Interview
As a partner at award-winning design firm Nelson & Haworth since the early 1990s, Mogg has been involved with the creation of some of the region’s most famous courses. Here he talks about his influences, the challenges he faced when designing the East Course at Kau Sai Chau and why he abhors island greens. INTERVIEW BY ALEX JENKINS PORTRAIT BY ROBIN MOYER
Q&Awith
Brett Mogg W h at are your biggest design influences? A s an Australian I was influenced early by the works of Dr Alistair McKenzie: his works at Royal Melbourne and Kingston Heath being the first classic courses I had the opportunity to play. Other classic architects whose work I admire and whose courses I have played include A.W. Tillinghast [designer of San Francisco Golf Club] and George Thomas [designer of Riviera Country Club]. In terms of modern architects I owe a lot to both Robin [Nelson] and Neil [Haworth] who after all gave me the opportunity to work in this field. Both have been a big support and both are brilliant in their own way. I have travelled several times to Ireland and Scotland and the short, quirky and original links courses there always energize and influence my designs when I return. Courses like Carne, Machrihanish, Portrush and the more traditional links of St Andrews and Royal Dornoch all break the conventional rules of modern design, yet all work and have delighted and entertained golfers for centuries. I feel modern design has lost part of this unpredictability, which is a real shame. I am not sure if this is as a result of our ability nowadays to shape every inch of land on a site or our clients’ desires for conformity. But the result is that some of the wildness of the game in its raw form has been lost. Who are you designing courses for, and has that philosophy changed over the years? I have pretty much always designed for myself – and luckily my game fits the profile of the average player fairly well. While I have played at a decent single handicap level at one time or another, for most of my playing years my handicap has hovered in the early teens. I generally always try and design for the miss in golf, which is pretty much most shots for most people when you think about it. I want to
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reward good and aggressive shot making that challenges hazards but also allow people to miss their shot – in the right place of course. The up and down might be difficult but at least it allow peoples to find and play their golf balls. When I was younger, and a bit of a better player, I was probably less sympathetic towards the beginner and I think my philosophy towards them has mellowed. One reason I don’t like island greens is that they are just not that hard for a good player but almost impossible for the hacker. I try and give the poorer player a chance to get his ball to the hole, assuming he plays within his skill levels. I will admit that this philosophy is not apparent at the East Course at Kau Sai Chau – with the topography and restrictions involved, we could just not avoid the forced carries. Talking of Kau Sai Chau, what were your first impressions of the site? We saw the site as a tremendous opportunity – there was amazing topography there coupled with out-of-this-world views, but we could also see the tremendous challenges posed by the severe terrain, the rock and the need to work around the routing of the existing courses. The land that we felt could be used relatively easily was apparent right away – the ridgelines where hole 4 and 14 sit for instance. However, many of the other holes took a great deal of investigation and planning to find. Figuring out how to link the distant parts of the site with each other while providing a coherent golfing experience was difficult. For instance, the tough par-3 8th hole provided a linkage between two distant parts of the site, as did the 3rd, despite there being very little useable land in these locations. How did the project rank in terms of difficulty? The project was one of the most difficult we have been involved from both a technical and regulatory viewpoint. The routing itself was not the main difficulty, but there was some very difficult land to traverse. The requirement to keep the existing courses in their entirety also complicated the routing process somewhat. The construction of the works, however, was very difficult. Not only was the contract lump sum, which makes field changes difficult to implement, but the nature of the site was mainly rock with a thin layer of topsoil. This coupled with the need to save much of the existing vegetation made for a very difficult and complicated construction process – a process not helped by the fact the project is on an island with limited means of access. How did Hong Kong’s strict environmental rules and regulations impact upon the project? The environmental standards imposed significantly drove up the costs of constructing a new course in Hong Kong and they will perhaps limit opportunities to develop new golf courses here. If all countries enacted or followed the restrictions imposed upon the course at Kau Sai Chau I think you could safely say that would be the end of new golf courses. Some of the environmental restrictions applied at Kau Sai Chau were, in my opinion, a little HK Golfer・Jun/Jul 2009
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“For [golf’s] growth to be sustainable, more public golf is definitely required, especially in China where the game remains quite elite.”
