Golf Club Atlas
GolfClubAtlas.com => Golf Course Architecture => Topic started by: PCCraig on February 14, 2012, 01:26:37 PM
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With the recent discussion of the renovation of some greens at Merion due to increased green speeds and unputtable surfaces, it lead me to think of modern maintenance technology from another angle. Faster green speeds have made the greens at Merion and other classic golf courses far more difficult and many posters have suggested slowing them down to regain their original playing characteristics.
However, are there any classic courses that have benefited from increased green speeds? Perhaps greens that historically were cut at high mow heights? Are there greens that might have been on the flatter side 50 years ago that have "come alive" with breaks that were barely noticed before?
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Would Bethpage Black be an example? I have not played it -- but watching the US Opens there, they continually talk about the relatively flat greens during the coverage.
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With the recent discussion of the renovation of some greens at Merion due to increased green speeds and unputtable surfaces, it lead me to think of modern maintenance technology from another angle. Faster green speeds have made the greens at Merion and other classic golf courses far more difficult and many posters have suggested slowing them down to regain their original playing characteristics.
However, are there any classic courses that have benefited from increased green speeds? Perhaps greens that historically were cut at high mow heights? Are there greens that might have been on the flatter side 50 years ago that have "come alive" with breaks that were barely noticed before?
Not that I can think of.
Having played golf for about 60 years, over those 60 years, at the time I was playing, I can't remember saying, "these greens are too slow"
Contemporaneously, they were fine.
Looking back, they were slower than today's speeds, but, so what, they had contour/slope and ample character.
And, nowhere, was "goofy golf" to be found.
The natural progression of increased greens speeds spells disaster for distinctive greens and the game.
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TOC and Hunstanton. The "preferred" speed of links greens is 10.5 on day one of a championship fast enough to challenge without the risk of balls being blown away. Hunstanton got their greens to 11-12 but they are by and large flat surfaces.
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With the recent discussion of the renovation of some greens at Merion due to increased green speeds and unputtable surfaces, it lead me to think of modern maintenance technology from another angle. Faster green speeds have made the greens at Merion and other classic golf courses far more difficult and many posters have suggested slowing them down to regain their original playing characteristics.
However, are there any classic courses that have benefited from increased green speeds? Perhaps greens that historically were cut at high mow heights? Are there greens that might have been on the flatter side 50 years ago that have "come alive" with breaks that were barely noticed before?
Not that I can think of.
Having played golf for about 60 years, over those 60 years, at the time I was playing, I can't remember saying, "these greens are too slow"
Contemporaneously, they were fine.
Looking back, they were slower than today's speeds, but, so what, they had contour/slope and ample character.
And, nowhere, was "goofy golf" to be found.
The natural progression of increased greens speeds spells disaster for distinctive greens and the game.
Amazing how much "greencreep" there has been.
And no one can tell me it's for any other reason than to be faster than the club down the street, (EGO)
Fast is a relative term and sadly agronomy and ego has allowed relative to render many great greens and in particular many pins, obsolete
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I cannot think of a green I would rather play at 5 or 6 feet than 11 feet...not one!
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pinehurst
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I cannot think of a green I would rather play at 5 or 6 feet than 11 feet...not one!
Jim,
Are you including all the greens that have been modified?
#5 at Palmetto had one pin at 11-maybe, but every ball went to the same place at those speeds. It's modified with tiers now
#10 at Southampton has very few(if any) pins at 11-and even if you find a pin, you can't use so many more great places
Goat Hill-couldn't play holes 2,3,4, or 7 at 11-plays perfectly at 6.
These holes have extreme slopes that ARE the strategy of the holes,that influence where you drive it on the hole, and if run at 11, the greens would have to be modified, thus RUINING the strategies of the hole.
The problem is most greens have already been modified so 6 seems stupid slow-and it is stupid slow uphill.
Remember in the old days a green that was 6 might be amped up for a couple days to 8-making it seem crazy.
Now everbody wants tournament speed every day.
