Interview
Art The of Design This issue we sit down with JMP’s Mark Hollinger, one of the most prolific golf course architects working in China today. Here he discusses the state of the industry, his own influences and the curse of the dreaded cart path HKG: JMP is one of the major players in golf course design in China. How did you get involved in the market and how many courses do you have open now? MH: In the late ‘80s and early ‘90s we were doing a lot of work in Japan. We actually completed around thirty-five courses there. But it soon became obvious to us that the economic bubble was going to burst and so we decided to branch out and look for projects in Southeast Asia—Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan and the Philippines. China was developing and it was on the back of our other work in the region that we became involved on the mainland. 1994 was my first project – Long Island [in Dongguan]. Then I did Lakewood [Zhuhai] and then Agile [Zhongshan]. I now have fourteen golf course projects completed in China and a number of new ones coming up. HKG: It’s obvious over the past few years that given that course construction in the States has stagnated, more and more western designers are jumping on the China bandwagon. Does this worry you at all? MH: While it’s true that there’s more and more competition, I’m not unduly worried at all. What a lot of people don’t realize at first is that it’s a completely new mind set working overseas. You have to have the commitment to work in China, which is hard for a lot of American firms especially. You have to spend time here. I work 100-plus days a year on the mainland, which you have to in order to give your clients value. HKG: “It’s a good test for the better player, but higher handicappers will enjoy themselves too.” This has to be the biggest cliché in course design. Who are you actually designing courses for? MH: [Laughs]. Well, I try to make my courses playable and visually stunning, but I also try and build in the option that the course can be set up for tournament play. This year, two of my courses [Luxe Hills in Chengdu and Longxi Hot Spring 32
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in Beijing] hosted Omega China Tour events— and the results were surprising. They really chewed up Luxe Hills—the winning score was 18-underpar—but at Longxi only one player finished in red figures. I thought it would work the other way around. But the fact is you can’t just design for the pro. It’s an ego boost when you get good feedback from the pros, like those two courses did, but you really have to look at it from the point of view of the average golfer. HKG: How much influence does the owner of the course have in your design? And more to the point, how important is it to have a knowledgeable owner? MH: Very. Listening to the owner can be useful, but only if he understands the game. If he does, then it’s great to obtain his feedback. If he does not understand the business of golf, then he is not a great help. In that situation, if the owner doesn’t have any experience in golf course construction, it becomes my job to help him achieve financial success, which is the whole point. For instance, down at Sun Valley [on Hainan Island], I advised the owner that we had to keep the fairways wide and to build spacious greens, and try and keep the course playbable and not too severe for the average player. It’s a resort area, so it had to be an enjoyable golf course with a tropical environment which was WWW.HKGA.COM
special. It had to be a place where a guy and his wife, who are on vacation, can come and play and enjoy. It’s a holiday course. It’s not a place that has a really good standard of players among its membership. You have to design for the market in which you are working. Since it’s opening, Sun Valley has received extremely good feedback because of its playability and because of its setting, and I am very proud of this. There are a number of owners now in China that have become real students of the game, which helps my job a great deal. HKG: What distinguishes a Hollinger design? MH: Gosh. [Laughs]. The landscaping element in a big factor, but I go through phases. The style of bunkering changes depending on the phase I’m in. I want all of my courses to have a different look. I don’t want my courses to be categorized in a certain way—I don’t want people to think that all Hollinger courses will play and look the same. In fact, I’ll change the shapers and construction companies from project to project to help achieve that. I always want a different look. HKG: Who are your mentors and influences in golf course design? MH: I love Alister MacKenzie and Tillinghast courses. I love their unique bunkering styles— their courses have stood the test of time. I like Tom Fazio too. Nicklaus and Rees Jones have done some very good work as well. Some of Pete Dye’s work is genius. It’s more about picking specific elements of designs from other great architects. HKG: What’s your favourite course? You can pick one of your own, if you like. MH: Designers would never pick their own courses. When we play our courses we only ever see a thousands things that we’d want to be different. It’s very rare for a designer to be 100% satisfied. My favourite course is probably Cypress Point [an Alister MacKenzie design in California]. It’s an enchanting place and not far from where I live. I could play it every day for the rest of my life. Royal Dornoch in northern Scotland, where Donald Ross worked as a greenkeeper, is another of my favourites. It’s an Old Tom Morris design. There’s nothing fancy about it, just great design. I’m from the South of the United States and I’ve played a lot of Ross courses. You can see the influence of Dornoch at a lot of his places. HKG: A lot of the newer courses grabbing the headlines tend to be throwbacks; courses like Bandon Dunes [in Oregon] that are minimalist WWW.HKGA.COM
