Interview with Harley Kruse - on his new design business with Bob Harrison

Exciting news in the golf design business late last year, that long-time Greg Norman collaborators Bob Harrison and Harley Kruse are teaming up to form a new design partnership servicing the Asia region. As many readers will be aware, Harrison helped form Greg Norman Golf Course Design back in the late 1980s, and worked as head designer for the Asia/Pacific region for more than 20 years. During his tenure he designed such quality layouts as National Moonah, Ellerston, Nirwana Bali, The Glades, Pelican Waters, Brookwater and others.

There is no doubt it was the quality of Harrison’s design work that earned the Norman company such a sterling reputation across the region. The fact there are no longer designers in Norman’s company with experience in Asia may hurt his business moving forward.

Harrison’s new partner is Harley Kruse, who spent ten years alongside Bob at Greg Norman Golf Course Design and another decade working with Peter Thomson and his design team. Kruse is widely experienced across Asia, having worked on projects in China (Norman Course at Mission Hills, Binhai Golf Club), Vietnam (Danang Dunes), South Korea (Jade Palace) and Australia (Settlers Run) among others.

In this Planet Golf architect interview we talk to Harley Kruse about the new business, his ambitions in Asia and the difference between working for a big signature firm and now running a smaller independent business.

Planet Golf – You spent the best part of 20 years working for signature design companies, why start your own business now with Bob Harrison?

Harley Kruse – A lot of things in life are about timing.  When I started at Greg Norman Golf Course Design in 2000 I set myself a goal of being there for ten years before intending to go out and start my own business, as by then I would be 45.  As it turns out I was with the company for 10 years and 1 month. The timing of Greg closing his Australian office couldn’t have been better for me. I had just completed the Dunes Course at Danang, which turned out to be my swansong project at GNGCD and one which Greg to his credit allowed me full run on the design.  I did all the design work and all the construction visits on the Dunes Course and it was shaped by my very good mate Peter Waddell and his team who did a brilliant job. It is a course that I will be forever proud of.

In terms of starting a new design business with Bob, one consideration for me was going solo but I felt that wouldn’t be much fun, nor would it give clients the service they need.  I think in this business a partnership can be like 1+1 = 3 in terms of what two designers can give a client.  Bob and I had a chat one day and discussed the opportunities to bring our design skills to Asia. We have a good network in this market and know it well.   I have always had the utmost respect for Bob’s design talent and we both see and like similar things in golf design. In the end Bob and I teaming up was relatively easy. As a friend of mine put it, it’s like, “putting the old band together but without the blonde guy.”  We are a tried, proven and experienced team and together our partnership accounts for an extensive portfolio of work that goes back more than 20 years.

 

PG – Now that you are out of the business, how do you view signature design and what are some of the misconceptions out there about the practice of signature design?

HK - An interesting question and one I would like to put in context. When I first worked for Peter Thomson’s design company, Thomson Wolveridge and Perrett, I never really saw it as signature design. Peter had been in the design business for around 25 years by then, but to me Peter wasn’t really a brand or signature designer in the modern sense of the term.  In starting with Greg Norman’s company a decade later, well that was another matter altogether.  I knew that I was steeping into the world of signature design with the knowledge that Greg’s star branding power would continue to shine and attract high quality clients and projects to work on for many years to come.  For me I particularly liked the Norman courses that were being done out of the Sydney office and at the time I also admired the entrepreneurial nature of the Greg’s business, which included a partnership with Macquarie Bank to actually initiate golf and residential projects.

I think there will always be a market for signature design but I suspect that market is getting smaller.  Whilst signature player golf design was the rage in South East Asia in the 90’s, we are now seeing the emergence of a different client market not only on a global level but in Asia too.  Savvy developers and a new breed of what I call connoisseurs of golf course design realize that with signature design you are largely paying a high fee for players to lend their name to a design, while someone else does all the actual design work. These types of clients are recognizing that they get a more personal and appropriate service with design firms dedicated to quality design. The global trend away from signature design started before the global financial crisis, but I think that event also tilted the landscape a little further away from signature design.