The real problem is no great pins are even considered at 11-14.
at 6 you can cut them right on the slope and have all the challenge you need.(and actually have putts you play a foot outside the hole from 6 feet)
but more importantly keep them firm and highlight the slopes when out of position.
running the greens at 6 on most modern or modified classic greens using the pins and green softness we've all been trained to see and expect would make for boring golf-agreed.
Obviously 6 is an extreme example but 8 would do no?
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Maybe Garden City.
the low-profile, 2-3% tilt greens are considered genius now at 10+ on the stimp... I don't know what people thougth of them with speeds around 6 on the stimp.
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Jeff,
I haven't played any of those courses you mentioned...but sure, I can think of greens that don't work at 11 feet.
Your question about 8 feet working is really the point...really firm and 8 or 9 feet is great but they didn't have that in 1925 unless the grass was mostly dead so I'll stick with my comment regarding 11 feet versus 6 feet.
Your bringing up the firmness issue/benefit is spot on and I think Don Mahaffey is running a thread that discusses various tangents of it.
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Maybe Garden City.
the low-profile, 2-3% tilt greens are considered genius now at 10+ on the stimp... I don't know what people thougth of them with speeds around 6 on the stimp.
Phillipe,
I was thinking of Weston (in Toronto) for the same reason... Not much internal contouring but a lot of tilt. Greens are very interesting with today's green speeds. Don't know if they would have been considered interesting in the past.
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I cannot think of a green I would rather play at 5 or 6 feet than 11 feet...not one!
1 That's not the issue
2 If instead of going from 11 to 5-6 in one fell swoop, you dialed back an inch a year, I doubt you'd notice it
3 In close to 60 years of play I can't recall playing greens that stimped at 5-6. Is that speed a figment of your imagination,
or, have you played greens at those speeds.
4 What's wrong with severe greens at 8 or 9 ?
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Maybe you could read all of the posts before jumping in...
How would you know what green speeds were typically 50 or 60 years ago? They were not 8 or 9 feet, I guarantee it.
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Maybe you could read all of the posts before jumping in...
How would you know what green speeds were typically 50 or 60 years ago? They were not 8 or 9 feet, I guarantee it.
I think I have an exponentially greater sense of green speeds 50 or 60 years ago, before you were born.
I played them.
What's your frame of reference ?
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BevsehZ5P7o&feature=related
This would have been the fastest green in the United States on this particular day in 1958...what does the last putt look like to you? Straight down the hood of a car, he smashes it and it grinds to a halt...
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BevsehZ5P7o&feature=related
This would have been the fastest green in the United States on this particular day in 1958...what does the last putt look like to you? Straight down the hood of a car, he smashes it and it grinds to a halt...
Let me see if I understand this.
You're going to use, as a universal, Bermuda greens in Georgia, on April 3-6, 1958, with temperatures of 71-72 degrees ?
Is that correct ?
Did you ever take a course in "Logic" when you were in school ?
If so, you need to repeat it.
If not, you need to audit it.
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You left out the wind direction and strength...
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The natural progression of increased greens speeds spells disaster for distinctive greens and the game.
This is only true because of a paradigm shift in methods, attitudes and mindsets, surrounding the sport of golf.
A sportsman adapts to the conditions. He doesn't whine about, or join the club down the street because they have faster greens.
The loss of Match Play is also integral in the demise of golf,(and severely contoured greens) and that, can only be blamed on the people who play, plus, those who are/were in a position to lead through example.
Sort of like bad parenting.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BevsehZ5P7o&feature=related
This would have been the fastest green in the United States on this particular day in 1958...what does the last putt look like to you? Straight down the hood of a car, he smashes it and it grinds to a halt...
Jim,
Wouldn't you say those greens were rolling 8?
The second guy's putt looked slippery enough.
Maybe they ramped them up in 1959 (I watched Art Walls' putt too) ;D
I will say I watched the Masters video from 1960 and the (lack of)speeds surprised me.
they missed a bunch of short putts, which can happen when you actually have to take a backswing and strike it solid with some break.
