Growing Pains and the Hand of Man

Growing Pains and the Hand of Man

Whether from sea, land or airplane there should be a sign at every port of entry declaring “Poland…Under Construction.” The nation is busy repairing the ills of communism at a furious pace. It shows. The country’s lot has improved drastically and continues to improve. It’s beautiful to see. But…this sweeping progress comes with one ill side effect for projects like this ours. Getting the exact machines we would like quickly isn’t easy.

Some machines we want, we can have, but they come with an operator. Thanks, but we don’t want the operator; we have our own local guys. At one project the developers desperate for a machine rented a bulldozer, only to have the operator who came with the machine sit on his hands for months while another plied his earth shaping skills. I guess some would call that a dream job.

Our challenge of getting machines is one we are fast overcoming.

Manpower is another story. There we have no problem at all. This abundance of labor is a big factor in the manner the course will be designed and maintained.

Manpower allows detail to be accomplished no machine could achieve and is why the really old courses often feel and look so good…They reflect and have all the subtleties of Nature because their construction equipment was small; Horses, mules and manpower. They were forced to embrace Nature and make the most of what the site offered. Most of the natural contours, the little stuff…rolls, bumps and hollows remained intact. The features, because they were also maintained by hand could be designed full of intricacy. That’s a huge difference to most modern courses that are smoothed out, massively contoured by giant earthmoving machines and designed for ease of maintenance…machines. Though great effort (and expense) is the result of many modern projects, they often look sterile or plastic.

Tony Ristola
agolfarchitect.com
+1 (909) 581 0080