Club Management - May/June 2008 - (Page 17)

Building & Facilities Management Architectural Firm Pulls off Major Three-peat Oakmont, Southern Hills and TPC Sawgrass welcomed fresh looks in 2007, thanks to Chapman Coyle Chapman By Pat Dooley here are deadlines and then there are deadlines, the kinds with red ﬂags and bells and whistles that leave you with sweaty hands reaching for the Tums. For the architectural ﬁrm of Chapman Coyle Chapman, there was no give in this deadline. Tear down the clubhouse at TPC Sawgrass and put a new one in its place. You have a year. If that wasn’t difﬁcult enough, the ﬁrm also was working on deadline projects at Southern Hills Country Club and Oakmont Country Club. At the end of those deadlines were major golf championships taking place at the two courses. So when 2007 came and went without incident and the work was completed, it was worth a few minutes of reﬂection. “I had a friend (Chris Borders, CCM, general manager of the Atlanta Athletic Club) who asked me if I understood just T TPC Sawgrass what an achievement it was to do clubhouses at those three places in the same year,” said Jim Chapman of the Atlanta-based ﬁrm. “I told him, ‘My back understands it. My eyes understand it.’ There were some tense times. “But it was very exciting. It energized our staff.” For the ﬁrm to attack the work of the three clubs that would host major events in 2007 – Oakmont had the U.S. Open, Southern Hills the PGA, and TPC has The Players Championship, which is considered the ﬁfth major – required organization, patience, understanding and stamina. It also required three different partners heading in different directions to work with three Oakmont Country Club different project managers. Mike Shue tackled the TPC, which had the toughest deadline and the most ambitious undertaking. The ﬁrm got a break in Ponte Vedra Beach because Michael Johnson, a former employee of CCC, was the PGA Tour’s point man on the project. Chapman handled Southern Hills and had the luxury of working with a project manager who was a friend, the gregarious general manager Nick Sidorakis, CCM. Barry Coyle was in charge at Oakmont working with general manager Tom Wallace as well as ﬁ nicky members of the club. Oakmont was looking for a renovation and some additions to the clubhouse in time for the Open. So Coyle was given the task of making changes without changing anything. “Oakmont is a very interesting place,” Coyle said. “It’s a fantastic old club built in 1903, and they wanted to keep it historically accurate. We had to be very careful. The hardest thing was to convince the membership we weren’t going to mess it up. They didn’t want someone to come in and make some fancy club for them. They have a real passion for the club.” But this is a ﬁ rm that specializes in giving its clients what they want, when they want it. It was 36 years ago that famed MAY/JUNE 2008 • 17

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Club Management - May/June 2008

Club Management - May/June 2008 Contents President’s Message Accounting & Financial Management Board Governance Wine Society Quenches Thirst for Knowledge, Camaraderie Building & Facilities Management Tennis Pro Education Increases Your Bottom Line Cover Story: BMI Golf Management Golf/Sports & Recreation Management Human & Professional Resources Relationship Building in the Internet Era The Ultimate Cellar Raid Products and Services Marketplace External & Government Influences HFTP Insight: HITEC 2008 Features Latest in Club Technology New Directions Global Outreach Advertiser Index/Advertisers.com Club Wrap

Club Management - May/June 2008

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