Shinnecock, The Pros & Width - Praised or Panned ?

[TEPaul]

"TE Paul
I'm going more and more with the "leg pulling" theory........"

Rich:

Of course you are--it's perhaps the simplest rationalization imaginable---I wouldn't expect more from you.  

[Brian Phillips]

And I'm glad to hear you all in Europe don't think American clubs are made up of a bunch of snobs and elitists fixated on privacy, just that things are done differently over here.

Tom,

If I had put together a bunch of guys to create and finance a golf project and paid for it with my own money the way Pine Valley and Shinny were set up I wouldn't open it to the public either...why should I?  I totally agree with private clubs.

You remember Graeme?  He is a founder member of a course he designed and that is totally private (in Scotland) no visitors without members.  They financed it so they should be allowed to do with the club as they see fit.

Brian

[TEPaul]

By the way, although this thread has gone far afield (probably due to me) I'd like to say that the bunkering at Shinnecock looks really good right now. The juxtapostions where the grass meets the sand is low profile, as it should be and would be in a natural setting out there, and the grass/sand lines look very good. I think Flynn would be very proud to see these ones. That maintenance operation is something to see too---like a small well trained army with everything imaginable they'd need at their disposal!

[TEPaul]

"If I had put together a bunch of guys to create and finance a golf project and paid for it with my own money the way Pine Valley and Shinny were set up I wouldn't open it to the public either...why should I?  I totally agree with private clubs."

Brian:

There you go--that's what I've been saying on here. If people really want privacy they have to pay for it. Some obviously don't want to have to pay for it  and what then follows is all I'm talking about here.

I should probably tell you how this subject came up with me over there in the first place. The day was a significant one, to say the least, although as it unfolded I didn't know it would be. We were all sort of a traveling band together with the European contingent--it was an ongoing competition. It was at RCD and the day was 9/11/01.

Ahead of us all day was the most God awful, funereally slow Americans from Las Vegas who chose not to acknowledge us (our group did include some truly significant RCDers). To me it was really embarrasing (since you know I'm American) and I actually said I'd go up there and speak with them--something I probably shoudn't have said. One of the so nice RCDers said not to bother they just put up with that type of thing--he said they were used to it. So the subject arose and got discussed on and off over the next some days probably more as an occasional diversion from what was about to happen.

As I came off the 18th green and around the pro shop the worst of those American plodders was in a full state of hysteria and you can imagine why. I stepped into the pro shop and saw on the TV high in the corner the World Trade tower coming down. Two of our American contingent stood there in white shocked horror as their sons worked in that building. Some gratuitous acts of human kindness particularly to do with communications followed from the Europeans and the club I'll never forget. I'll never forget that American who was the worst of them ahead of us, all dressed in black with a Shadow Creek logo on his sweater standing outside the pro shop screaming at the top of his lungs "Those F....Arabs". This was definitely not your normal day. Like everyone else I wasn't sure what to do.

So the time was unusual (we got stranded in North Ireland--not a bad thing at all as air travel shut down for 4-5 days).

So in a way it was the worst of times and the best of times and I guess in many ways we all got to know each other much better than we ordinarily would have.

By the way Rich, although humor is a wonderful salve at times like that on the subject discussed here nobody was pulling anybody's leg!  

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

Going from fairway acreage in the mid 50's to the mid 40's and then down to the mid 20's is narrowing the fairways no matter how they look to the casual observer.

Remember too, that most people didn't see and/or don't remember the fairways when they were considerably wider.

It would be nice to see side by side aerials taken today and 20-30-40 years ago.

[TEPaul]

Pat:

They're never going to go back to the original fairway widths at Shinnecock. From what I understand if you want to get an idea the widths they probably will be going back to just check out the outside lines of the first cut of rough.

[LenBum]

The fairways at Shinnecock will not be kept at their current width. But it will take time as some pointed out from an agronomy standpoint to widen them out. You can't just cut 4-5" rough down to .350 fairway height overnight.

[Patrick_Mucci]

LenBum,

That's what I tried to point out to Brian Gracely and Brian Phillips, even though Brian Phillips knew the answer.

It may take several seasons to get the fairways back, but the question remains, to what boundaries ?  And, who is going to determine those boundaries ?

TEPaul and Wayne Morrison could be a valueable resource for the club regarding this issue, as they are very familiar with this topic, and may have illuminated Flynn's original intent with respect to fairway widths, to the club.

Why wouldn't the club want to restore fairway lines to Flynn's original plans ?