in nature, that look much older than they actually are. Would those kind of courses work in China? MH: Elements could work, but generally they won’t translate well in China. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and it is unlikely those kind of courses would work well in the China market. The same applies to Americans going over to play golf in Ireland and Scotland. A lot of them hate links golf. Those kind of minimalist courses come around because the sites are so special. It’s all determined by the site. I have a new course that we’re doing down in Hainan that is right by the coast. It’s a great site and the course will have links-like characteristics, but it won’t be a true links. But generally nowadays, we only get extreme sites to work with. The art is to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. at Zhuhai International Circuit, July 2008 O’Young HK GOLFER・NOV/DEC 2008
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HKG: What makes a perfect site? MH: Any time you have a lot of natural elements to work with—rocks, ocean, lakes, rolling land, vegetation, mountains in the distance…if you have four of five of those elements you can create dramatic holes that don’t cost the owner an arm and a leg. They’re what we call “creamer” or “perfect” sites. Otherwise you have to shift a great deal of dirt to manufacture those elements, which costs a great deal of money. China, because of its size and diverse landscape and topography, still has some great sites to offer golf designers. HKG: What’s your take on playerdesigners? MH: Some of these guys are bringing something to the table—at least those who take it seriously. Nicklaus is one. 95% are just lending their name to a course and getting big “design” fees to do so—it’s a marketing deal. It never ceases to amaze me that the golfing public is impressed solely by a “name”. That’s frivolous. The key, no matter whose name is on it, is if people want to come back and play it. It really doesn’t matter who designed it.
Wild West: Hollinger’s Luxe Hills in Chengdu has been voted one of China’s best. 34
HKG: But haven’t these “name” designers, with their hefty design fees, helped raise fees across the board for all designers? MH: It works both ways. Fees might have increased somewhat, but if a player-designer is getting paid a lot of money and all he does is show up to the grand opening of the course without having visited the course before, then the client isn’t getting much value. That damages the business we’re in. And this is most definitely a business, no matter which way you look at it.
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HKG: Do you have to be a good golfer to be a good designer? MH: Not necessarily, although a def in ite appreciat ion a nd understanding of the game is required—knowledge of its history, it’s evolution, a keen understanding of why it ’s so important to people—is very important. Jack Nicklaus, when he started, was seeing design from a different perspective. He wasn’t thinking about the ten handicapper or the recreational golfer. Likewise, I had to learn more about what the pros are thinking—the lines they take off the tee, for instance. The biggest thing nowadays is that you have to understand that golf is a competitive business. Overlooking that golf is a business is missing the point entirely. Even if the owner of a development has a course just so he can sell the real estate that surrounds it, the golf course has to be a business on itself and earn revenue in the long run, long after all the properties are sold off. Understanding this is an essential key to being successful as a golf designer in China today. HKG: You told me a few years ago that designing a course is easy; it’s the construction part that’s the difficult bit. Does this still ring true and is this more of a factor in China? MH: Yes, it’s still very much the case here. The golf contracting industry in China is pitiful. We’re not building courses any better than ten years ago. The reason is that the contractor’s desire for quality is not there. It’s all about the money and it’s even more cut-throat than before. Getting a lot of contracting deals doesn’t make you any better. Contractors don’t have the mentality that if you build two courses to the very best of your ability that will work well for you in the long term. They just want to get as many deals secured as soon as possible, regardless of the quality of work they put in to the projects. It’s widespread across the industry and we have to do something about it. In the US, which isn’t always perfect, I should add, but you can design a course and they’ll be four of five reputable companies bidding to construct it. You know that they will ensure the quality is there. Here in China, it’s just about trying to make as much profit as possible. There has to be quality consciousness. If all us of designers banded together and refused to work with these kinds of companies then hopefully after a time it wouldn’t happen any more. This economic slowdown we’re in could actually help. The cream will rise to the top and the rest will flounder. WWW.HKGA.COM
HKG: Every new course measures at least 7,400 yards. Why are courses so long? MH: 7,600 yards, you mean! It’s ridiculous. The ball is the biggest thing. We have to reevaluate it. Length is still something you need in design—but it’s a waste of land and I hate to see it. I really hope the monitoring and specifications governing the golf ball changes. Augusta National and the Masters Championship could have done something about it—and they nearly did. They could have said, “We’ll only accept one type of ball for our tournament.” They’re not governed by the rules of the PGA Tour; they could have done what they liked. They could have helped turn the dynamics of the golf ball back. But the biggest issue for me is safety, which explains why courses today require 20-25% more land. A 15-handicapper can swing as fast as Tiger Woods—the launch speed of a golf ball today is dangerous and we need more room as a result. Golf designers’ liability insurance in the States is huge. If someone gets hit we don’t want to get sued, which is a very real issue in the States. Over here, where the chance of being sued is probably much less, I just don’t want people to get hurt.
