Green Contouring - Survivor Series

[Patrick_Mucci]

I recently played Winged Foot and Hidden Creek and marveled at the beguiling nature of the putting surfaces, not strictly in terms of putting, but in the context of approach and recovery shots as well.

Hollywood and Mountain Ridge are other golf courses with wonderful contouring.

Internal contouring puts as much pressure on the approach and recovery shot aspects of the game as it does on putting.
Club selection and targeting become far more important when substantive internal contouring is present.

Then I thought of some clubs that softened their contours as green speeds increased over the years.

I wondered what it would take for any of these clubs to  consider returning internal contours to their putting surfaces.
How realistic of an idea is that concept ?

I also just read that Olympic will soften their 18th green, at the request of the USGA, and how contradictory that message is, compared with the above paragraph.

Will softening continue, or will speeds be limited ?

[Brian Phillips]

Patrick,

The thing that grabbed me when I walked (in a cart) Hidden Creek (C&C telling us to go there) was the tie ins around the greens and how much detail and work has been put into them.

The greens do not look contoured but they are and very, very well.  They are the sort of greens that only a member will apprieciate how good they are.  It is the sort of course that if I was a member and wanted to win a golf bet I would have the match at because there is so much hidden local knowledge on that course.

The internal contouring on those greens are tremendous and are definately a game within a game if you know what I mean.

It will probably become one of those hidden gems in america that never really gets the true recognition from raters that only get to play once or twice.  I don't think the members or Mr. Hansen will care though!!

The other reason to love Hidden Creek is that the Hansen family is of Norwegian heritage!!

Brian.

[Bill_McBride]

I really think what's missing from so many newer courses with really flattened greens is the opportunities to play shots that take advantage of bold contours to move the ball near the hole.  Sometimes there is no way to get close by playing to the hole, but you can figure out a way to do so by playing past the hole or way off to one side or the other.

Black Mesa is an example of a modern course with big contours where you could do this.  I remember deliberately playing a putt long on the 18th because the hole was cut in a swale with steep slopes front and behind the pin.  A putt played to die in front of the hole might stay on top and would probably go past the cup.  I took a chance and played the putt strong on purpose; it went up the rear slope and then trickled back down by the cup.  Fun stuff!  You seldom get those kind of opportunities on flat greens.

[Jim_Kennedy]

Pat,
If I had to make the choice I'd opt for saving the contours but decreasing the tilt, a compromise, but one that would be better than losing all that a well undulated green can provide.  

 

[Joel_Stewart]

I also just read that Olympic will soften their 18th green, at the request of the USGA, and how contradictory that message is, compared with the above paragraph.

Pat:
Olympic regraded the 18th green at the USGA's request a few years ago.  We recognized that the Payne Stewart problem was that the green was pitched at about 8 degrees and needed to be changed.  (Remember the hole is only 347 yards). At that time, out long time super basically ran his own show and did what ever he wanted.  We did not consult an architect and the work was done in house which IMHO tuned out to be a disaster.  

Now in 2004, the long time super has been shown the door, the members are unhappy with the new green and the green committee is preparing a long term master plan with the 18th green on the agenda to be recontoured once again.

The entire Feinstein/Fay quote about the 18th green at Olympic was either misquoted or fabricated by John Feinstein. We haven't figured it out.  Regardless, with the USGA Junior Am. at Olympic in 2 weeks, it will be an interesting test to observe not only the 18th green but how well does a 6800 yard course hold up to these long hitting boys.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Joel Stewart,

The account I read was in a letter from the manager of Olympic to Golfworld.  That's a pretty reliable source.

[TEPaul]

Pat:

You're thread here is closely related to Tom MacWood's thread on contours and reconstruction.

At speeds between probably 10-11 at PVGC some of those greens are simply amazing in what kind of shots you can hit using some of those greens slopes and contours.

In the last four days I saw some of the neatest playabilities imaginable in both putting and chipping on greens #2!, #3!!!!, #4, #6!!, #7, #8!!!, #10!!!, #13!!!!, #15!!, #16, #18!!