harsh, especially considering the site had been bombed heavily during its days as a target range by the British military. Golf is, however, seen as a “bogeyman” and an easy target by the environmental lobby given its elitist image, based mainly on supposition and rumor. Very little by way of hard data supports the notion that the environment is at risk from golf, although of course some golf courses, like any other type of development, have been constructed or maintained in a less than environmentally friendly manner. Designed, built and managed responsibly we believe golf courses can be positive developments, providing both recreational opportunities and green space for the wider community in an economically sustainable manner. In China and elsewhere in Asia, concern for the environment is increasing and we support this generally. Adherence to quality control during construction and management does mean both a better golf course and better environment at the end of the day. Construction by poorly managed or supervised contractors for dubious owners on sensitive sites are not the way forward for an industry if it wants to be around long term. What’s your favourite hole on the East Course? Holes four and five are favorites and I also like how hole 16 turned out, considering the changes that were foisted upon the hole by environmental restrictions just prior to construction. I am also a big fan of short par 4s – and like to design them whenever my clients allow me – so hole 12 is also another favourite. During construction we located a wonderful tee location right on the edge of the ocean that would have made the 12th one the most dramatic on the golf course. But unfortunately due to contract limitations and cost difficulties we were unable to implement this improvement. I am still hoping that, at some stage in the future, we can sneak an extra back tee in here since it will make such a positive change. Looking back now, are there any other changes you would like to make? After all, the feedback on the course has been overwhelming positive. I would say that on almost every project we do there are at least one or two things we regret doing, not doing or not changing – the golf course can almost always be better at the end of the day and the East Course was no different. Either our design, or the implementation of the design, could almost always be improved upon. Unfortunately, and without passing the buck, there are always issues that conspire against you
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when you design a golf course: from the very short timeframe allowed, from limitations with the construction contract, from survey problems through to somewhat onerous environmental restrictions. All these factors combine with the steady and unstoppable force of a large construction project to limit a designer’s ability to make the best possible use of any site. In the case of the East Course specifically: in a fantasy world where I could go back and change things there are a number of holes and features I would like to alter. In terms of routing, if we had worked harder to convince the club that a par 70 or 71 course was the best solution to this difficult site, I think could have made the course both stronger and better. Dropping the par to 71 would have enabled us to delete and convert the 18th into a par-3 par-4 combination instead of the somewhat forced par-5 that it is. There are a number of problems with this hole that are not easily solved with it as a par 5 – the landing area is too high relative to the second landing area. Sure, you could drop the landing area 10 metres to solve this but this would create its own problems with being able to tie the levels in to the hills on the left. As a par-3 playing to the current landing area, and then a short par 4, we could have solved the problems of a restricted landing area and less than perfect visibility for the second shot. This change would mean that we have an extra hole and so deleting the par-3 15th would be my second routing change. It’s a nice enough little hole, with a beautiful green setting, but the teeing ground is forced and looks engineered. Deleting this hole would also mean that you could push the green at the par-4 14th back another 30 metres or so – right to the end of the ridgeline, which would strengthen and improve this hole as well and provide us with another strong par-4 on a course that lacks strong par 4s. If we could step back even further and make the course a par 70, which is a difficult ask in Asia where owners have to have a par 72, I would also change the par-5 11th into a strong par-4, perhaps by sliding the green forward just a touch. This change would improve the strength of the course relative to par, although it wouldn’t make much of a difference to people’s scores. I would like to take away a little of the engineered look of the course: there is just too much concrete out there, with U-drains at the top of every cut slope, which is mandated by Hong Kong law, although hopefully over time the native vegetation will disguise most of these. The bog standard power transformer poles are a real blight on the naturalness of the course, so I would ask the suppliers to think outside the box and supply us with something a little more discrete. Although we did make sure none were silhouetted against the skyline. HKGOLFERMAGAZINE.COM
Discussing your Asian courses generally, how much freedom do you have in terms of design? That’s an interesting question because on the one hand we get a lot of design freedom but it is within a set of very strict parameters. By this I mean owners, generally speaking, are very focused on a few critical numbers, which they see as very important, such as overall yardage (7200+) and par (72), yet they are less focused on the guts of the design, be that the strategy, the contouring, greens design and the like. Owners will also often have one or two very strong desires or requests about what they would like to see on the golf course, such as an island green par-3 or more water on the course. Both of these are common requests, and although we always try and talk owners out of these things – we say: “Island greens are no longer unique since they are everywhere and they are too difficult for most players” and “water is an overused design element – how about some good solid strategic design instead?” – at the end of the day, the owner and our responsibility to them means we need to implement their desires as best we can while mitigating the negative effect on the golf course design. With par and yardage, these are difficult prejudices to break down, since they are
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reinforced by the golf we see daily on TV being played by the pros of the PGA Tour. In the absence of a lot of golf experience on the part of the owners – and many of the owner’s do not know a lot about golf – the PGA Tour and the owner’s own professional golfer friends and advisors push for standard par and length solutions. This means that often better solutions with lesser par (70-71) and/or lesser yardage (6700-6900 yards) are sacrificed on the altar of “par 72, 7200 yard plus” solutions. The simple fact of the matter is that these sorts of yardages are too long for the vast majority of golfers.
Stunning Signature: the 16th on the East Course
Typically, how many times will you visit a project during the design and construction phases? For most projects we will visit the site three to five times prior to finalising the course design, depending on the natural features of the site, including a field design trip where we review and/or conceptualize the design while in the field. Less pre-construction visits are typical if the site is totally flat with few natural features. During construction we are typically on site every four to eight weeks or so depending on site progress. On a typical project we will visit the site between 10 and 20 times.
