Thursday, May 1, 2008

"Setting the Course" - Guelph Life article

Golf is all about fun and this Elora designer knows how to make it happen
Story by Rob O' Flanagan


As complicated as the game of golf may appear, at its heart it is a simple game with a simple purpose, according to golf course architect Shawn Watters.

"The value of golf is getting out and walking through the countryside, experiencing the friendship of people and the honesty of the game," says Watters, whose Shawn P. Watters & Associates is among the most sought-after course designers in Ontario, and one of a select few firms in Canada dedicated solely to golf course architecture

"It is the fact that you can spend time with your father, your children or your friends for three or four hours, or longer. That is what golf is about for me."

If you have ever played the Pike Lake Golf & Country Club in Mount Forest, Wildwinds Golf & Country Club in Speedside, northeast of Guelph, Horseshoe Valley Resort in Barrie or the Quarry Golf Club in Ennismore, you've played a course designed by Watters. Watters knows the game intimately, both as an avid player and as an accomplished designer who has dedicated much of his adult life and imagination to envisioning better, more esthetically pleasing and more environmentally sensitive courses.

From a small studio on the picturesque main street of Elora - a studio with walls plastered with designs in progress - Watters and his team create courses that blend harmoniously with the surrounding environment and which accentuate the simplicity and beauty of the game. His approach to a golf landscape is as non- invasive as possible.

As a designer, Watters is mindful of the fact that most golfers gravitate to the game not with a mind to becoming the next Tiger Woods, hut rather for the peace, the air, the view and the pure enjoyment of being on a golf course and striking a golf ball.

"I'm very fortunate to do the work I do," Watters says. "There aren't many of us doing it - probably just 13 practitioners in Canada that happen to make a living at it. We happen to be one of them."

Watters is in a league of upcoming course architects that includes people like Gary Browning, Kevin Holmes and Ian Andrews, who have ambitions to join the top designers in Canada today - people like Doug Carrick, Tom McBroom, and Les Furber.

One of Watters' latest projects may well prove to be one of his most challenging. He is designing a course for the desert dunes of Libya, on the Mediterranean coast. While that project is in the early stages, Watters is busy with a number of projects closer to home, including a major expansion of Kitchener's Doon Valley Golf Club. A newcomer to the evolution of the popular course, Watters was hired to develop a master plan for the expansion in 2000. Construction is slated for this summer.

As well, he is busy on a community-development project in Port Severn that includes a golf course, marina and cottages.

Watters, 47, and his wife, Debbie, fell in love with the Fergus-Elora area years ago. They raised their family in the small-town setting.

"We are kind of artsy folks, and we love the arts community here, and the flavour of design in the community," he says. "One of my goals was to have a studio on the main street of Elora, and now here I am."

Watters has worked on more than 40 projects since starting his firm nearly 20 years ago.

He has worked in the field of golf-course construction since he was a teenager and learned his art from some of the country's finest course designers.

After completing a degree in political science at the University of Guelph, 'Watters made an academic shift, completing a second degree in landscape architecture. Shortly after graduating, he went to work for golf architect Robert Heaslip, from whom he learned his craft.

"We do everything from finding a property to going through the planning process and doing the detailed design work," Watters says, describing a process that can take two to five years.

While most of his projects have been in Ontario, he has been eager to tackle something on a more global scale.

"I have a close friend who is a golf contractor in Houston, Tex., and we have been talking over a number of years about doing a North American project," 'Watters says. "So one day he called me up and said, Shawn, I've got a project for you. I said, 'Where is it?' And he said, 'It's in Libya.'" Waiters ran through some possible locations in his mind - Libya, Tex.? Libya, Tenn.?

"He said, No, Shawn. Libya, Libya.' Watters is awaiting topographic in formation from the northern Africa country, and in the coming weeks and months will set to work on designing an 18-hole course with hotel facilities along the legendary Mediterranean.

The science and technology behind producing the perfect golf club and ball has made longer drives possible, and has transformed the game of golf from a ground game to an air game, Watters says. But while such advances have given an advantage to the more elite player, they have not done much for the common player. In some ways, technology has been a detriment to the game, he says.

"I think technology has taken us down a road that is not necessarily good. If you can put a ball in the fairway, there is a good chance that you can make a par on a hole.

"But if you have a driver that can focus the ball, place it anywhere, it is going to make your game a lot more complicated." Watters favours a simpler approach to the game, a more strategic approach that utilizes moderate drives and a sound short game.

"If you keep your game simple, you will enjoy it more, and you won't feel compelled to buy into all these innovations in equipment."

