Founder Insights: Jeffrey Danner - Golf Course Architect & Landscape Architect - Pangaea Golf Architecture

Firm & Founder

Jeffrey Danner is a golf course architect, licensed landscape architect & co-founder of Pangaea Golf Architecture based out of Mountain View, California.

Pangaea consists of Jeffrey, and his partner Stuart, based out of Glasgow. They founded the practice just over a year ago as a strategic partnership of their golf course design practices. Together, they work on designing golf courses from all around the world.

Jeffrey holds a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign, which included an Independent Study focused on Sustainable Golf Course Architecture. He maintains a dual membership in the American Society of Golf Course Architects (ASGCA) and the European Institute of Golf Course Architects (EIGCA). He is a licensed Professional Landscape Architect (PLA) in California, Arizona, and Florida, and a member of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA).

With all of his experience, Jeff still brings a fresh take on the early days of running a golf course architecture practice as a strategic partnership.

Jeffrey’s Key Takeaways

• The partnership between Jeffrey and Stuart allows for flexibility. Both run separate legal entities and collaborate under the Pangaea brand. Depending on the project, they determine who leads and how costs are shared.

• For years, Jeff and Stuart have led similar career paths. Their friendship and aligned interests led to the launching of Pangaea Golf Architecture.

• The early days of Pangaea involve both partners grinding to secure work. They are managing a significant project in Scotland and pursuing prospects in the US, Asia, and India.

• Golf course architecture is a niche field with fewer diverse job opportunities compared to landscape architecture and architecture. 

• Networking is crucial for securing projects. Word of mouth, relationships, and past experiences are vital to gaining new clients. Social media and advertising play a secondary role in maintaining visibility.

• Jeff uses Autodesk, Civil 3D, and ReCap to process point cloud data, turning it into legible topography and base maps, especially for clients who lack the resources to do so themselves.

• Time management and prioritization are the biggest challenges. Choosing the right opportunities and staying focused on long-term goals is essential.

• Patience is key in the golf industry, where projects take time due to permitting, approvals, and client-specific delays. Jeffrey emphasizes the importance of playing the long game while staying present and addressing immediate needs.

Website & Selected Projects

Q&A with Jeffrey

How did you come about your partnership with Stuart?

Early on, Stuart and I recognized that we were already in the golf industry and were already showing some proficiency. And it was one of those things where talent, just recognized talent. We were both golfers and had much in common, so we became friends. We never really talked about working together early on, except for joking around while having a few beers. But after we graduated from the EIGCA Diploma course, our lives travelled parallel paths. We were always keeping in touch and watching each other from afar. So, we just started talking a few years ago about formally doing something together.

Last summer, I launched Danner Design (Jeff’s legal entity). And so, we talked and planned through the fall and worked everything out, launching Pangaea in November.

How would you say things are going right now? Compared to what you think things will be going like in 2-3 years time?

Well, I hope it looks different three years from now. And I don't mean that in a bad way, but we're in the early days of Pangaea. This is where we're both grinding and looking for work. And we are getting work. Thanks to Stuart's efforts and proximity, we have an excellent project in Scotland next to Royal Troon in South Ayrshire. The Council has two golf courses that need to be remodeled. So that's been keeping us pretty busy.

And I've been prospecting with my contacts in Asia and India and places like that, and some of those are getting close. But patience is a virtue. Everybody I talked to in the industry who's gone off or started their own company has told me the same thing. First, they wish they'd done it sooner. The second thing is that it will be hard for a while. Even if you are getting work, there are many other things you must consider and worry about when running a business; it takes a little time to get the machine well-oiled.

So, I would like to think that our South Ayrshire projects will be mostly complete three years from now, even though I think they will phase some of it. And I think that some of these other projects we're chasing will get across the line, and we'll be moving forward, and we'll be that much further along, growing the brand and strengthening Pangaea’s presence in the industry.

Relative to running a more traditional landscape architecture or architecture practice, is there one advantage and one disadvantage that you've noticed with being a golf course architecture practice?

Golf course design is a very niche part of landscape architecture. Even though you don't necessarily have to be a landscape architect to be a golf course architect, you can find people with engineering, architecture, and horticulture backgrounds in golf course architecture. As well as many other related or even non-related disciplines. 

Pretty much anybody can call themselves a golf course architect, which I suppose is a little bit of an advantage for the architect or the designer wanting to call themselves an architect. Maybe it is not so advantageous for the clients or the other architects who are educated about what we do and what needs to be done for their projects.

However, an advantage of having a golf course architecture firm over a landscape architecture firm is that we can bridge the gap and lead in a multidisciplinary team setting. We end up working with landscape architects all the time because, in theory, they could do our job if they understood golf.

Having the golf expert in the room is how you build the golf course. The advantage of having landscape architecture or architecture practice is job security because there's usually a more diverse offering for various projects.

