Our Team
Larry J. McGonigal
Vice President of Field Operations
Larry has extensive experience in all faucets of the construction industry. He has a civil engineering background and is familiar with vertical, horizontal, commercial, industrial and golf course construction and is familiar with what it takes to manage multiple work tasks, scheduling, and materials procurement. Also, Larry’s knowledge enables him to develop workflow schedules and budgets which are utilized in daily, weekly and monthly organizational charts.
In the thirty plus years of experience, including 10 years as a golf course contractor, Larry has been involved with every aspect of golf course development and construction. Larry’s strongest quality is his ability to work with everyone, to organize a project, work to extremely tight schedules, and maintain the integrity of the project budget.
- Supervision of the clearing/grubbing, earthworks, course drainage, feature construction of the golf course features (greens, tees and bunkers), per the technical specifications, working drawings and bid documents.
- Supervision of the cart path installation, soil preparation, landscaping, and golf course grassing per the technical specifications, working drawings and bid documents.
- Preparation and communication of construction schedules, budget updates and important construction issues on a weekly basis.
Jeff Evans
Equipment Operator/Feature Shaping
Feature Shaping is the operation that transforms the existing golf course features on the course into the improved finely contoured final feature shape that the design team and client envisioned during the design process. It is the shaper’s responsibility to manipulate the terrain of the golf course to achieve the desired appearance of the architect’s design. We believe in the design philosophy that form follows function. We strive to have all our golf holes flow with the contour of the land and that the contouring provides good visibility, target areas that invite the golfer, and natural green and bunker complexes.
The strategy of the holes should be designed so no two succeeding holes are alike either in length or shot values, and each hole presents a fair challenge to both the low and high handicap golfers. Tees should offer a variety of play angles and be generously proportioned. The greens should be undulating with multiple pin positions that offer endless combinations of dynamic playing conditions to be enjoyed by all levels of golfing accomplishments.
All our shapers concentrate on the following.
- Coordinate with the project contractors and client representatives prior to commencement of earthworks and feature shaping, for the purpose of reviewing the scope of work and task responsibility.
- Perform the feature shaping of the golf course features (greens, tees and bunkers), per the plans, working drawings and per the direction of Harry Bowers.
Our approach
Our approach to each project is to empower the client to be involved in the entire golf course design and construction process. We embrace a modified design/build approach, by providing the golf course design, golf course construction supervision, feature shaping and contouring services. This concept develops a design that is structured around the client’s goals and objectives and a construction program that prepares a complete package of technical specifications and bid documents for each work task, allowing the client to hire multiple contractors. By doing so the client has the freedom to increase efficiency by hiring local contractors for work tasks like large earthwork, concrete cart paths, grassing and landscaping.
Contractor supervision and course feature shaping and contouring are provided by Signature Design Services and ensures that the golf course is built to the construction technical specifications, and that the client’s goals and objectives are satisfied 100%.