Female golfers have helped preserve the traditional ground approach to the game, he says.

"In some ways, women are more the purists. They play along the ground more than men do. If you go back to the old style, golf was more of a ground game. North America made it an air game.

"I like that kind of ground game, and a lot of our holes provide opportunities to approach the green in different ways."

Developing golf properties has become a very expensive proposition, and to survive and thrive in the industry, an architect must design and build courses that are economical, Watters says.

Completing a course can cost anywhere from $2 million to $8 million, with the designer getting a percentage of that overall budget. Cost isn't the only factor.

A typical course requires 100 to 200 acres of land. Such tracts are hard to come by in urban Ontario settings, and legislation protecting green spaces and prime agricultural land further restrict the availability of land for golf links.

Watters' architectural art is minimalist and non-intrusive. Environmentalism, he said, is here to stay, and golf courses have to be designed in ways that are not a drain on natural ecosystems, nor leave a scar on the landscape.

"Basically, I like to consider ourselves minimalists, and what that means is we try not to move heaven and earth," he says. "We will do the minimum amount of work to the site to still make it a great golf course."

A golf course should blend into its surroundings, be a naturalistic fit with adjacent properties.

"Golf courses have become extremely mindful of the environment. We go through more rigorous scrutiny than most developments in terms of what we can and can't do. We've adapted well to the changing times, but we could get better."

This article was featured in the May-June 2008 edition of Guelph Life magazine.

"Building a Life Profile: Golf Course Architect Shawn Watters" - GolfScene Article



by Brent Long

Apparently there are a least two great golf minds living in Elora. Of course, we all know Norm Woods who has been publishing GolfScene out of his home in town since the spring of 2000. However, in this rural community about a half-hour north of Guelph, on the main drag at 73 Metcalfe Street, you'll find Shawn P. Watters & Associates.

It seems a bit odd, that squeezed among the town's quaint gift shops and with charming pubs on each side you'll stumble across the store front offices of a golf course architect. You peer through the glass windows and turn the brass handle on the antique oak door and visitors walk into the world of modern-day golf design.

I had been intrigued about meeting Watters after notching my first hole in one last summer at the newly opened Quarry GC just outside of Peterborough and wanted to thank him for the ace on No. 14.

Watters, who has degrees in Political Science and Landscape Architecture from the University of Guelph also happens to represent Elora on the local municipal council as a Councillor.

He first worked at Mississauga G&CC as a teen helping to rebuild a couple of green sites as a summer job. He had another taste of the golf business during his second degree working construction at Devil's Pulpit and Paintbrush in Caledon for contractors Gateman-Milloy Inc.

By the time he graduated with his second degree from Guelph in 1992 Watters and his wife Debbie had two young children, breaking into the design business wasn't easy. Instead of following the traditional path of working for a big-name architect for several years to earn his stripes, Watters charted his own path by going into business for himself.

The 47-year-old can look back and laugh at it now, but in the early days, working out of a hack bedroom he took on anything from residential to commercial projects to make ends meet. "I think I wrote the book on how not to do it, but in a lot of was it has been very rewarding and I wouldn't change it' Watters says.

His first golf course design was in association with Doug Black for the Waterloo Golf Academy - an entertaining nine-hole course, then came nine new holes at Pike Lake G&CC Resort and the second nine of the Highlands Course at Horseshoe Valley Resort.

Watters' designed his first 18-hole layout, Wildwinds Golf Course in 2001 for a group of Fergus businessmen - interestingly he notched his first hole-in-one playing Wildwinds for the first time with a good buddy!

Back at the office, where Roger Stacey manages the technical aspects of each project, the duo have their hands filled with two new projects that are under construction and a possible job in Libya of all places!

Clearing and initial earth moving started last summer at a project that is easily Watters' most exciting and high profile design to date - Oak Bay Golf Course - a 500 unit residential community near Port Severn. "For us Oak Bay is our first foray into Muskoka and we're looking forward to showcasing what we can do with a great piece of land," says Watters, who plays to a six handicap anti carries his clubs in the trunk of his car just in case he has time to fit in a quick nine here and there in his travels. And after being on the drawing board for seven years, Watters finally received the green light from the City of Kitchener to proceed with a nine-hole addition at Doon Valley GC. Construction is slated to start in 2008 and the course should open in 2010.

Brent Long is a Burlington, Ontario based Freelance golf writer and photographer who operates his own golf marketing business - Long-shot Communications.


This article was published in the Spring 2008 edition of GolfScene.