HKG: Now, golf cart tracks, which is a subject I feel pretty strongly about. If you can’t hide them, can’t they be painted green or something? A necessary evil they might be, but they really spoil the visual appeal of courses. MH: It’s the worst thing the Americans ever did for golf—introducing golf carts. The system they have in Japan is great. You know the electric caddie carts which move down a hidden rail by the side of the fairway? Unfortunately, they’re really expensive. Some courses need carts, because of their topography, but you can’t appreciate a golf course if you ride a cart. It’s a menace to the system. You have to walk. We, as designers, try and figure out how to hide them. I’d love to see a couple of courses in China try and not use them. Maybe allow the older guys to use them, but let everyone else walk; the caddies can carry the bags. Golf is, after all, a great walk unspoiled. Hollinger is a member of the American Society of Golf Course Architects. Log onto www.jmpgolf.com for more information.
‘Tis the Season
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l t hou g h it m ig ht seem obvious, there’s a reason why all the major amateur and professional events in Hong Kong are played during the October to December period. Yes, the weather is typically nice— the chance of a monumental thunderstorm ruining that monthly medal is, thankfully, slim—but there’s a whole lot more to it than that—at least from a course superintendent’s point of view. This is the only time during the year when we can truly manipulate the playing conditions of the courses that you enjoy. As I touched upon in the last issue, Hong Kong’s tropical climate does absolutely no favours to those of us in the golf course maintenance business. The constant threat of typhoons, heavy rain, lack of sunlight, high humidity— all of these, without a shadow of doubt, impact heavily upon our ability to prepare high quality playing surfaces. It is really only now that we turf
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grass specialists can control the growth of the grass and the condition the golf course is presented. Gone are the days of summer when the weather is at its most unpredictable. The meteorological volatility we encounter then causes a lot of problems; the grass quite literally “stresses out”. The key issue for us is the abundance of sunshine that we routinely get from October to December. Grass growth is steadier during this time and as a result we can plan and program our maintenance practices far more effectively. For t hose of you t ravel l i ng throughout the mainland, the Bent grass surfaces up in Beijing, which generally struggle over the summer months, are really coming into their element now, while many of the courses in and around Shanghai will be overseeding their Bermuda roughs and fairways
Turf Talk
with cooler season grasses. Shanghai is located in what we call a transition zone, meaning that both warm and cool season grasses can be used. In this case, Bermuda and similar grasses are used for fairways and roughs and Bent is used for greens. Superintendents need to overseed because when soil temperatures reach 18 degrees Celsius or below, the warm season grass starts to go dormant and therefore loses its colour. Overseeding warm season grass with a cool season grass like Rye improves the aesthetics of a course considerably. For us in Hong Kong we’ve got until the end of December before our own grasses start go into dor ma nc y a nd become weaker. Although course conditions then are usually acceptable, they really don’t compare with what we have right now. My advice: enjoy it while you can.—Rick Hamilton Rick Hamilton is managing director of Asia Turf Solutions, a turf management consultancy company based in Hong Kong.
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