If those greens were not of that speed (and the firmness was just about ideal) hardly any of those exciting playabliites would have existed!! It's a combination that just adds so much to the fun and interest, challenge and gratificaton of playing greens like that! As a complete set the greens of PVGC are basically without peer, in my opinion, and that narrow band of greenspeed between probably 10-11 is what makes them truly come alive to the whole array of creative and imaginative shot making, chipping and putting!

I guess the only downside to this type of thing is in this heat those conditions (straight poa greens) do require almost non-stop syringing and not many clubs can get into that type of thing like that.

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

I suspect that those green conditions are event specific and unattainable throughout an entire season.

I've altered my views on event specific conditioning.

All too often it's extreme and excessive.

I think Winged Foot's and Hidden Creek's greens present more then enough challenge, sport and fun at normal member speeds, adjusted for weather conditions.

And to divert my own thread slightly, let's not view internal putting surface contours in the context of putting, but in the context of approach and recovery shots.

Flat greens at any speed don't present the challenge of substantively contoured greens in the 8-10 range.

[TEPaul]

Pat:

Perhaps it was somewhat event specific (I sure can find out) but not by much. However, I can tell you it was a real ball to play---definitely not over the top in any way and certainly not extreme or excessive! In that approximately one foot differential (10-11) with some firmness most of these old greens with their contour and slope come alive like you can't believe! It's fantastic---the "ideal maintenance meld" in fact!

Take those greens with that firmness to 12, though, and it really would be another world that can be extreme and excessive!

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

Each golf course has to evaluate their greens and green speeds in the context of reasonable play from a golfing and agronomic point of view, and then prepare them accordingly.

What works for one golf course won't work for others, and all too often someone comes back from playing in an event with suped up greens and immediately wants their home course to duplicate those speeds, those conditons, when It's not practical by any sense.

I don't think Pine Valley's greens are as contoured as they are sloped, and I think there's a huge distinction.
I'd say the same about GCGC's greens.
And, I think that you can probably bring those greens to higher speeds then you can with contoured greens like Winged Foot and Hidden Creek, without going over the top.

Winged Foot especially, because they combine slope with contour, would be almost impossible at 12.

Hidden Creek's greens are mostly contoured although a few have both contour and slope, but at 12, they too might be unmanageable for even the best players.

Getting in the right position on substantively contoured greens is a difficult task which puts pressure on the approach and recovery shots, followed by additional pressure should the approach or recovery fail to be in the proper position.
Then and only then does the burden default to the putting touch, but, the approach and/or recovery dictates the difficulty of the putts.

[TEPaul]

"I don't think Pine Valley's greens are as contoured as they are sloped, and I think there's a huge distinction."

Pat:

You're right about that--most of PVGC's greens are primarily sloped, not contoured. However, the two Maxwell greens, left #8 and #9 have a good deal of contour in them as does #1, #2, #4, #16.

I don't know that anyone has ever really talked about the distinctions in playability between slope and contour, but it is an interesting subject. NGLA may be one of the most interesting courses in it's combination of slope and contour, probably coming down more on the side of contour but maybe not. William Flynn is actually an architect who always seemed to do sort of a balance of slope and contour probably coming down slightly on the side of slope. Maxwell seemed to be one who concentrated more on contour (Maxwell Rolls).

I've never thought that much about it either but probably the most sophisticated greens in architecture tend a bit more towards slope and/or subtle slope than contour.

As far as what green speed works best, I think it really is a complete matter of the greens on any course and that's why an idea like Tom MacWood's on the other green thread about a "universal green speed" would never work, in my opinion.

"Getting in the right position on substantively contoured greens is a difficult task which puts pressure on the approach and recovery shots, followed by additional pressure should the approach or recovery fail to be in the proper position."

I couldn't agree more about this and that's why I think the idea of "greens within a green" idea as NGLA has a number of can be so highly strategic! In some ways though, with some relatively high green speed some of Ross's greens which have a good deal of back to front slope can be highly strategic----one basically never wants to get above pins on many Ross greens---and if they happen to be on the front or the low side---that makes for some very interesting strategy!

[BCrosby]

Great thread. I had never thought of dististinguishing types of greens as either contoured or sloped. There is a difference and, the more I think about it, the difference matters.

As Pat notes, the former puts more pressure on approaches and recoveries, the latter allows for more raw speed.

