16 Mar 2012

Earlier this month the most wonderful announcement was made in Brazil, regarding the design of the 2016 Olympic course in Rio de Janeiro. American Gil Hanse was selected from a short-list of eight candidates to design a course that will host the Olympic golf competition, which returns in 2016 after an absence of more than 100 years. Following the Olympics the Hanse course, situated in the Barra da Tijuca district, will be used as a public facility, to hopefully encourage more Brazilians to take up golf and swap one beautiful game for another.

Given that news of the Olympic decision broke during the Cadillac Championship at Doral, and while Hanse was accompanying businessman Donald Trump on a PR blitz to promote his acquisition and redevelopment of that storied resort, it was no surprise to see the announcement met with considerable press and analysis. Overwhelmingly the response across the industry has been positive.

Among the players to comment, three-time Masters champion Phil Mickelson put it best when he said, ‘I give the Olympic Committee a lot of credit because it would have been easier to go with a big name and instead, they went with the best. I thought that was pretty cool’.

Others to comment include PGA Tour veteran Brad Faxon, a collaborator on the TPC Boston course and admirer of Hanse’s design work. Said Faxon, ‘I’m so proud that the Olympics did not go with a PR statement and instead chose Gil, because he’s the right choice.’

There were even positive reactions from a number of competing design teams. Gary Player said of Hanse that, ‘he is a gentleman and I know that he will design a golf course worthy of hosting the 2016 Olympic Games’. Jack Nicklaus was similarly generous, offering his sincere congratulations and stating that, ‘I am sure he (Hanse) will do a fine golf course. The Olympics, and the legacy that golf course will have the opportunity to create, will be in good hands.’ Tom Doak, another losing finalists, noted that he had told Hanse that, ‘if we didn't get the design job in Rio, I hoped that he got it. I'm sure he will do a great job.’

Among the golfing commentariat, much of the analysis focused on what an upset it had been for the dark horse (Hanse) to beat out his better known ‘design’ rivals. There were also endless ruminations on what the decision might mean for the future of golf course development, including this from Golfweek’s architecture editor Bradley Klein.

The decision to hire Hanse represents a powerful endorsement of a post-modern, links-inspired orientation to golf at the highest level of international competition. Beyond what this means for Hanse’s own career, it is a powerful step in the emergence of a more naturalistic, more traditionalist and ecologically sensitive approach to golf and golf-course design.’

There is no doubt that over the last couple of decades the golf course industry lost its way, as signature design companies became ever more prominent and countless developers were blind-sided into believing that the only way to ensure a successful development was to engage a famous course ‘designer’. Thankfully the worm has been turning in recent years, and the Rio decision gives hope that future developers will be even more circumspect when it comes to appointing an appropriate design team.

Even more important than the actual appointment of Gil Hanse, however, was the process undertaken to find an appropriate design company for this crucial Olympic project. Closer inspection of the steps taken to reach the decision suggest that Hanse was not, in any way, the dark horse here at all.

While Hanse may be less well known than the likes of Jack Nicklaus, Greg Norman, Gary Player and Peter Thomson, he is a far bigger name in course design than Jason McCoy, Jason Blasi, Ross Perrett or even Jack Nicklaus II. And these were the guys that Hanse ultimately beat to win the Olympic job.

What’s clear about this appointment is that the selection panel in Rio wisely ignored the marketability of the design teams in contention, because nobody is more marketable than the Olympics, and instead focused on the suitability of the actual people entrusted to carry out the design work. As much as the PR machines want you to believe otherwise, this wasn’t ever about Greg Norman, Jack Nicklaus or Gary Player getting their hands dirty and designing something special for the Olympic movement. This was about competing to win a job that would have powerful, and long-lasting, marketing benefits to these large signature businesses.

Sure each of the principals would have been committed somewhat to the process, but it would have been like a Jack Nicklaus Signature Course, where you receive more attention from Jack himself than if you can only afford a Nicklaus Course, but the design work is still being done and supervised by an associate. For Nicklaus or Norman or Thomson or Player or even Robert Trent Jones II to have won this competition, they would have needed to convince the panel that their associates were more accomplished than the likes of Gil Hanse and Tom Doak. That was never going to be easy given their track records, and never going to be likely once Hanse offered to move his family to Rio for the duration of the project, in order to personally supervise all areas of design and construction.

