Does the master planning of golf courses around real estate
developments enhance or inhibit the character of the course?
The ideal situation, I suppose, would be a golf course where there
was very little development around it or one in which the
development
isn’t too
close to it.
If there’s development on a golf course, that’s fine. Certainly,
you have to have that to support golf to a great degree. On the other
hand, the
further away you can get the development from the
actual
playing of the golf
course is also a very important
factor, one that
can really determine the final
outcome of the
course that you’re trying
to build.
There seems to be a problem in the US with a shortage of public
golf courses because construction and maintenance costs are so high. Do
you see
a solution to this problem?
I don’t, but I know that the National Golf Foundation is working
on a solution. They’re saying that between now and the year 2000 we’re
going to
need another 5,000 golf courses and 60 percent of
those should
be public golf
courses.
There are people working on ideas that may give a little relief to
public golf course construction. We’re all looking for ways to
reduce
the cost,
but the price of land, the cost of
construction and the cost
of maintaining
golf courses is
generally rising, and that makes it
difficult.
On the other hand, the average American is living a much more
affluent life today. He has much more leisure time, so the number of
golfers and
the number of golf courses is increasing quite
rapidly.
A lot of the newer courses are being built around golf course
communities, and so many of these courses have out-of-bounds on both
sides of
the fairways. How do you feel about altering the
out-of-bounds
rule to one
stroke or treating it as a lateral
hazard?
Eventually they’re going to have to do that. When, I don’t know.
It’s certainly a very good point you’ve made with the developments and
the
out-of-bounds coming closer and closer to play. There was
a time
when
out-of-bounds was just loss of distance. More
recently, it became
distance and a
stroke. I think we’ll have
to modify that somehow in the
future.
In general, what do you think of the trend of the PGA Tour toward
stadium golf courses? Do you think we’ll have too many courses that
look alike?
And, do you think we’ll lose some of the classic
courses on
the Tour?
No. I think the stadium idea will cool off as time goes on. As the
years go on we will see a much different concept in stadium
golf. I
suspect that
someday someone will build a golf course
that will be
totally under lights, and
spectator will sit in
the bleachers and be
able to watch a full 18-hole
tournament
from their seats. You won’t
even have to walk. I expect that will
happen. I put it in a time letter
that won’t be opened for 100
years. I think
we’ll see that.
Give us your thoughts on Jack Nicklaus, the golf course designer.
During your long-time rivalry and long-time friendship with Jack, have
you two
ever exchanged ideas on golf course
architecture?
We have discussed golf courses that he has built and some of those
that I have built, but I’m not going to give away any ideas or
opinions
about
what Jack builds. Jack has built a lot of very
fine golf courses,
and I would be
nothing but complimentary
about the work that he has
done. On the other hand,
we do not
have the some ideas on how a golf
course should be built.
It’s kind of like our golf games. We’ve gone down different roads
with our games and we’ve both enjoyed a certain amount of success with
what
we’ve done. I think we’ll just leave it like that in the
future.
