Many years ago, there was discussion of bankers hours which include not being in on Wednesday afternoon as it was to play golf. Times change but still people play golf, in the book, The Anatomy of a Golf Course – the Art of Golf Architecture by Tom Doak published by Frizhenry & Whiteside, Markham, Ontario 1992 there is a wonderful quote about golfers. Every golfer believes they can design a golf course similar to every moviegoer believes they could be a director. The fact that golfing is an interactive sport, gives people a license to criticize for they know what they like and do not like. Lucky for the golf architect, the really good golfer tends to remember his misfortunes while the average golfer remembers the positive of the course – why they could make a great drive or a special putt. This is the reason why every golfer loves their home course – they played it more often and had more memorable stokes.

If you are going to design a golf course, ideally there is a look to the past and one of the things that you will learn is the great golf courses were designed with nature rather than against it. The natural forces of wind and water were left alone as the equipment and rules of golf were designed around the challenges of the early golf courses. In many golf courses, for a variety of reasons including because you can, the environment is pushed around to make you feel like the early courses, but nature always overrules. If a golf course is built on a flood plain, there is a very good chance one year there will be a flood. If a golf course is built-in the desert and the typical golf course of 150 acres but 75 irrigated, will uses between 4,000 and 10,000 gallons of water per acre per day or between 300,000 and 750,000 gallons per day. Having access to water, no matter what the temperature is a key variable. It also helps if the golf course is not the secondary reason for being – a development is first and takes the best lands or the golf course is on a former garbage dump or quarry with no natural landscapes.

The golf architect’s primary task is to route the 18 holes to take the greatest advantage of a property’s natural assets. The subjective part is no two experts can agree as to the composition of an ideal course. Therefore the design has to be one of visualization of the course and doing the best they can with the tradeoffs that will come forth.  The clubhouse should be situated after the loops of golf holes begin to come together, not before.

Beauty of the golf course is in the eye of the beholder. For the golfer, the acid test is that the visual elements jibe with the strategy of the golf hole. A stream maybe beautiful, but not if your ball lands in it.  Continuity of character of the golf course can separate the truly great courses from the merely admirable ones. Most of the great courses have a visual character all their own.  The greatest courses do not fall back of the natural beauty of the property. but are designed to enhance the beauty by allowing the golfer to see all its aspects and blending in views which help the golfer.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, while many golf courses can be built most will not be great. While many stocks exist on the stock exchange, most will not be worth holding. Narrow your field by starting with dividend paying companies which are profitable and then move a little into growth. There is a reason why great companies as well as great golf courses exist and continue to exist.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.