I started going in 1975 at age 12 and the green speeds (fast)shocked me, but I'd say most of that was a function of downhill slope.
My main point is, the slower the green, the more the tolerable the slope and firmness, and the more variance in the putting speeds going different directions.
Nowadays uphill putts are fast. ::)
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Jeff,
I'd believe they were 8 feet at the far highest, more like 6.5 or 7. The pin looks to be more on the slope than they could possibly put it today and the last guy wacked it down the hill and it ground to a halt about a foot past. If Augusta's greens are 7 feet on Masters Sunday wouldn't you say 5 or 6 was a reasonable norm at the time across the country?
In any event, what you say about the agronomic and difficulty benefits of maintaining greens in that 8 or 9 foot range is undeniable...but...
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For the most part, no. The green complexes at most Golden Era courses were creatively severe - which was part of their well deserved reputation (think NGLA, PV, Shinnecock, Cypress, Augusta, Pasatiempo, Winged Foot and Merion among many others).
However:
Mark Johnson - You are correct about Pinehurst although, as a resort when golf was not "huge" and $300 green fees were unthnikable, those greens were kept slower because nobody cared. Now that Pinehurst is a resort where $400 green fees are the norm on #2 because golf is "huge", the business decision has been made that you have so presciently observed.
Phillippe - I think you nailed it with Garden City although I think we must wait for Patrick to validate that assessment.
I will add Maidstone and Fishers Island to the list as virtually all of their greens are not so threatening and, for the most part, faster is more challenging but still fair. Piping Rock also s/b included as only their Redan is scary fast. The Creek is questionable as I can think of half a dozen greens that are now "Jesus, I could putt this thing right off the green."
Moving down a notch, both Inwood and Rockaway Hunting Club now have greens that are both very quick and very fair.
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Jim; Brad Klein has a study of Green Speeds using the stimpmeter gor top end clubs going back to the 70's and 80's. I will try to dig up my copy when I get home. I recall much of the data from the Chicago area. In the late 80's, the highest end clubs which prided themselves on conditioning had greens stimping well under 9. While I am not as old as my friend Pat, I can remember what it was like to putt greens in the 1960's and 1970's. they seemed fast to us, particularly when we got to the better courses. but in retrospect, they required much more of a hit because they were slower. I remeber when my greenskeeper was excited because he could cut our combination bent and poa greens to the shockingly low height of 5/32 of an inch. today we are habitually at 1/10 or lower and for extended periods. The other point to note is that even on bent grass, there was more grain, in large measure due to the types of grass and the higher mowing heights. Downgrain downhill putts were thus much faster than those in the opposite direction causing greater variance from putt to putt and increasing demands on green reading skills. i believe Pete Dye has commented on this aspect.
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There was an article by Stan Zontek in the April 2011 USGA Green Section Record in which he said the median green speed in the mid '70s was 6' 6" on the Stimpmeter.
That's only the median, but it does give a general indication of speeds at the time.
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There was an article by Stan Zontek in the April 2011 USGA Green Section Record in which he said the median green speed in the mid '70s was 6' 6" on the Stimpmeter.
That's only the median, but it does give a general indication of speeds at the time.
I've heard from a couple of sources that in the Q&A after a speech JN gave at the GCSA several years ago, someone asked him about the speed of the greens at Oakmont in '62. Eeryone at the time thought they were over the top fast. JN said that he'd guess they stimped at about 6.5 that year.
Bob
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It's an interesting issue because putting on greens at 6 feet would certainly be more difficult for me than 11 feet in the same way playing off fairways an inch long is a bit tougher than whatever height they are typically cut at today...1/4inch? There's alot more left to chance, which I'm fine with, but in an either/or conversation, is more difficult necessarily better? Nope!
Jeff Warne has hit on a key, and I think Don Mahaffey (on another thread) has touched it as well...there's a general green speed which maximizes green space utilization - hole location interest (playable slope!) - and maintenance expense and I'd bet it's somewhere in the 9 foot neighborhood.
