Doug Feeney,
Thanks for reminding me.
When I played Belmont, one of the first things I noticed, other then the wonderful green sites on the old course, was the velvet.
Ed Baker,
Years ago, Preakness Hills CC was all velvet, and with Suburban golf club, had the finest putting surfaces in the entire state, IMO. But, sadly, like your course, only patches remain today.
Over the last 50 years I don't think I've seen many putting surfaces read and putt truer than that old velvet.
It was fantastic.
Maybe that's why I'm such a bad putter today.
BRING BACK THE VELVET.
But, here are my questions to the superintendents out there.
If more and more herbicides and pesticides are banned, would that be more or less conducive to reintroducing velvet ?
50 years ago, traffic on greens was much lower and greens tended to be small to medium sized. Does velvet hold up well to increased traffic ?