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Is there still a golf course boom in Asia? For the moment it seems that the market in China is still strong, and there are small pockets of activity elsewhere, such as Vietnam and India, although both these countries have seen a drop off in activity recently. Long term, I think the potential is there for golf to continue to grow throughout Asia. It is after all a great game and one that engages the participant at many different levels. However, for growth to be sustainable, more public golf is definitely required, especially in China where the game remains quite elite. More participation and more success at the very top level by Chinese golfers should see the game grow in popularity. And then there is the fact that you can gamble easily. Gambling between players of widely different standards is a great attractant for the average Chinese. Actually I think this one factor is the main reason why owners like to have an island green on their golf courses – it’s the type of hole that settles a lot of bets! I heard that Nelson & Haworth has designed nearly 10 per cent of the courses in China
China is a huge place and we have been working there continuously through its ups and downs since 1992. In that time, the growth of the game has been breathtaking. The other night I was at a dinner with a Chinese friend and we were talking about the number of golf courses in China. I estimated there were 400 courses and my friend put the number at closer to 800, so the percentage of courses we have designed might vary quite a bit. We have been very lucky in China in a number of ways. Firstly, we have been fortunate enough to work on some great, high profile sites with clients dedicated to quality – courses like Shenzhen Golf Club, Sheshan Golf Club in Shanghai and Bayhood No. 9 in Beijing. These projects all enjoy high profiles, not only due to the quality of the courses themselves, but also their great locations and the quality of their owners and management. We have also been fortunate with both our people and the people we work with. Business in China is very much about relationships and friendships. From a company perspective, our partner, David Young, has helped a great deal in our relationships with our China clients. We
have also been blessed to know a great many people in China who have helped us to win jobs by recommending us to their friends or bosses – a great many of our jobs have come to us through this method. It can’t hurt that the HSBC Champions tournament is played at Sheshan every year? That’s right. The publicity generated by the tournament has been good for us, as has the course’s exclusivity and cachet in the China market. It also doesn’t hurt that the world’s greatest golfer plays there three years out of five! What do you make of the number of largely American-based designers who have come over to Asia in recent times as a result of stagnation in their home markets? There has been a noticeable influx of overseas architects due to the economic crisis and this is only likely to become more of a feature of the market, particularly in China. Where this influx results in an improvement in the clients’ understanding of the possibilities and varieties of golf course design, we support this competition. More talented designers working here is positive, both for us as architects and for the game in general. For instance, designers like Tom Doak or Bill Coore push a minimalist, low-key approach to their designs, often with par of 70 or 71, and often with gnarly, rough-looking bunkers and layof-the-land greens. This type of approach is not very popular in Asia, where clients and golfers often prefer a more manicured parkland approach. Personally, I love these natural courses and would like to design more of them, so any increase in their popularity may open up opportunities for different approaches by us. These changes may well happen with time as golfers and owners become more educated and so I am looking forward to being around when more flexibility is encouraged. Is Paspalum your grass of choice nowadays in tropical climates? A few years ago I would have said yes, but nowadays I am not so sure. It has a number of truly great qualities – low light tolerance, poor
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water quality tolerance etc. However, the jury is out on whether it is really the grass of the future. It still has a lot of issues that are becoming apparent the more it is used. You know Bermuda 419 used to be the grass of choice in tropical and subtropical climes for most architects and it took 20 years of continual use for its shortcomings to be exposed.
Personal Preference: The short par-4 12th is one of Mogg's favourites on the course
Are shapers the unsung heroes of golf course design? For sure, although many are pretty good at singing their own praises! Most golf course architects rely on the skills of these guys to translate their visions on paper into reality – and it's pretty amazing what these guys can do with their huge machines. There are a few designers who shape their own work, guys like Tom Doak and Bill Coore, but they tend not to do a lot of work in Asia mainly due to the more hands on and time consuming nature of their work. At Nelson & Haworth we always try to credit the shapers for their work – on our website you will see the lead shapers for all our projects listed; we believe that credit where credit is due is good policy. We have a number of guys – and pretty much all shapers are male – who have worked with us a long time, which always helps with the translation of arm waves into reality. To single out one shaper – I would like to credit Gary Read for the great work he did at Kau Sai Chau with Peter Wardell. We worked with Gary on a number of jobs in China and he was a real joy – humble, quiet and talented. Unfortunately, Gary recently died of a heart attack at the age of 44 in Hong Kong. He will be missed. How do you celebrate the completion of a new design? It’s a great idea to celebrate the completion of a new project. Unfortunately it is pretty rare for us to be able to do so. Our involvement often ends before opening and we are on our way to the next project, wherever that might be. Most jobs just seem to slowly die out for us before the grand opening so whenever we are able to attend one, we really appreciate it as it helps us draw a line under the project before moving on.With the East Course, I was lucky enough to be able to attend the opening ceremonies, although after two of the four guests’ opening drives ended up lost in the bushes I was looking for somewhere to hide. Thankfully a young girl [Tiffany Chan, Junior Close champion] saved me with an excellent drive. And we did have a few drinks to round out the day and the project! For more information about Nelson & Haworth visit www.nelsonhaworth.com HK Golfer・Jun/Jul 2009
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