[rgkeller]

Many of the "exclusive" clubs in the United States do get considerable income from non member traffic - but they do it in the form of outings (Deepdale) and limited but regular unescorted foursomes at very high fees (Shinnecock)

If it one thing old money hates to do, it is spend that money.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Brian Gracely,

On another thread that I initiated I brought up the theory of elasticity in the context of width, not length, and how only a few courses have this amorphous luxury.

I was told, by a superintendent in Florida, that I have tremendous respect for, not to cut a leaf blade by more then 1/3 if you wanted to insure survival.

But, you did propose cutting the roughs back to fairway heights for the weekend, and I thought that was a bit of a stretch, agronomically and from a playability point of view.

A side by side aerial of Shinnecock taken 40-50 or 60 years ago, compared with one taken in the last few months might offer a startling contrast.  They would be interesting to compare, and to see if TEPaul's discovery of the left tee
on # 7 was in use.

[Brian_Gracely]

But, you did propose cutting the roughs back to fairway heights for the weekend, and I thought that was a bit of a stretch, agronomically and from a playability point of view.

Yes, it probably was a stretch.  But I suppose that radical ideas are no longer valid on this site without having to endure extreme backlash.  I need to go back to the suggestion that Tom Doak made to me a few weeks ago...." there aren't that many original ideas in golf architecture, are there?  That's more likely to happen with a book topic."

btw - From a comparison perspective, I've read the NGLA profile on the site several times and it's very interesting to read about all the potential options.  I have no idea if top players would concern themselves with most of the options, but it might be interesting to see if it happened in tournament play.  Unfortunately, I don't expect that we'll see many courses ever setup for that in the near future....other than The Old Course.  

[TEPaul]

Cutting the rough back to fairway for the weekend??? Who said that? That's preposterous. I know some of you guys like brown but that would really look awful--basically swaths of  completely scalped turf on both sides of the fairway?! As I believe was mentioned on an earlier post my understanding is the course is going back to their fairway width pre Open set up, and apparently the outside edge of the present first cut rough are basically those widths. They seeded in and they're going to gradually mow back out probably starting in the fall. They're going to leave the course in the Open set up through the summer maybe because it's not a great idea to mow that stuff down in the heat of mid-summer. But I'm sure no agronomist so don't ask me what that would do in the summer. But I'll tell you one thing Mark Michaud has got to be the most impressive super I've ever run into and that crew up there is really impressive. We spent the morning with him last week and he can definitely tell you anything you want to know about anything to do with maintaining a golf course--anything. Man, did I learn a ton in a few hours---and at one point I had to say--Whoa hold on you're way over my head! However they take those widths back out I guarantee you they certainly know the best way to go about it. Both Mark and apparently the club too is looking seriously at taking those greens back to their original widths at some point---and that's great news too. That course is ready as it can be right now--all they're doing is just mowing the grass and waiting. The best thing possible in my mind is come the end of this week it heats up, the rain stops, the wind blows and dries the golf course out right on through Open Sunday and we should see a really exciting Open.

[Paul_Turner]

I'm very lazy mowing my lawn and cut it by more than 1/3 all the time.  The grass seems to fair quite well.

[Norbert P]

 If grass that is 5 inches tall is mowed to 1/2 inch, the grass you will be playing on will be merely sheathes and virtually no grass blades.  It would also be a pale and sickly green. Virtually Johnny Winters-like. It may not kill the plant, but maybe it will, but you may as well play on a bristle brush.



 

[Sean_Tully]

I played Pebble 3 weeks after the 2000 Open.  Because it is a resort course they were concerned about pace of play and had the rough cut down shortly thereafter. I do not know the time frame, but work was being done to get it back to fairway height and conditions.  It was a pleasure to play the course and aim at the US Open fairways that were still evident a month after, I was a paltry 1 of 14 for the day.

In general, the shorter the grass is cut the more grass plants will cover that given area. So, converting a fairway to rough would be feasible, but to convert a rough to a fairway especially 4+inches would take more time and cultural practices ie seeding etc.

[Doug Siebert]

True you can't convert rough into fairway by just mowing it low.  But hypothetically, it seems that if you cultivated a 40 yard wide fairway and wanted to narrow it to 25 yards for the US Open, you could just let the outer 15 yards grow starting sometime in May, and then you'd have thick plants of the correct type to be able to mow it down again.  Not from 5" to fairway height all in one go, but perhaps in a series of mowings over a week or so.