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It's an interesting issue because putting on greens at 6 feet would certainly be more difficult for me than 11 feet in the same way playing off fairways an inch long is a bit tougher than whatever height they are typically cut at today...1/4inch? There's alot more left to chance, which I'm fine with, but in an either/or conversation, is more difficult necessarily better? Nope!
Not necessarily.
Greens faster than 11 or fairways mowed under 1/2" would have been inconceivable to you--all you would've ever known was the green speeds and fairway heights that were common.The changes were evolutionary--they didn't happen overnight.Good players just adapted,albeit some skills got more important and some got less.
You're a good player now,you would've been a good player then.
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Jeff,
I don't disagree...but I think we do have to look at it as an overnight issue.
"Are there greens that are better now then they were then based on green speeds?" was the topic question and I think it's valid (fairway heights as well) because, as you say, nobody notices the differences year to year...effectively, there is no difference year to year.
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There's some intreresting stuff in this report 9 page about green speed:
http://tinyurl.com/6sq4fhs
From the abstract:
Twenty-nine golf courses in Connecticut participated in a study where 448 golfers were asked in a questionnaire to rank the speed of selected greens into one of five categories from slow to fast. These rankings were paired to the same USGA speedchart categories for regular play based on measured Stimpmeter ball-roll distances. Overall, there was no significant (P = 0.72) relationship between golfer rankings of green speed and USGA speed categories. Low-handicap golfers were able to detect increasing trends in green speeds only slightly better than higher handicapgolfers or golfers with no handicap. Overall, the majority of golfers (74%) ranked green speed into slower categories than those determined by the Stimpmeter. However, golfer rankings correctly matched USGA categories in 41.4 to 48.8% of cases when measured speeds were classified as medium to medium fast, respectively. Regardless of ball-roll distance, 87.5% of respondents rated the putting green speed as satisfactory. The data suggest that use of the Stimpmeterfor delineating greens into arbitrary speed categories may be obsolete. Instead, it should be used as a tool to determine "ideal" green speeds at individual golf courses based on golfer preferences, and to ensure relatively uniform green speeds throughout the course.
edit: The link works now
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Jeff,
I don't disagree...but I think we do have to look at it as an overnight issue.
"Are there greens that are better now then they were then based on green speeds?" was the topic question and I think it's valid (fairway heights as well) because, as you say, nobody notices the differences year to year...effectively, there is no difference year to year.
Fair enough.For the purpose of this conversation,better only for playing--maintenance is another issue.
For fairways,I say undeniably better today at <1/2" than what was common 30(?) years ago--for all the reasons you could think of.That said,I can find you plenty of guys who think anything under 1" is "tight".They like to be able to get their 11 woods airborne.
For greens,today's faster is much better for me.BUT,the greens I usually play,and played growing up,would be much flatter than what you are used to in Philly (or so I gather).Plus,growing up,I played courses which were wall to wall common bermuda--a completely different animal than bent or poa.Speed was almost irrelevant compared to grain.Back then,a fast green coupled with contour and grain,would have forced a lot of guys into tennis.
So,my "better" is parochial since I rarely putt on heavily contoured greens.If I'd grown up putting Merion's or PV's greens,I might give you a different answer.Not that it really matters anymore since I started putting like a man with Tourette's Syndrome.
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There's some intreresting stuff in this report 9 page about green speed:
http://www.green-resource.com/wp-content/themes/greenresource/uploads/resource_files/resource_golf/Putting%20Green%20Speeds%20-%20A%20Reality%20Check!.pdf
From the abstract:
Twenty-nine golf courses in Connecticut participated in a study where 448 golfers were asked in a questionnaire to rank the speed of selected greens into one of five categories from slow to fast. These rankings were paired to the same USGA speedchart categories for regular play based on measured Stimpmeter ball-roll distances. Overall, there was no significant (P = 0.72) relationship between golfer rankings of green speed and USGA speed categories. Low-handicap golfers were able to detect increasing trends in green speeds only slightly better than higher handicapgolfers or golfers with no handicap. Overall, the majority of golfers (74%) ranked green speed into slower categories than those determined by the Stimpmeter. However, golfer rankings correctly matched USGA categories in 41.4 to 48.8% of cases when measured speeds were classified as medium to medium fast, respectively. Regardless of ball-roll distance, 87.5% of respondents rated the putting green speed as satisfactory. The data suggest that use of the Stimpmeterfor delineating greens into arbitrary speed categories may be obsolete. Instead, it should be used as a tool to determine "ideal" green speeds at individual golf courses based on golfer preferences, and to ensure relatively uniform green speeds throughout the course.