In China right now the statistics are interesting. As of 2010 there were around 450 courses in China. Of those the number of courses that are signature designs where the design fee is over USD $1million would be less than 25.  Yes there are still a few developers spending some very big fees to secure highly ranked player names to endorse their design, but there is also a new breed of development companies as well as well-heeled entrepreneurs who are steering away from high-end signature design fees and going with small firms producing quality design. Whether these developers are developing new brands or already have existing projects, they don’t see the need to have a player brand their project with the extra costs involved. In fact I have seen a small trend towards these golf connoisseurs in China, with many taking great pleasure in being the ones who first brought in a particular design firm to design their course. And then like a patron, they have enjoyed helping that designer grow their business in China.

 

PG – Let’s talk about your new partner Bob Harrison. You watched him work up close for ten years, and saw how involved he was on the Greg Norman projects in Australia and Asia. What are Bob’s greatest strengths as a designer?

HK - Bob is a great thinker and problem solver. Good design is something that can’t, and never should, be rushed. Sometimes a site just works and the routing flows out quickly but other times the routing process may take a few weeks.   Bob will spend many hours evaluating different holes both on site and by exploring many different routing options on paper. He will almost agonize over these options until he arrives at a solution that works best.  By working best I not only mean the routing from a golf perspective but more often than not it also brings out the best real estate options too.   Bob’s ability to take a completely flat, featureless site and transform it through brilliant earthworks design, by careful drawing, to me is another of his great strengths and something very few architects do well. The results at Sanctuary Lakes, The Glades and also Pelican Waters are testament to these skills.  I have always like Bob’s greens and I have learnt a lot about greens shapes from Bob. I think all 18 greens he did on the Moonah Course at the National are superb.

 

DO – So I assume you learnt more about golf and the art of design from Bob than Greg himself?

HK - Bob and I worked together in the Sydney office for the best part of 10 years. So in terms of the design processes and discussing design, Bob and I had a great relationship from which I gained a lot.  During that time I would see Greg 2 to 3 times per year for a day or two and frankly that didn’t leave much time to shoot the breeze about golf course architecture.  With his golf course design business Greg is an astute guy at a commercial level and he knows what he likes and doesn’t like when he sees things in the field. Of course Greg didn’t draw or design as such, so imparting wisdom on the art golf course design wasn’t necessarily going to be Greg’s thing.

 

DO – You obviously developed a decent working relationship with Bob at Greg Norman Golf Course Design over the years. How do you feel you work together and do your skills compliment each other?

HK - I like the dynamic that Bob and I have.  I am 46 and he is 64.  We are both passionate about golf course architecture and are committed to producing high quality design.   I come from a background in horticulture and landscape architecture and Bob comes from a background in civil engineering and this covers a lot of bases in golf course design.  I am happy to do the yards travelling and spending more time with our Asian clients as needed, and Bob is happier to be doing the yards on paper with a lead pencil.  That said we both travel and we both design. We tend to take on one project each in terms of the design and drawing work, but we always discuss our work and talk about ideas.  I have very practical background to Asian clientele and their projects having lived in China for a couple of years for 2 golf course projects.  Both of us have over 20 years experience throughout Asia and have done the design work and construction visits for courses that are well regarded.  I doubt many design partnerships would have this healthy mix of expertise and experience.

 

DO – Collectively you’ve worked on dozens of projects across Asia. It must give you great confidence to embark on this new venture knowing that in your portfolio are not only quality courses on pure dunes and along spectacular coastlines, but more importantly in mountainous areas and on the sort of flooded, degraded land that most projects now occupy?

HK - Certainly the range of sites that Bob and I have worked on over the years and the results that have been achieved is something that we can be very proud of.  There is nothing like experience to give you confidence and I know that we can design courses in a range of sites as well, if not better, than most design teams around.  Our environmental credentials are very high too and we have been instrumental in several environmental innovations over the years.

 

DO – You established a strong network of contacts across Asia during your years with Thomson and Norman, but has it been difficult to spread the message throughout the industry that the guys who designed all these fine Norman courses and now going it alone?