But what do you do with a course like ANGC where some greens are of the contoured type (5,6,13,14,18) and some are of the sloped type (most of the other greens)? They are very different green types all co-existing on the same course. You might think of them as MacK greens vs. Maxwell/RTJ greens all just trying to get along.  

But where do you set the green speed? I'm not sure I know.  You can get speeds on sloped greens pretty darn fast and still be playable. But the same speeds on contoured greens are crazy.

Maybe that's why people complain about greens speeds at ANGC so often. It's not that they are faster than anywhere else. It's because of the mix of green types at ANGC.

That also may be why most courses tend to have greens that are either contoured or sloped but rarely a combination of both.

Bob

[A_Clay_Man]

Another great reason to have the land dictate gravity, not the archie or shaper. Nothing's worse than on a virgin approach, to have the land contarily built-up, on a continuial basis.

Examples like @ Black Mesa are truely bold, and allow for the golfer, (and virgin) to feel the overall grade of the terrain, and play accordingly, by favoring the uphill side, often resulting in a premium play, even when blind.

Flatter, or contrary build-ups are only acceptable, from an interest generating perspective, in moderation, naturally.

 

[TEPaul]

Bob:

In my opinion, it doesn't matter whether the area of any green on the golf course that goes over the top first and you want to keep as reasoanble, functional and effecitve is a slope or a contour---whatever it is that's the area that determines the "reasonable maximum" speed for all the golf course's greens.

What you do is keep lowering the mowing height on the course's greens while watching the playability carefully on that spot that goes over the top first. At the mowing height that spot begins to get dicey in playability is the mowing height never to go below and the greenspeed the club will never again exceed! (our mowing height right now, by the way, is right around 1/10 of an inch!!).

We've been using this procedure to analyze carefully our "reasonable maximum" green speed for about a month now at GMGC. The process is interesting, the membership offers its feedback, you factor all this in and get to that point of a "reasonable maximum" speed. When we hit that point---and it looks to be between 10.25-11 at our course, I'm submitting a proposal that the club, in their by-laws resolve that speed will never be exceeded in the future and that green recontouring will never be an option! If they put that into the by-laws, I'll shoot all the grades (slope and contour) on all our greens!! If anyone in the future says they've changed somehow and need to be recontoured and softened all we need to do is go out and reshoot them to tell!!

The reaction to this entire process amongst the membership is very interesting. As we took our speeds up only 12-18" the membership thought we were using new and more difficult pin positions. We weren't, it just felt like it due to that seeming minimal increase in speed, which I'll say again can have an exponential effect on playability of perhaps 500% in that one foot differential of 10-11.

In my opinion that 10-11 foot range on the stimp is immensely significant in golf!! At 10 the speed is fun and pretty sporty but at 11 on greens with any kind of slope or contour it's sort of another world in playability. The reason is basically simple--at 10 the greens have just enough friction but at 11 there's very little friction and the effects of "ball creep" absolutely explodes and makes playability a whole different matter.

If you ask me no putting green in the world needs to exceed 11 on the stimp and some greens, or parts of them, can't quite reach that level without getting crazy.

An interesting note from our procedure and experiment was that Stan Zontek, our regional USGA agronomist, brought a few supers and agonomists from Europe over to GMGC during this experiment and they all played the course with our super. Those Europeans said there aren't any greens in Europe that run as fast as ours (they were close to 11). They also said our new A-4 surface was the truest and smoothest they'd ever seen!

All of them, including our super and Stan Zontek thought the speed was a little ridiculous in playability! But the amazing thing is very few of our members have really started to freak out yet. I think over time they probably will though, and then all we'll do is pull back on our speed some and set our "reasonable maximum" just a little slower!

The interesting thing (and perhaps frightening thing) is this new A-4 grass is virtually stress-free at these speeds or probably quite a bit higher compared to what preceeded it. The good news is up until recently it was thought that the new A and G strains HAD TO BE maintained at super speeds or they wouldn't do well. This has been proven not to be the case.

The other interesting thing about the new A strain (A-1 and A-4) is it just loves dry conditions so firming up the green surfaces too is so doable!!

[Willie_Dow]

Pat & Tom

Do you feel that all greens must have the same stimp on a course?  With various slopes and contouring among the 18 greens, why not vary speeds?

