Neither of these courses needed a new irrigation system. If they had, costs for the system alone would have started at $2.5-$3 million; on the West Coast that figure is $4 million or more. Where irrigation systems are part of a major overhaul, it’s not uncommon to see total renovation costs running from $8 million to $16 million, especially when projects involve new greens, bunkers, cart paths and regrassing of large areas. Faced with such a wide range of costs, and the very real risk of going over budget during a project, how can courses get the most bang for their buck?

Regardless of the scope or scale of your renovation, the following ideas can help you keep costs under control while delivering the most long-term benefit possible. The first thing to know is that staying within a budget that works for you isn’t just about cutting costs, it’s also about avoiding overruns. Deciding what you do and don’t need from a renovation is an important portion of the equation, but risk management should never be overlooked.

Cast a wide net before hiring an architect

A few big-name architects are finding themselves the beneficiaries of courses that are willing to engage in a bidding war for their services. Such is the perceived value of these designers. Without question, they are highly skilled architects who deliver great results, but their services come at an increasingly high price, their availability for time on-site is limited and you may not be able to hire them in the first place.

The good news is that there are probably more fine architects (or architects-in-waiting) working today than ever before. These people are fully qualified, very experienced and many of them learned their skills as apprentices and associates of the big-name designers that have gotten so expensive. They’ve been waiting for the chance to showcase their skills as architects, their moment has now arrived and they are flourishing. These architects will charge lower fees than the big names. Many of them will also spend more of their personal time on-site during your project. If your architect is on-site making decisions on a regular basis, that improves the overall efficiency of the project and limits the amount of work that has to be redone at the client’s expense.

Courses must be careful here. The experience of some former shapers and design associates may not have them quite up to the task of managing a full-scale renovation project including budgeting, planning, construction coordination and club politics. Facilities must engage in meticulous due diligence when recruiting architects to make sure the person they hire is fully equipped for the task at hand. With proper research, clubs can save considerably in both design fees and project costs by hiring a hungry young designer who is eager to showcase their architectural and project management skills to make their name in the industry.

Spend money on things that have an ROI

Thinking about the return on investment (ROI) of any proposed improvement is part of treating the golf course as a business rather than as an indulgence. Focusing on ROI can keep you from spending on items in a renovation that aren’t worth the money, which is an important part of controlling costs. This holds true even if a strict benefit/cost analysis of ROI is not possible on every proposed expenditure. It’s not easy to put a dollar value on recontouring and expanding greens to acquire lost hole locations, or rebuilding bunkers that don't drain or are too steep for safe entry and exit. Here and elsewhere, it is more a matter of qualitative assessment rather than quantitative certainty. On every proposed item, whether it’s irrigation, new tees or rerouting holes, force yourself to really think through whether the investment is worth it.

Some expenditures on the course recommend themselves almost immediately as creating value: better forward tees, or tree work that improves turf health and decreases chemical inputs or staff time related to tree issues. Rerouting two holes to gain length and create a “championship test” is less likely to make economic sense than rerouting to create space for a much-expanded driving range with a new short-game area and Himalayas putting green.

Part of the ROI analysis is to identify what problems are being addressed and whether the plan will solve the problem. It could be as basic as not having enough hole locations and being stuck with greens that wear out and are less interesting to prospective golfers, who instead opt to play at a neighboring facility. Expanding the greens offers a good chance to address those issues, so there’s a clear economic and experiential benefit. Another example is installing a turf variety that is more drought tolerant and less irrigation dependent in a region where future water supplies are running dry and water costs are rising fast. But if the plan to rebuild and regrass older greens comes from a desire to have putting surfaces run consistently at 12-13 feet on the Stimpmeter, then the costs involved are unlikely to yield efficiencies, savings or meaningful playability benefits down the road.

Be thoughtful about the infrastructure you need and the materials you choose

For all the emphasis upon maintaining sound infrastructure, improving any aspect of it has discretionary elements – whether that’s in scope, quality or extent. You may need new bunker sand, but do you need sand shipped to your course from halfway across the country – or will a local (and cheaper) source be fine? Decisions abound when it comes to improving course infrastructure and there are opportunities to save or spend more at each fork in the road.

How far does one need to go to provide ideal playing conditions? Or perhaps a more realistic question for many facilities is how much infrastructure does a course need to provide playing conditions appropriate for the customers, ownership budget and market setting of the golf course? There are a lot of “bells and whistles” available that might entail an indulgence rather than a wise investment. Unless your course is aiming to host national events for professional golfers or elite amateurs, does it really need the latest and greatest underground venting system for greens, the most expensive and complex bunker liners, drip-irrigation on every single bunker face, wall-to-wall irrigation, bright white angular silica bunker sand, discrete teeing boxes for each tee marker, poured concrete cart paths – or continuous tee-to-green paths for that matter?

