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Daniel Goleman Emotional Intelligence, 1995
My name is Tony S. Ristola and I am a Leadership Driven Golf Architect using historically proven principles of business and people management to produce excellence, economically. I am on site daily ensuring the final result is the intended result. Workers have a consistent source of feedback, no working in the dark, no information gaps... a Best Management Practice, used by leading organizations in every industry. Daily involvement dissolves barriers, keeps everyone focused on even the smallest details, challenges each individual to perform while motivating the team and uplifting spirits. In Leadership Driven Architecture the team knows... there are no excuses, and "good enough is not good enough!" Only excellence will do. Leadership Driven Architecture demands the devotion of the architect, therefore, he can only commit to one project at a time. That explains why Leadership Driven Architecture is so extremely rare.
Mihaly and Isabella Csikszentmihalyi Optimal Experience, 1988
Tony S. Ristola... Modest Budgets I am the golf course architect...
providing vision, knowledge and leadership to your project.
I have built golf courses almost exclusively with workers who have had no experience with golf course construction... their experience came from road building. They did not know or play golf but you would never know it from the finished products. These workers were educated daily, about each and every task and the benefits went directly to a superior finished product and the investors who gained handsomely. This would not have been possible without a Leadership Driven Architect. The German environmental group BUND hailed my project at Golf Club Emstal, "a model for the integration of a sports park in a protected area." We restored a desolate river basin property into a stunning golf course with low rolling dunes characteristic of the adjoining protected natural reserve properties. The course has received international press including the front page of Golf Course News International. Our project at Artland Golf Club was built on a historic property featuring 5000 year-old stone graves and the added concerns that the course is upon the water supply for the city of Osnabruck. The course has received rave press reviews and green fee revenue has been double the forecast in a saturated golf market area. In addition the course has held the Lower Saxony PGA Championships both in 1998 and 1999. Golf Course Fischland, near Rostock is minutes from the coast in former East Germany. It is currently in the growing-in stage and is expected to officially open in the spring of 2000. These quality golf courses were built with inexperienced golf construction crews, very modest budgets yet are perceived as having substantial construction budgets. The direct result of a deep-seated commitment by the architect... on-site daily!
Background Information
My golf construction experience has taken me from the hot Tropic of Cancer to just south of the frigid Arctic Circle. I've worked in flood control basins, through forests, on bedrock, with boulders the size of small houses, in heavy clay, sand, dry rivers and two coastlines. The budgets ranged from a couple of million dollars to 50 million. I've worked in golf course maintenance and understand the challenges facing superintendents. Maintenance is a critical annual budget issue often overlooked by investors and owners in the design stage. An architect monitoring construction daily can build dynamic features for 18-hole courses... maintained by as few as four people. I know it can be done, I've accomplished this more than once. As a fourteen-year PGA member, former tournament and teaching professional, I've witnessed hundreds of thousands of shots from rank beginners to competing against Ryder Cup team members, PGA Tour and major championship winners. A full and clear understanding of the game allows me to build interesting, challenging and enjoyable courses for the entire spectrum of golfers... novice to tour pro. This thorough understanding of the game, it's great courses, holes and traditions, combined with construction and maintenance experience is powerful but only if I am there daily to share the knowledge and vision with the constructors, face to face. Otherwise the project becomes that of the constructors... not really the architect. From these experiences I'm more convinced than ever, that excellence can only be achieved economically if the architect is on-site leading the construction effort daily. In the final analysis... it's the time spent on site by the architect which determines whether it is "just another golf course" or something truly special and unique.
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"...feedback
is the lifeblood of the organization. Without feedback people are in the
dark, and any problems will get worse as time passes."
"Creative
achievements depend on single minded immersion."
Before
designing and supervising the construction of my own projects, I was involved
in building courses for some of the most recognized names in the industry.