Architect’s Time On-Site

During Construction

100% 0 to 6%
Tony Ristola Typical
LEADERSHIP DRIVEN GOLF COURSE ARCHITECTURE

Sand Valley Golf

Pasłek, Poland
Construction Progression
Hole 1: Goat’s

agolfarchitect.com
agolfarchitect@yahoo.com
sandvalleygolf.blogspot.com
tonyristola.blogspot.com

VISION AND LEADERSHIP ARE INSEPARABLE

 For the Record
This project began with an EIGCA architect’s detailed plans, and specifications book. He was scheduled to make
the industry standard infrequent “site-visits” during construction. The golf course builder was selected on the
strength of their previous golf course construction work.

For 10-months, the builder was permitted to repeat one fundamental construction error after another, and 11-
months after ground breaking I was brought in and the project started anew. Before the restart, the entire
property was photo documented, and an 11-page status report identified 14-holes of construction
mismanagement. Two seasoned engineers confirmed my analysis.

The grading, greens and strategy plans of the previous architect were disposed of, as were the construction
specifications for greens, tees, and bunkers. The previous architect’s generic construction specifications were
replaced with those tailored to this specific property, and the valuable opportunities available.

Construction errors noted at the start of the photo sequences represent the state of the project upon my arrival,
and “My Starting Point”. What evolved is the product of 5,500 hours on-site, personally leading and sculpting the
transformation of the landscape.

Near the completion of the project, the owner made this persuasive statement in the book Golf Architecture,
Volume 5, about the value the architect leading construction on a daily basis brings:

Specifically, (the owner of Sand Valley) clearly sees how daily involvement by the architect is a tremendous driving force, especially in an
emerging golf nation and continent where golf course builders are a scarcity. He believes an architect leading construction daily provides
“something really valuable for product quality” because continual assessment and improvement of strategic value and the creation of
special details makes “stuff look just stunning, yet does not cost all that much to build; details just not possible on a turn key project”.

Rescuing Sand Valley, A Lesson for Investors

Golf Architecture, A Worldwide Perspective Vol. 5, 2009.
www.fullswinggolf.com.au

If you have any questions, please contact me at agolfarchitect@yahoo.com and please visit the daily blog of the
project, the first daily blog of a golf course under construction at www.sandvalleygolf.blogspot.com
 Hole 1, My Starting Point, where the previous builder and EIGCA architect left off, looking at the greensite.
Surprisingly, before my arrival, the entire 1st hole along with adjoining holes 5 and 18 were stripped of their high quality topsoil.
Where did the topsoil go? It found an inappropriate use as fill for the start of the buffer wall in the distance!
Looking down the fairway, the greensite in the distance.
 With the errors regarding the missing topsoil, the exposed sandy subsoil would erode during rains, and of course, it rains.
The two piles to the right of the picture in the distance frame the original greensite.
The previous builder stockpiled topsoil or worse as fill material for the greens pad on several holes… a fundamental construction error.
 Finally, rains stopped and shaping the 1st fairway begins.
The top section of the hole was clay, the lower section silty-sand.
These are the first cuts, the whole fairway lies ahead waiting for transformation.
 The first passes with the dozer on the lower silty-sand section.
It looks flat, and except for the downhill slope… it is.
Here I’m cleaning the erosion and seeking natural looking contours to begin camouflaging the drainage.
Not a grading stake in site.
Here’s where I come back into it. So we get it all roughed in there and looking pretty much like a golf
course. And I put together a D-4 or D-5 bulldozer, and that costs maybe $100. So, I go in there and
on the sixth green or the sixth hole or whatever it is, I say look, you ought to do this, do that and say it
takes him two days, so he spends $2,000. So if I spent $2,000 on every hole, that’d be $36,000 on a
$6 million project. In the mean time, these guys that do drawings that are to the inch, they
get so many stakes out there, it takes the bulldozer operator five times as long to get it
done, as opposed to me just showing them. I’ll do it quickly myself, and show them… So that
doesn’t cost anything, I can change the greens, I can go in and change the greens five times for
$5,000 on a $6 million project. On a bulldozer, if I go in there and say look, change the contour, takes
them an hour, two hours, $200. If I’m responsible like that and they’re all responsible to me - the
construction manager, the bulldozers – it all channel down and saves money.

Interview with Pete Dye

http://jayflemma.thegolfspace.com/?p=782
I am an architect who has the skills to accomplish my own design ideas and seize the constant opportunities to improve the original concepts
instantaneously while building. This was the Standard Operating Procedure for all aspects of Sand Valley.
Think, build, evaluate (think), modify… as features were being built.
I’m proud to say I personally shaped all the greens and fairways.
The hill left of the green, Goat’s Hill, is in its infancy.
In the distance sand is stockpiled for the green.
The green hill, a topsoil pile, will be used for covering the fifth fairway.
Goat’s Hill has achieved it height, and is awaiting shaping.
 Shaping this green took one evening, a little faster than normal.

Shaped, topsoil replaced, and onto cleaning the contours, preparing for seeding.
“Goat’s Hill” to the front-left of the green has been hydro-seeded.
Irrigation stakes dot the landscape.
 “Reborn.”
Grow-in.

Every fairway and green contour is 100% man-made by the architect Tony Ristola.
I prefer to work with original contours whenever possible, and would have produced a vastly different golf course had I had not inherited
14-holes of construction mistakes as a starting point.

The course would have been completed one year earlier, saved a million Euro's and gained the developer a season of play. Started by an
EIGCA architect with detailed plans, specifications book and qualified builder for 11-months, the project was restarted and completed by
this architect working without detailed plans and grading stakes using a team made of up locals that knew nothing about golf.