Like Paul Turner, I'm lazy mowing my lawn, and I'll sometimes double mow it to take advantage of brief dry spells during wet springs by taking it from an overgrown 6-8" down to about 3" (high setting of mower) and then a day or two later down to about 1.25" (second lowest setting)  It doesn't seem to mind, though it doesn't mulch well so I get a lot of thatch  True, my lawn's more Painswick quality than PGA quality, but I have "stupid trees" about 70 ft tall in the front and back yards that shade much of it so well that only an ANGC groundskeeper could grow grass in every spot!

[Patrick_Mucci]

Brian Gracely,

Yes, it probably was a stretch.  But I suppose that radical ideas are no longer valid on this site without having to endure extreme backlash.

That's a cop-out and pure BS.

Your radical idea can't be implemented due to the agronomic realities.

You suffered no "extreme backlash"

You proposed a foolish idea that was refuted.

Don't cry "police brutality" when you're caught commiting a crime and resisting arrest, which is a reasonable analogy to your proposal of cutting the rough to fairway height friday night, having that idea dismissed, and then claiming that you were subjected to an extreme backlash, which is absolutely not the case.

Get more practical, radical ideas.  

Paul Turner,

How much stress is your lawn subjected to ?

At what mowing height do you set the blades/rotors ?

Do you notice a difference in the results of summer mowing vesus fall and spring mowing ?

You do understand that stress increases as the blades get shorter, don't you ?  

Doug Siebert,

Over time, almost anything is possible,
Over night, is more then a stretch, it's absurd.

[Brian Phillips]

I'm very lazy mowing my lawn and cut it by more than 1/3 all the time.  The grass seems to fair quite well.

That British humour will get you into trouble one day my boy...

Brian G,

You didn't propose anything radical, you just proposed something that is not really possible in the time span suggested.  As we would say in England - don't get your knickers in a twist.

Pat,

I have always been told by our agronomist that a 1/4 of the height of the blade is more than enough..

Brian Phillips.

[Brian_Gracely]

ok, so here's a basic question for all you Shinnecock lovers...

If Shinnecock is such a great course; so elastic and so potentially dependent on the elements, why does the USGA need to grow the rough so long to make it challenging?  Why couldn't they use a similar setup to what was used at Pinehurst on 1999, where the rough was 3"?  Yes, the fairways were similar width (24-28').  Is the rough really Shinnecock's best defense against low scores?  Or are they concerned about getting limited or no severe weather, like at Olympia Fields last year, and scores being really low?  

[Patrick_Mucci]

Brian Phillips,

Local climate may be the ultimate dictator on cutting practices and heights.

Brian Gracely,

You may be unaware that the secondary rough at Shinnecock is normally knee deep, so noone is growing it higher.

I fear that the gallery and other factors will trample and alter play from that rough.

You also can't compare the Bermuda roughs found in the south to the northern roughs, they are different plants, that provide different playing conditions, at different heights.

4" to 6" inches of Bermuda might be almost unplayable.
3 " of rough up north could be duck soup, depending on the weather.  My courses up north keep their roughs higher then that for member play, so 3 " isn't going to challenge the best players in the world.

I think you need to study and learn more about grass types, their particular needs and playing qualities before making comparisons with golf courses from different regions of the country.

And, please, don't categorize that advice as an "extreme backlash"

[Brian Phillips]

Brian Phillips,

Local climate may be the ultimate dictator on cutting practices and heights.

Pat,

No matter where you are in the world 25% - 33% lowering of the cut is pretty much the rule no matter what the climate.

If a Super is looking to reduce the height he has to do over time, it doesn't matter if it is at Shinny or Kathmandhu.

But you knew that anyway...

Brian

[George Pazin]

Latecomer to the most recent America bashing episode...

It is my understanding that, due to our wonderfully litigious society, if private clubs were to maintain policies similar to the UK and others' clubs, they would be deemed semi private or worse by the good ole US judicial system and forced open to virtual complete public status.

Others could comment as to the validity of my assertion, but it's my understanding this is why Sand Hills, among others, has greatly restricted its access policy. (Still didn't stop Tom D - he said in a recent article in Golf Mag that he gained access to many top clubs by writing them thoughtful letters. This probably happened before recent litigation, however. I blame all lawyers - but I blame them for everything.)

Be thankful that your lawyers aren't as effective as ours (yet).

I'm wonderfully naive (as Pat will attest to ), but I truly believe that many members would at "elitist" US clubs would and will be amenable to play by golfers that they believe have good hearts/intentions/whatever.

[Patrick_Mucci]

George Pazin,

Don't unaccompanied guest rules, and professional privileges given to the head pro and manager accomplish that end ?

Brian Phillips,

True