decision made in Golf Architecture has to begin by first coming up with the seed of a great idea, which then has to be mentally channelled through this great bank of information for "vetting", only after which it can be communicated and drawn.

Some of these stages sometimes run together or happen simultaneously, but we are of the belief that the process must generally happen in this sequence for an architect to be able to consistently produce top quality work.

I know of many examples of golf architects who are only good at certain parts of this process, and when this is the case the end results on the ground usually consist of many missed opportunities.

Some architects are great at drawing contours, but must actually draw to be able to conceive a design, as if their hand automatically places contours on a page according to years of practice in their spacing and curve radius. The results of these type of designers are often bland and repetitive (lacking vision).

On the other hand are the architects who have no shortage of bright ideas but who cannot draw them sufficiently well to check their practical workability or to ensure there are no missing gaps in those visions. This leaves very vague directives for the site staff who have to attempt to build their work. (Who can imagine the whole of a 170 acre site at once in their head? Nobody.)

The result is that the site staff are often left to "fill in the gaps" resulting in quick fixes in the field by construction staff who should not be asked to do "design on the run"

A Good and Complete Mix of Skills

We have in fact successfully undertaken golf course design consulting on projects where some of the key construction personnel are not always present. As long as a strategy can be put in place to get the design on the ground accurately, and a project is well organised, good results can be achieved.

Construction according to accurate plans not only facilitates a well organised and efficient construction process, it also leaves scope for our construction personnel to add to the plans in a proactive manner. This empowers them to achieve truly great results, rather than having to hastily change the plans in order to achieve barely acceptable results in a stressful work environment.

This concept applies golf course design consulting on projects of all sizes From the reconstruction of a single tee, bunker or green, through to the development of large scale golf course resorts and golf real estate projects, a comprehensive golf course design consulting strategy provides quality results.