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Ready, Set ... The budget's a nightmare, but the design's a dream and finally all systems are go
By John Garrity
We're by the pond between the 2nd and 8th greens when Sherman points to a silhouette circling overhead. "Red-tailed hawk!" he says. Weed looks up, smiles and says, "He's scopin' out lunch." The two men walk onto the 8th green and look around quickly, like detectives arriving on a crime scene. "Look how small this green is," Weed says. "It isn't 3,000 square feet." Sherman's gaze is drawn to a flat sand bunker that sits like a saucer on a mound above the green. "You see how that bunker is kind of up in the air?" he says. "That's something we wouldn't do."
Returning to their cart, Weed and Sherman drive past the low-lying 17th green. The 17th hole isn't much to look at -- a 325-yard downhill par-4 with greenside bunkers guarding all but a 10-yard opening in front -- but generations of college players have had fun trying to make eagle with a drive and putt. Miss your drive down the right side and you're left with a nasty 30-yard pitch over sand from a hardpan lie. ("That was always a scary shot," says Tour player and Florida alum Scott Dunlap.)
Weed guns the cart up the fairway and parks behind the 17th tee, where the hole's other shortcoming becomes apparent: The tee shot is blind. From the front of the tee I can see the green below, but the fairway runs fairly level for about 60 yards before diving out of sight. No problem, says Weed. They plan to cut away at least five vertical feet of soil in front of the tee so the landing areas and hazards are visible to the golfer. Weed borrows Sherman's notebook and begins to sketch. He draws the 17th green on a left-to-right diagonal and puts bunkers on either side. He then sketches a third bunker on the left side of the fairway, about 30 yards short of the green. That still leaves a fairly generous opening to the green, and Weed inserts some mounding that will bump a long, straight drive to the right, toward the hole. "That will entice 'em," he murmurs. Weed finishes by scratching three big asterisks in the fairway -- layup areas that can be reached with a variety of clubs. "Four options," he says. "Five," says Sherman, "if you cut the grass low back here." He points to a spot to the left of and behind the green, where a Tiger Woods or a John Daly might end up after a big-grunt swing. Weed looks intrigued. "We'll study that," he says. "The key is to make it so that only two players out of five -- and I'm talking about good players -- have a chance for eagle." He smiles, imagining the new 17th as a make-or-break hole in a college tournament, a place where eagle-makers soar and bogey-makers bawl. Just as quickly, he's back to thinking like an engineer. "We really need to drop this bunker on the right," Weed says, "make it much lower than the putting surface." He hands the notebook to Sherman and starts walking toward the woods behind the 3rd green, looking for the little blue flag that marks the new 4th tee. Sherman lingers for a moment, studying the sketch and staring down the 17th fairway. It is his job to transfer Weed's ideas for the hole to the computer. "This is a fairly nondescript hole now," he says, "but we can make it into a hole that gives you lots of options." He closes the notebook and starts walking toward the cart. "I'm freezing," he says.
It's early February now, and Howard has 24 hours to prepare a final construction budget for athletic director Jeremy Foley, who will, in turn, take it to the Athletic Association's finance committee for approval. "We need to get down to $4 million," Howard says, that being the figure agreed upon after months of input from consultants and other interested parties. (Weed's fee and other design costs have already been funded with $300,000 in seed money.) "We have to live with that," Howard emphasizes. "Jeremy won't go back to the well twice." He lifts his budget knife -- an ordinary ballpoint pen -- and waves it over the bottom number on the preliminary budget. "We have to cut $109,623." Interpreting the profound silence that follows as assent, Howard begins to reel off line items, looking for savings: mobilization ... site preparation ... earthwork ... greens construction ... bunker sand. "Drainage!" says Howard, raising his eyes hopefully, certain that $350,000 is an extravagant sum to help rainwater respond to gravity. However, Jay Brown, the civil engineer, shakes his head. Brown says the budget doesn't include three concrete pads for electric transformers and the 2,000 lineal feet of conduit he estimates will be needed to run power to the pump station, south of the 2nd tee. Projected cost: about 25 grand. Howard sighs and says, "We're going the wrong way." They move on. Pond liner, $33,000 ... shaping, $189,000 ... tee construction, $69,000. Sherman, poring over his own figures, defends each number with the tenacity of a soccer goalie: "That's not something we'd cut.... That's firm.... That's a deal...." The discussion is bogged down over a proposal to save $3,000 on a snow barrier when a student assistant sticks his head in the door to ask if anyone needs refreshments. "Diet Coke? Sprite? Water?" Weed, who has been leaning on the table, looks up. "Oxygen," he says. The crack gets a big laugh and reduces the tension in the room. They move on. Weed wonders aloud if they really need two rototillers, the big Caterpillar SS250s that will slice up the decades-old organic layer and mix it with a sandy subgrade. "Those things are about $15,000 a month," Sherman says, "including a water truck for dust control. I've budgeted $60,000." "We can go with one?" Howard asks. Weed nods and says, "We can go with 40" -- meaning $40,000. Twenty thousand dollars has been saved; Howard scratches in the change with a smile. His smile fades when the architects reject his suggestion that they not rebuild the multilevel tees on the team end of the practice range. "You need to redo it all," says Sherman. "You want a grade-A practice facility." Howard winces: "We just spent $350,000 two years ago to do that practice range." Sherman says, "We hear that a lot." He punches up some numbers on his pocket calculator, telling Howard they can save about $30,000 by deducting 100,000 square feet of sod from the 800,000 square feet budgeted. They can save another $14,000 by eliminating the coquina cart paths between greens and tees. Similarly, they can narrow the concrete road to the maintenance facility from 12 to 10 feet. "You won't be able to pass on the road," Sherman says, "but that saves you another $7,000." Then Weed comes through, saying he sees no need to spend the $55,000 budgeted for off-site soil to be used as course fill. "We'll find it," he says. "There's dirt here." Smiling, he adds, "Look what we're doing for you guys." Howard is now scribbling merrily, drawing lines through old numbers and substituting figures he can live with. "We've gone down 167," he says -- meaning 167 thousand -- "but we've added 50, so we've really cut 117, which is just under $4 million." He smiles. "I want three as the first number," he says. "If the rest of it is nine-nine-nine-nine-nine-nine, that's fine, but I need the three." A few small cuts later, the surgeons call it an afternoon. Next to Total Project Cost, Howard writes in $3,982,991. He then slaps his pen on the table and leans back in his chair. He has a budget. Like the course itself, it looks good on paper.
Issue date: April 16, 2001
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