Sand Valley is the poster child for the potential pitfalls using the “typical” method of golf course production, where the architect draws
plans and abandons the project for days, weeks or months at a time. It also illustrates the tremendous cost and quality benefits total
flexibility produces when a focused, committed architect is on-site daily.
The tees were repositioned, the greensite was shifted left, Goat’s Hill evolved to the front-left of the green.

The hill/ridge to the front-right followed an evolutionary process.

No grading plans or grading stakes were used except to mark irrigation.
This permitted maximum flexibility and speed.
 Sand Valley Golf & CC by the Numbers

• Total Schedule: 543 days. This includes Saturdays and Sundays.

• Number days I worked: 517

• Number of hours worked per day on average: 11 hours (includes Sat. & Sun.)

• Total Hours: 5500+. My work day started on average at 06:00, and I was usually the last to leave the construction site.

My Responsibilities

• Golf Course Design: The golf course was designed in the field on a daily basis. An EIGCA architect began the project, but his
design was abandoned. The EIGCA architect’s general routing was used though modified.

• Construction Supervisor: The construction team was largely locals.

• Lead shaper: shaping all greens, all fairways and larger scale bunkers.
(Caterpillar D6N & D6R) No “detailed plans” were used to create the greens, hazards or fairway contours. In fact, no grade stakes
were used!

• Daily blog about the construction of the golf course: www.sandvalleygolf.blogspot.com

• Finish work on greens in conjunction with another finishing expert.

• Paintings for promotion & marketing etc.

Original: 60cm x 25cm (Acrylic on canvas)

• Marketing material assistance

The hours worked at Sand Valley are not an exception to the rule, they are the rule. This represents the same effort I have given all my
projects and is the same service all investors receive for their investment of millions. If you were to compare, I spend more time on-site
during construction in five days than most architects spend on-site during the entire project. It is this attention during the most
costly and permanent phase of design… construction… that makes an enormous difference… not the budgets. And, this is
precisely why I only do one project at a time.

42.8% of American golf course architects polled found it difficult to find qualified builders for their projects. In Europe the percentage is
far greater. Sand Valley started with an EIGCA (European Institute of Golf Course Architects) architect’s detailed plans and a golf course
builder hired on the strength of their previous work. I was brought in after 11-months and the project started anew. Virtually everything
the previous builder produced was scrapped. All greens, fairways and strategies are the product of my daily involvement and bulldozer
blade. No plans were used, only my vision of how to take a costly mess and turn it into a winning jewel for the owners.

Daily involvement speeds the effort and eliminates opportunities for error because communication between architect and builder is daily,
virtually instantaneous and based on days, weeks and months of constant observation and thought. Being present to answer questions
from the constructors immediately and not during a rare “site-visit” days or weeks later after “work completed according to plan” and has
to be redone saves time, money and increases quality significantly. For example, when a feature is under construction or the irrigation
designer shows up, I’m there at their sides answering questions before works begins and as it is being achieved, thereby attaining the
desired result... or something even better than envisioned. The owner of Sand Valley, quoted below, reveals the advantages of the
architect leading construction vs. the “typical” hit-and-run method. Having experienced both methods in action, he knows the vast
differences!

Specifically, he clearly sees how daily involvement by the architect is a tremendous driving force, especially in an emerging golf nation
and continent where golf course builders are a scarcity. He believes an architect leading construction daily provides “something really
valuable for product quality” because continual assessment and improvement of strategic value and the creation of special details makes
“stuff look just stunning, yet does not cost all that much to build; details just not possible on a turn key project”.

Golf Architecture, A Worldwide Perspective Vol. 5, 2009.

www.fullswinggolf.com.au
At all of my projects I have either worked with a general contractor, or a crew of workers selected from the local community, saving
bundles of cash since a company claiming to specialize in golf course construction is more expensive than hiring a local crew of qualified
and conscientious operators.

Sand Valley was largely built by people that had no concept of golf… none! The same was done at GC Emstal, where I worked alongside a
conscientious regional general contractor to create a project ranked among the best golf courses in Germany by Golf Digest.

BUND (Bund für die Naturschutz Deutschland) the environmental watchdog group gave this far-reaching endorsement:

Outstanding Integration of a Golf Course Along the Ems River

We admit this: We made a mistake. What stands now is a golf course which fits in excellent harmony with the landscape of the Ems
River valley. What stood one year before was an area of 50 desolate hectares dominated by intensively cultivated cornfields. Within a
few short months this was transformed into a project which is now a model for the integration of a sports park in a protected area.
My service does not stop with the end of construction.

The reason this is such a far reaching endorsement? When golf is in question, one usually expects the direct opposite response from
BUND. They actually buy land to stop golf projects!

The best golf courses are the product of a cooperative effort between the architect and owner/superintendent to ensure the course is set
up and matures as the architect envisioned. Great courses are a labor of love, and greatness is unlikely if the designer, owner and
superintendent play only the opening round together and never see one another again. For these reasons, my services do not stop at the
end of construction. They continue for the life of the project.

For each golf course I design, I write a book documenting its architecture, construction and maintenance practices. It becomes a
comprehensive short and long term guide for the members, guests, etc., but most importantly for the superintendent and board
members. This work provides a historical record that assists in the continuing evolvement of the project, with the goal of ensuring the
design intent is never compromised, that club funds are not misspent on doing and undoing work detrimental to the design.
 agolfarchitect.com
Leadership Driven Architecture
...Because Vision and Leadership are Inseparable
Tony Ristola
agolfarchitect.com
agolfarchitect@yahoo.com
+1 909.581.0080
Design and construction are not separate jobs, but different parts of the same job

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