Interesting,but I swear that some magazine,SI or GD maybe,did something similar years ago and came to completely different conclusions.
From memory,that study found an almost exact correlation between ability to putt and ability to guess green speed.PGAT players could guess within 6",low handicap amateurs could guess within 1',etc.
As usual,I may be misremembering.
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Jeff,
I think the abstract says that all golfers can tell when the speed goes up, that it's not just the realm of the lowest handicap players.
The link should be working now, and you'll find this in it (so your memory is probably intact):
When all 448 respondents were included in the analysis, there was no significant relationship between golfer rankings of green speed and USGA green speed categories (χ² = 0.13, P = 0.72). However, a weak relationship was found between the < 10 handicap group rankings and the USGA rankings (χ² = 3.45,P = 0.06), but not for the other handicap classes (P ≥ 0.10). This suggests that lower-handicap golfers may have a slightly better ability to match green speeds to USGA speed charts than higher-handicap golfers.
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For the most part, no. The green complexes at most Golden Era courses were creatively severe - which was part of their well deserved reputation (think NGLA, PV, Shinnecock, Cypress, Augusta, Pasatiempo, Winged Foot and Merion among many others).
However:
Mark Johnson - You are correct about Pinehurst although, as a resort when golf was not "huge" and $300 green fees were unthnikable, those greens were kept slower because nobody cared.
Chip, that's not true, people did care. And, you're forgetting that Pinehurst hosted the North-South Open, the North-South Men's Amateur and the North- South Women's Amateur every year. It was a destination golf resort for "golfers" While there was skeet, horseback, tenns croquet and other actiivities, golf was king. But, it was in North Carolina where they converted their sand greens to bermuda.
Probably Common Bermuda which didn't putt like the current strains.
But golfers migrated to Pinehurst as a great golf course complex much like they do at Bandon today.
So, the expectation was high in terms of the quality of the product.
Now that Pinehurst is a resort where $400 green fees are the norm on #2 because golf is "huge", the business decision has been made that you have so presciently observed.
Phillippe - I think you nailed it with Garden City although I think we must wait for Patrick to validate that assessment.
While there's not a lot of contouring on GCGC's greens, other than perhaps # 4, 11 and 16, almost every green is sloped.
Sloped in a bedeviling way.
GCGC is at it's best when F&F conditions are the norm, so the entire course, and play of the course is enhanced with increased speed.
When I first played there, in the 80's, Bobby Ranum was the Superintendent and I remember one putt in particular on the 13th green.
I had deliberately hit my approach long of the hole, leaving me about a 15 foot uphill putt for a birdie.
I then had a 6 foot downhill putt for a par.
I was shocked at how fast that uphill putt was.
Greens # 3, 4, 7, 10, 13, 14 and WOW # 15, # 17 and # 18 are entirely sloped, with the other greens having less slope, so those greens and the play of those greens benefit from fast rather than slow speeds.
The question is, how fast before the course transitions from challenging to goofy ?
You may not be able to define it, but, you know it when you play it.
I will add Maidstone and Fishers Island to the list as virtually all of their greens are not so threatening and, for the most part, faster is more challenging but still fair.
Piping Rock also s/b included as only their Redan is scary fast.
The Creek is questionable as I can think of half a dozen greens that are now "Jesus, I could putt this thing right off the green."
Moving down a notch, both Inwood and Rockaway Hunting Club now have greens that are both very quick and very fair.