HK - Two decades of being in the industry in Asia have gone very quickly but that has meant a great network of business contacts and also long term friendships across the region.  A lot of people in the industry know Bob and/or myself, and of the work we have done over the years.  Yes we are best known as the guys that did the design work for the Norman courses in Asia, but as a new business we are looking forward to getting that first Harrison + Kruse course on the ground   Many in the business now know about the formation of Harrison + Kruse and certainly the word has got around.  We have been given a lot of support and encouragement from many people and for that we remain very grateful.

 

DO – Do you have any future plans to co-design courses with other celebrity golfers?

HK - Bob and I remain practical to the needs of certain projects and the preference of a client to have a professional player involved either as a co-designer or as a profile player to endorse a project. At Harrison + Kruse we are certainly in a position to introduce players to a project if appropriate for the client. Important for us, is that the player has a genuine interest in the design and will provide his/her input.  We don’t want to work with players who are only interested in getting a big cheque to turn up on opening day and meet and greet a few people.

 

DO – You know the China market as well as anyone, what do you think is the missing ingredient in terms of elevating golf to a higher level and making the game more enjoyable and sustainable?

HK - Having observed the China golf market up close for some 15 years, including a stint living in the country for a couple of years, I have seen many changes.  In 1998, for example, when I was living in Shanghai, there still weren’t that many golfers around as time and leisure dollars were scarce.  We were building just the 13^th course in Shanghai, which is a city of 20 million people. Now in 2011 the golf scene in China is markedly different across all levels of an industry which is no longer in its infancy and has gone through a lot of growing pains as it continues to mature.   I have remarked on another occasion that this decade could well be the golden age of golf course design in China.  Knowledge and experience has allowed a certain sophistication to develop, to a point where there are not only foreign companies but also well-run Chinese companies operating in design, construction and management.  The sport is enjoying a healthy growth in terms of participation numbers, and improved coaching programs will ensure that future Chinese golfers rise on to the world stage. 

On the design front, I think there is a growing awareness, even amongst the few well-travelled Chinese, that of the courses developed during the past 20 years only a handful were truly world class.  I am now hearing a few Chinese golf industry people say that if we are to create better golfers in China we need better courses.  I think the ranking of courses in China is getting better amongst the golfing press and this is opening up competition between developers to have the best course.  The last 5 or so years has seen great changes in the quality of courses being built, and we hope to help elevate the standard even further.

 

DO – Without wishing to upset your former employer, what would you say are the main advantages of employing Harrison Kruse over Greg Norman?

HK - To me that’s a simple one.  In employing Harrison + Kruse you get a very talented and highly experienced team that has over twenty years each working in Asia Pacific and with a great track record of producing courses of the highest quality.  You get the guys that did all the design work and construction visits for highly regarded Asian courses such as Norman Course at Mission Hills in China, the Dunes course at Danang Golf Club, Vietnam and Nirwana Bali, Indonesia. Bob and I live and operate in the Asia Pacific, as we have for our entire working careers, and we understand Asian cultures.

Bob and I are truly passionate about producing high quality design so when you engage Harrison + Kruse you know that it is Bob and myself doing the design work.  We are truly hands-on and work to make sure the project gets built to the highest of standards.   Unlike Greg’s business, which is about chasing as many projects as they can get (they have some 60 projects already on the books), Bob and I are deliberately a low volume + high quality business and we want to keep it that way. This allows us to dedicate proper service to each client and project, to enable us to create the best possible course for their land.

Of course the other obvious advantage of engaging us is that the Harrison + Kruse design fee is a fraction of the cost that Greg Norman’s business charges.

In employing Greg Norman you are getting a famous brand and the chance to rub shoulders with one of golf’s great players, but of course he employs designers to do the design work and his numerous other commitments mean that he is simply not hands-on with all his projects. In closing his Australian design office, which traditionally served the Asia Pacific region, and pulling his design business back to Florida, Greg is left with a design team lacking any real Asian project experience, which is interesting given that China is probably the hottest global market right now.  I think the view of his office was perhaps best summed up when one of the guys who run his design business said to me,  “Harley, we do projects in Mexico, we do projects in Russia, and China is no different”. We think China is different.

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