City of Laredo Golf Course

The City of Laredo recently selected 5 design/build teams to interview for their planned municipal golf course. Here is the article. Unfortunately we were not selected as one of the finalists.

What was notable about this request for qualifications?
31 teams in total submitted
Each team included a golf course architect and builder - it is a turnkey project including infrastructure and clubhouse.
The initial meeting was standing room only - there were more architects and builders than at the Golf Industry Show.

Above is the aerial of the site on the Rio Grande. The property was donated to the city by a local developer. The water rights are essentially free. The city has $6.6 Million to spend on the project - and that was including the bottled water we were given during the site visit - they had no room for over-spending.

It is a very cool site with lots of features - big arroyos, arid vegetation and good materials to build a course.

When the city announced that the $6.6MM included the clubhouse and infrastructure, there was an audible groan from the attendees. Most, if not all, thought it was way too low.

Our team thought it was more than enough. If I write more about the proposal I'll describe how our team was formed -- I think we were the best team for the city.
I wasn't originally going to submit, because of the difficulty in winning a municipal project -- the team was too good to not submit.

Don on #7

Don and I had a match recently. I had a 3 up lead until we got to #12. There is definitely a home field advantage. I haven't beaten Don or our client in too long!

I have to settle for good pictures of Don hitting out of our bunkers. At least this was a cool new angle on #7. This is the last hole we built, and it went through several changes - the end result is that it turned out very well - it gets high marks from both of us.

Nice Try!

I got a nice call today from a gentleman who was traveling to the area of the golf course. He had a bet with his friends that there was a course - they didn't believe him - and he was determined to win his bet, and try and find a great place for them to play. Turns out he won his bet - but won't be getting to play.

If he ever did make it into the clubhouse he'd better watch out for our new friend... see above. He does help keep out the uninvited guests. He is over 12' long.

Don Mahaffey's 7 tips for successful gang mowing

Don Mahaffey's 7 tips for successful gang mowing

1. Send out a trim mower to edge out features and fairway perimeters. The gang unit will work a lot faster if he’s not trying to mow a perfect edge and the trim mower will help to keep a “high-end” look.

2. Treat the gang units like every other cutting unit. For some reason people think a gang cutting unit is indestructible or can’t go dull. Big reel, small reel, powered or not, they gotta be sharp and well adjusted. No short cuts here.

3. Don’t irrigate the night before you mow.

4. Get the right unit for the application. You can’t mow fairways with a 5 blade unit. 11-blade units are rare so you’ll probably have to buy the reels and install yourself. But you can get an excellent cut with the right unit.

5. Keep the turf lean and don’t let it get puffy. This goes for all mowing, but especially so for gang units because of their weight. They’ll take big ugly bites out of thatchy turf. If that happens, It’s not the mower, it’s your grass.

6. Alter directions just like you would with any other mowing equipment.

7. Use some of the money you save gang mowing to throw a few more crew parties.

Here comes the Gang Mower

The following is from Don Mahaffey our project and golf course superintendent extraordinaire. Here is his great post from earlier in the year regarding 19 things a golf course can do to lower maintenance costs. The top of his list included something you don't see every day - a Gang Mower - pictured above. He has received several inquiries from around the world once word got out - here Don's take on how it REDUCED THE FAIRWAY MOWING MAN HOURS BY 50%:

When Mike Nuzzo and I started building Wolf Point, we had a few instructions from our client, the owner of the course. Chief among those instructions was he wanted the course outrageously good and he wanted it maintained in a practical manner. Since we were in a very windy area, hard against the South Texas coast, we knew the course needed some width to be playable. The wind blows all the time here. Both Mike and I are huge fans of the Old Course at St. Andrews and we used her as inspiration for a lot of what we did. One of our challenges was to build this big golf course and yet find a way to keep maintenance costs reasonable. One of the ways we decided to do that was design the course so we could cut the fairways with a large pull behind gang mower.

How does mowing equipment like a large gang mower affect design? We made sure any bridges we needed were large enough to handle the tractor and mowing unit. Turned out that with a transport frame a standard 10 ton bridge was fine. Anywhere we had fairway bunkers close together we made sure there was not only room to pull the gang between them, but room enough to alter the path so as not to create permanent tire ruts. This required bunkers being a minimum of 20 feet apart, which was no problem. If we felt they needed to “play” closer together than that we simply shaped the bunkers to gather shots and beefed up the drainage so that they would still be dry if they were gathering water as well as balls. We knew we were going to have dew paths from greens-tees-fairways and we built those paths so the gang unit could mow them as well while traveling from one hole to the next. To create more width we have a number of shared fairways that melded perfectly with the use of a large production mower.

We use a Toro 7-gang (above), wheel driven unit that we found used and refurbished over the winter. We installed 11-blade reels along with going through each unit and adding a new coat of paint. We have the unit set at .500, ½ inch, and we are very pleased with the quality of cut. We took one of our lightweight fairway mowers out of action and converted the cutting units to thatching reels. So now, we have a dedicated fairway verti-cutting machine. We slice the fairways as time allows and right now the plan is too vert-cut every fairway once a month. I believe one of the keys to a high quality of cut with gang units is too keep the grass thinned out. Puffy turf scalps with any mowing equipment but really scalps with a gang unit since there is no front roller. Keep the turf thinned out and not only does it cut better, it plays better as well. We cut our fairways twice a week and apply a growth regulator in conjunction with foliar feed every 21 days.

We maintain Wolf Point’s 80 acres of fwys, 4 acres of greens, and 10 acres of rough, along with other Ranch duties (like bailing hay) with 4 people plus myself. The only way that’s possible is with equipment that can get the job done well and in a practical time frame. Our gang unit helps us do that and I will be surprised if we didn’t see a little more of this approach as golf participation stagnates while maintenance costs continue to increase.

Check back in a few days for Don's tips to a successful gang mowing operation.

Houston Chronicle Names Swanson's Best Practice Facility

BEST PRACTICE FACILITY
Swanson Golf Center
Matt Swanson’s Golf Center is the one-stop practice facility, with a driving range, short-game practice area, teaching pros and club fitters on hand to take your game to the next level.
It was the clear choice, mainly because it improves and expands so well on the basic concept of a driving range.

The results
1. Swanson Golf Center.....19.3 percent of vote

Insiders say:
Swanson received an even stronger endorsement.

The best golf in Houston and beyond
Golfers are used to making a lot of decisions. Perhaps that’s why so many of them volunteered for the somewhat daunting task of participating in a survey that included choices galore.
Golf Guide 2010 reveals the pulse of the more than 1,000 area golfers who filled out the survey at chron.com.

To compare the thoughts of the average player and those inside the golf industry, we also made a separate version of the survey available to more than 300 club pros, superintendents and others who make a living at golf, a group we’ve dubbed the insiders.
Here is the link to the full article

Golf Architecture Magazine

I've been busy on many smaller proposals, back to the blog soon.

In working on some new materials, I keep coming back to last years Golf Architecture Magazine article by Adam Lawrence. I get's better each time I read it - click the image above to read for yourself - even if you've read it before. website.

How many 7 year old's can play your golf course?

How many 7 year old's can play your course?
He does have a hell of a swing.
This is The Old Course at St. Andrews - they even let me play it backwards a few years ago.
There is room for someone who doesn't carry it too high or far to play the course in its entirety -- and have fun!
Notice some of the greens - they are beautiful and over 400 years old - kind of anyway.
I didn't see him lose a ball either.
How many 7 year old's are even allowed on your course?
Check out his video playing the Himalayas too....