[TEPaul]

Willie:

I certainly do feel that all greens on a course should be cut to the same mowing height and have the same speed. Most don't realize this but not all greens are technically stimpable simply because a stimpmeter reading to be correct needs to be a two way roll on a flat green surface (no pitch, roll, contour or slope)! The stimpmeter was only created for one reason---to create a consistent speed throughout the greens of a golf course.

The effects of slope and contour on any course's greens and greenspeed has nothing at all to do with a stimpmeter.

If you stimped the back of the restored "kick-up" on GMGC's #13 green (original greenspace recently restored), for intance, it would probably stimp one way at about 60 feet and the other way at about 2 feet!!!

[W.H. Cosgrove]

Willie, I certainly believe that all greens should be prepared in nearly the same fashion.  

If nothing else, costs associated with differing mowing heights and maintenance schedules would be prohibitive.

I am adament and have stated on numerous threads that green speeds are out of control and are harming the game.  I find flat greens a crashing bore and love the greater slopes associated with older courses.  We just can't expect that they run at extreme speeds.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Willie,

Pat & Tom

Do you feel that all greens must have the same stimp on a course?  With various slopes and contouring among the 18 greens, why not vary speeds?

I agree with TEPaul on this.

But, more importantly, think about what you're suggesting.

Who would determine green speed for each green, think of the chaos created within a membership, and the demands on the superintendent.

Don't take this the wrong way, but, it's a radical if not absurd and insane idea.

If mower heights are identical, micro factors do provide for varying green speeds, however, you may not notice them.[/color]

TEPaul,

I thought about NGLA and the mixture of slope and contour, and the marvelous introduction one gets while playing the golf course.  Just look at the diversity in the first six putting surfaces.

# 1 wildly contoured
# 2 subtlely sloped
# 3 wildly countoured and subtlely sloped
# 4 substantively sloped
# 5 subtlely sloped
# 6 wildly contoured

I think that a reasonable balance in green speeds must be achieved when sloped and contoured greens exist side by side.

[Willie_Dow]

Pat

Then you feel the only option for controls on green speeds is to either reduce the stimp or change the green's slope or contour.

Tom

I thought you could get an average stimp meter reading by rolling the ball from each direction at 180 degrees.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Willie Dow,

I'd rather not deal in generalities, but, in principle, I'm against reducing slope or contouring, prefering that each course determine what works best for them with respect to speed.

As I said earlier, eliminating slope and/or contour reduces the challenge of the approach and recovery, and I'm against that, I think it diminishes the quality of play.

[TEPaul]

If anyone asked me I'd tell them that greenspeeds above 11 on the stimp are probably unnecessary on any greens anywhere in the world and on some of the highly sloped and contoured greens of the world that's probably too fast for acceptable playability for any level. 11 on the stimp just may be the magic number that should never be exceeded anywhere I also believe that many golfers think an actual 10 is about 12 or 13 and an actual 11 is even higher. I think they're simply misinformed.

I was out lookng at the speed on one of our greens the other day and one of our really good and knowledgeable asst supers said he thinks we ought to take a metal saw and cut about 6 inches off our stimpmeter itself without telling anyone. I thought that was an hilarious idea and pretty damn novel and clever!!!  

Personally, I'd love to see the USGA and its Green Section step up and just announce that anything over 11 on any greens anywhere is simply unnecessary. That includes their US Opens, as far as I'm concerned. If they want to ratchet up playable intensity and challenge at US Opens they should concentrate more on green surface firmness, not green speeds that exceed 11.

[Mark_F]

Patrick Mucci,

In response to your original question, is it the courses that hold major events, particularly the US Open, that are most at risk of 'dumbing down' their greens?

And if so, surely it is the 'lesser' US Open hosting courses, eg Olympic, that fall prey to this?  Has Shinnecock Hills or Oakmont ever altered their greens for this reason?

[Willie_Dow]

Pat

Perhaps W.H. and I agree!

He uses the wording "nearly".  Doesn't that throw in a different setting on the procedure for preparation?

Am I still "radically" inclined?  Without putting it in blue, which you just learned to do!

What if, for example, Shinni had not prepared #7 with two or three cuts the night before - then rolled, then two cuts on the morning after ----  did they do that on all greens?

Why is my thinking so out of place with you and Tom?

Willie