As a golf course architect, I would have to set up a separate business name or entity to go out and sell my services as a landscape architect, which I could do because I'm a licensed professional. Still, because golf is 95% of what I do, I can be limited unless I dedicate significant time to selling myself as a landscape architect. Even if they specialize in something like playgrounds or parks, I feel like landscape architects have a broader range of experience as far as being able to secure different kinds of work.

Landscape architecture companies are usually more prominent, offering more employment benefits. With my own company, all the insurance, all the extras that would come with working a full-time job, that's all on me. I have to take care of that myself. If you're running a landscape architecture office, chances are you are big enough to get some of those benefits included in your employment package. As a golf course architect, I'm so small that I can't get group insurance rates. 

How are you acquiring most of your work at the moment?

Generally, networking, relationships, and persistence are all how we get work. We certainly try to keep a social media presence. We always discuss which advertising opportunities might be worthwhile because, like everything else, you want to stay in front of potential buyers. But in the golf business, it is all about relationships. You're generally only as good as the last project that you've done. Having people willing to vouch for you and speak to your abilities is everything. So, the more you can take advantage of your network, the better off you will be.

What does the day to day look like now at a super high level?

It's all over the place at the minute, depending on where we are in a project. Before August, for three months, my routine was going to Scotland once every month just because we were at a point in our projects where we were doing a lot of site reconnaissance and attending meetings with the council to get the project started and design underway.

As far as one day in my life right now, I usually wake up early and look at email messages; they come in from around the world because many of my contacts are international, so I might wake up to a text message from India.

I try to keep the mornings open for highly focused work, like if I need to do some drawings or, knock out a proposal or write a set of specifications, anything requiring a large chunk of effort and focused time to get it done. I try to do that in the mornings as much as possible.

The afternoons will generally be reserved for most of the Zoom calls domestically. Fridays are billing and accounting-type stuff. That's the other thing right now. I’m the accountant, keeping track of all the receipts and ensuring everything's well organized.

There are conferences every couple of weeks with superintendents and owners. So I'll be in the car driving for three to four hours, one way to meet with them and then come back in the evenings. It is a mixed bag, which is part of why it's so exciting. No day is generally the same as the day before or after.

If I'm home long enough to get into some set routine, that might mean a problem, and I've gotten too comfortable. It can also mean I'm in the middle of a big push to get something done. As an example, I would say the next five or six days will all be very similar to me because we are at a point in our project in Scotland where we're pushing to get bid documents and construction drawings completed that they can go out to tender on their side and hopefully start some work this fall.

How do you approach your finances early on when it takes a while before any money comes in?

You also have to consider what you're going to pay yourself. I started by not taking a paycheck for a while. Savings were taking care of monthly expenses for my family. Then, as the money starts rolling in, you build up a little bit more capital in the bank for the business to a point where you feel comfortable, and then you can start paying yourself. Living in the Bay Area, California, everybody's very quick to remind me how expensive it is here, and I agree.

How is your practice structured? It's like you're your own entity but you still work under the same umbrella which is Pangaea?

We're two friends who agreed that we want to work together. But Stuart has his legal business entity, which he had before, and I maintain mine, and they come together under our brand, Pangaea Golf Architecture.

Our agreement on the partnership is simple. Let's say I find a project in Scotland, or somebody calls me about it; well, I’m going to say, okay, this might be more advantageous if they contract with Stewart's entity, but we work on it together.

As far as splitting the costs, we track expenses, such as the website, software licenses, and other things, so that when the time comes to pay each other, we have all that factored in.

Because it's early days, we've formed a strategic partnership where the two legal entities remain separate for now, and we're working together under the Pangaea trade name. That structure will evolve with the circumstances.

Do you use any unique tech for your golf course projects?

I use Autodesk ReCap, a plugin for Civil 3D that allows me to do point cloud data surveys and things like that very quickly and easily turn it into a legible topography or base map. Sometimes, the client doesn't necessarily have access to that means. They get a point cloud or a data set from a surveyor, but they can’t turn it into a legible base map. We can help with that.

What's the biggest challenge?

It's figuring out the best way to spend your time. I would say that, as a small business owner, you wear a lot of different hats: you're the accountant and the marketer. You're also the guy doing the design, drawings, and meeting the clients, and you’ve got to be very careful about figuring out if this task in front of you right now is essential. Prioritization. I think that's one of those things that comes with experience.

It is figuring out which opportunities are worthwhile and which are not because sometimes somebody approaches you with a small project that seems quick and easy. It might be quick revenue coming through the door, but it could be more complicated than you or the client initially thought. It could take up a lot more of your time, pulling you away from what you want to be doing, which, in our case, would be designing the best courses in the world.

If you're doing one thing, you're not doing another. So you want to make sure that you're working on projects you want to be working on and that you're not just doing something because there's a prospect of making a little bit of money on the front end.

You always have to be patient; things don't necessarily happen quickly in the golf industry. So you have to play the long game and always focus on the process and your goals by staying in the present and ensuring you're addressing the most important thing at any given moment.