As ‘master’ architect Robert Trent Jones II himself noted in his congratulatory remark to Hanse, ‘my feelings are mixed between the personal disappointment of not being selected but also happiness that a true golf architect was selected.’

Regardless of whether you class RTJ II as a ‘true’ architect or not, Hanse most certainly is and the benefits of appointing a ‘proper’ golf architect on a project like this would have become more apparent to the selection panel the longer they spent considering the various options available. This golf course needs care and attention. It’s budgets cannot blow out and the timelines are too tight to allow for major tweaking once the holes have grown in. The biggest criticism of the Olympic design competition was the time taken for the panel to reach its decision. Ultimately, it turns out the time was well spent.

My guess is that once the selection panel began examining the various submissions closely, it became clear their short-list was five or six names too long. For certain developments large signature design teams have obvious appeal and clear brand advantages, but this is the Olympics and the decision needed to be based on the quality of the golf rather than the marketability of any associated real estate.

Given the land available for the golf course is reasonably flat, and the fact that operationally this needs to be affordable for locals once the Games have finished, the choice of architect was crucial. Unlike the others on the short-list, Doak and Hanse have proven themselves capable of building world-class golf courses on modest budgets. They also move far less earth when building their courses. For a project like Rio 2016, embracing the ideals of frugal construction and tapping into the minimalist philosophy of the great golden age architects was essential. For Doak and Hanse this is a philosophy they truly believe in, and have practiced throughout their careers. For the others it seems little more than a convenient marketing slogan.

Whether the Olympic decision helps transform the wider golf industry or not remains to be seen. There is no doubt that Gil Hanse himself will be more hotly in demand than ever before, but it’s unclear whether flow-on benefits will be felt by other talented ‘true’ architects like Mike DeVries, Jeff Mingay, Ian Andrew, Bob Harrison, Rod Whitman and Jim Urbina. In Asia, where I have some experience, it’s likely that once Hanse is ruled out of a project the default position of the client will be to revert back to a large, familiar signature brand. That would obviously be disappointing.

For the people of Brazil, and for competitors taking part in the 2016 Olympics, however, the most important outcome here is not who will design the Olympic course, but how good the actual holes on the ground are going to be. Hanse has indicated that the course will resemble Melbourne’s classic Sandbelt layouts, and likely feature few trees and an intimate, walkable routing. He modestly believes that when the games are run and won, people will remember who took home the medals but quickly forget who designed the actual golf course. That may be true, but if the holes look fun, attractive and playable they are more likely to encourage locals to take up the game in the aftermath of the competition.  

Here again is where the Hanse decision makes perfect sense. As Phil Mickelson astutely noted when the decision was announced, ‘I think he’s (Hanse) one of the best architects in the business. He understands how to make a golf course playable for the average player but challenging for the good player.’

Mickelson’s quote resonates with those who believe that many modern architects have become too fixated on defending par and building courses that test the world’s best professionals. The genius, if you like, of most of the world’s elite courses is that they challenge great golfers but are relatively simple for the hacker. It’s a characteristic also apparent at Gil Hanse courses. Thankfully his Rio brief is clearly to create a championship test for the elite player, whilst also ensuring that his holes are not too difficult for the average golfer to handle afterwards. Given the brief and Hanse’s impressive design credentials, the elements are in place for the finished product to be truly exceptional, which is important for both Brazil and the wider South American golf community.

For golf to grow here it needs new players, and with competition from other sports at an all-time high, the only sure way to encourage newcomers into our game is to make certain the courses they play are fun and interesting. And inexpensive.

While the new course in Rio is unlikely to be the longest, the toughest, the greenest or the most expensive to maintain in Brazil, based on what we know of Gil Hanse it is likely to be best and the most fun to play. For an industry needing a boost, and a continent wanting for great golf, what more could we possibly ask for?

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