“I’ve yet to do a project in which cost was not a factor,” says course designer Andy Staples of Scottsdale, Arizona. His body of renovation work includes prominent facilities like Meadowbrook Country Club in Michigan, Olympia Fields outside Chicago and the PGA National Resort in Florida. His observation is common to most, if not all, of his fellow members in the American Society of Golf Course Architects. “There is no magic bullet to managing costs,” he went on to say. “If you want to save money, you have to do less.”

The job of the architect, however, is not simply to cut expenses but to help a facility decide which investments make the most sense and which methods of construction will bring the best results and the most value. That means prioritizing. Staples, for example, lists the elements of a master plan from top to bottom to communicate not only what is most important structurally, but also which tasks produce the highest value. Examples include focusing on new forward tees rather than redoing all the teeing grounds. Or deploying some grass hollows in areas where the old historic maps might have shown unnecessary sand bunkers.

Architect Brian Schneider, a design principal with Renaissance Golf Design, is among many who think that some courses are too willing to spend and indulge in infrastructure excess when a more cautious approach would make better sense. “I have great respect for superintendents and appreciate the excessive demands and expectations placed upon them. It is fair of them to want every available tool at their disposal. However, I often find myself trying to talk them – or the golfers at their course – out of spending for things they might want but don’t need, especially if that extra infrastructure might compromise their original architecture.” For example, rebuilding greens to improve drainage has obvious practical benefits, but perhaps not at the risk of losing something special about the design.

“Even if they can afford it now,” said Schneider, “there’s always the possibility of another recession looming, so courses need to think about whether these upgrades are going to require extra long-term maintenance, or whether they’d rather save the money for a rainy day.”

He is not averse to salvaging old bunker sand, doing away with bunker liners or just tweaking the surface of old greens rather than rebuilding them for the sake of marginal improvements in speed or turf performance. In at least one case, he walked away from a potential job at a prominent Mid-Atlantic club that insisted on rebuilding its Golden Age putting surfaces to get the latest and greatest infrastructure when Schneider thought the work unnecessary. Thinking about the infrastructure you need, and where you really need it, can make a big difference in the final bill for your renovation project.

Think about hiring a project manager

Nick Mazzella is the head of his own eponymous golf course project management firm based in Charlotte, North Carolina, with work that extends throughout the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic. He’s in constant communication with designers, builders and superintendents helping to coordinate who is at what stage of each project. Mazzella is among a small but growing coterie of consultants specializing as independent, third-party project managers. He started on the engineering and permitting side of things, then spent two decades as a project and business manager for golf course construction firms before hanging out his own shingle in 2018.

“The more complex the project, the more value you see in an objective project coordinator,” he says. “I always defer to the superintendent when it comes to knowing the site,” Mazzella said, “but it’s another thing when you have to coordinate the work of civil engineers, wetlands scientists, irrigation consultants and contractors, agronomists, builders and government regulators.” The complexity of many modern golf course renovations introduces another level of paperwork, meetings and spreadsheets. This is where a project manager’s familiarity with the administration and logistics required can prove worthwhile. For a fee, usually a single-digit percentage of a project’s total budget, they can help oversee every step of the process and lighten the burden of responsibility that would otherwise fall on a superintendent, general manager or committee member.

In the past, facilities often assumed the superintendent would manage course renovations, but that has become increasingly challenging as projects get bigger and more complex while expectations for playability during and after the project are higher than ever. If the project entails only partial closure of the course, with a share of everyday golf course maintenance still in the hands of the crew, it might simply be too much for one person to be handling both golf course maintenance and a construction project. This is where a project manager can really help.

Of all the developments in golf course construction today, there is probably less consensus on the value of a project manager than on anything else. Some architects swear by them. Others swear at them and won’t go along. It all depends on their track record, which is why due diligence here, as with everything else, is crucial. However, if your project manager can ensure that the renovation moves forward as efficiently as possible while minimizing the risk of any major cost overruns, they will almost certainly save you money.

The final analysis

Controlling costs isn’t easy when the price of everything is going up and the firms involved in every step of a golf course renovation are so busy that they’re turning away work and scheduling years in advance. However, making some of the basic choices described in this article can help your course navigate these challenging waters. For everyone involved, course renovation these days is a whole new ballgame – and a much more expensive one. With sensible planning, it does not have to be quite so costly.

Bradley S. Klein is a veteran golf course writer, book author and design consultant. He has previously written for the USGA Green Section Record on golf course renovation planning and other topics.