No. 2's Greens Not as Ross Intended?

[Matthew Schulte]

According to Pete Dye, in an inverview for the August edition of GOLF Magazine with Peter Kessler, Ross told Dye that he wanted to cut off the crowns prior to his passing.

Kessler: How were the Greens in those days?
Dye:  "They were rough Bermuda grass, so they kept top-dressing them to make them smoother.  That's how the greens became crowned.  OVer the years all that sand-based top dressing built up the middle of the greens.  Everybody thinks Mr. Ross intended to crown the greens, but he didn't.  Many times he told me he was going to cut the crowns off.  But he died before he could do it.  And the world has been copying the crowns he would have cut off had he lived."

The other story I have heard related to when Nicklaus was hired to "restore" the greens but forgot to factor in the 18" of sand and gravel required below the greens to meet USGA specs.

Whatever the truth is, and whomever is responsibe, the 2nd green in its present state is a work of art.

Other than Pinehurst and Pine Needles what other Ross courses feature turtle back greens?  

[Mike Erdmann]

I've heard that argument before.  If that's why #2 has crowned greens, then surely there must be other examples where top-dressing greens has resulted in the same thing.  Anybody know of an example, if that's the case?  If not, what makes the top-dressing process at #2 different from every other green out there?

[Brad Klein]

They did pile on the sand at Pinehurst and compounded the problem when they rebuilt the greens in the 1980s. I document the resulting "birthday cake effect" on the greens, including before/after photos, in my book, "Discovering Donald Ross." There's more truth than fiction in the account of the greens having been raised.

[T_MacWood]

The greens were built in 1935, Ross died in the 1948, perhaps he didn't care for the greens near the end of his life, but I can't imagine that effect was the result of 12 or 13 years of top dressing.

[TEPaul]

If all the grades of #2's greens were intricately shot before the Nicklaus USGA spec rebuild (as they were by Ed O'Connor) and then the USGA spec layering ended up higher than the preceding green surfaces, how would the sides of the greens tie in to the green surrounds (think pie and pie plate!)? They wouldn't. The solution to this mistake was to take machinery and to grade around the sides of #2's greens to make them tie into the original surrounds. What would that end up doing to the basic shapes of the greens?

Think about it!

[T_MacWood]

TE
If the Connor story is true and they have the precise measurements, why not take out the 18 inches the next time they rebuild the greens? I imagine the greens have been rebuilt at least once since the early 80's, if not more than once.

I'm certainly no expert -- what would be the rational for going to the USGA-spec green construction method and away from the method employed by Ross in the sandhills of NC? It seeems ironic to me that they would have not calcualted for the sand layer when the entire town of Pinehust (and #2) rests upon a mountain of sand.

[Tony_Chapman]

Dye also said that Ross would put the first tee back in the parking lot today. I thought that was pretty funny.

[BCrosby]

An explanation for the mounding at P2 might begin with the fact that the original Bermuda greens on SE courses were very, very bumpy. For that reason, lots of courses (even first tier courses) preferred sand greens to the Bermuda until the mid-30's.

Tifton 57 was the first hybrid generally thought to be "fine"  enough to use on greens in the SE. My guess is that Tifton 57 was what was originally installed at P2.

But however much Tifton 57 was an improvement over earlier hybrids, it was still pretty coarse. Especially when compared with the bents in use in the NE. (I've seen patches of it. It is so coarse you'd be reluctant to use it in fairways in modern courses. I can't imagine it ever stimping at more than  5.)

So it would make sense that Ross and the people at Pinehurst went nuts trying to figure out ways to get their green surfaces to putt more smoothly in the '30's and '40's.

A consequence might have been that they were over-zealous in top dressing greens at P2 from '35 through '50. Just a theory.

Bob

[John_Conley]

Matt:

You may not be aware, but Brad's book is probably the best place to go for more.  I immediately thought of him when I saw the title to your thread, but I see he already chimed in.

[Jerry Kluger]

Are the turtle back greens the principal reason why the course has held up in the face of modern technology.  Is it not ironic that something which was never intended by Ross, and which he probably wanted to correct, is the reason why the course has passed the test of time.  It seems that some of today's designers are recognizing that the greens are the place to deal with technology such as what it appears that Fazio has done at Mirasol where the pros had some tough times with the greens and the surrounding features.  

[A.G._Crockett]

I read this same thing somewhere else, and spoke with the super at my club about it.  He was very skeptical; his fear is that the edges of the greens might build up as topdressing sand washes down and collects against the fringe over the years if the job isn't done properly.  That made sense to me; in order for the topdressing scenario to account for the crowning at #2, at some point we'd have to be seeing sand defy gravity, wouldn't we?

Additionally, why #2 and not courses of the era in the same region?

[Brian_Gracely]

Why do people think that the crowned greens don't exist anywhere else?  Go up the road to Midpines.  Or come to Raleigh CC.  They aren't as severe, but they definitely have similar characteristics.

[Patrick_Mucci]

I played the golf course in the early 60's and the greens were crowned or umbrella like then, so I doubt that their umbrella shape was created in the 80's.

It seemed evident that there was a strategic purpose to the shape of the greens, especially the effect of umbrella like configurations on the flight, bounce, and roll of the ball.

[A.G._Crockett]

In addition to a strategic element to elevated greens, I would assume that the demands of drainage in the days before USGA greens would have led to at least some degree of crowning.  

Brian, I agree that elevation is to be seen at any number of other places.  If fact, if you go to old courses (with or without a pedigree) in small towns all over the South, this feature is commonplace, especially off the back side of the green.  I've got to think that is has to do with clay soil bases and drainage.

[Ed_Baker]

Salem CC has a number of crowned greens as well, I think this is definitely a Ross feature that is not just indigenous to his southern courses.

[Tim Liddy]

Does this mean the shroud of turin is also a fake?

[A_Clay_Man]

I didn't know Ross worked in France.

How about settleing? Isn't it just as likely the greens did some settleing prior to any build-up?

The 13th at Spy has been reported to have settled into most of the large contours.

[JWL]

There is obviously a lot of speculation on this board about the reconstruction of #2's greens in the 80's.  I read where Nicklaus is being criticized for not planning for 18" USGA specs of greens mix.
Well let me assure all of you, including BK and TEPaul that the greens were put back to EXACTLY the same elevation they were before the greens were cored.  Ed Conner lasered and recorded every grade in one foot square grids prior to any soil removal.   It was put back EXACTLY to those grid points, with a few exceptions.  There were some minor areas that had settled and didn't surface drain and these minor areas were modified.  In addition to Ed Connors work, I personally went around the course with the two oldest and most experienced caddies at Pinehurst.  I went to each green prior to sodding with each caddy separately and just asked for their feel of the green.   They were very beneficial, as they both identified the same areas that didn't "feel" quite the same.  We rechecked and modified those areas to their satisfaction.
We also had the benefit of some old course plans from the Pinehurst archives that we referred to to try to determine where the greens had encroached and pin locations were lost.  These were minor, but I do remember the back left pin location on Hole #3 being recovered.
I don't know to what extent the greens had "crowned' over the years prior to 1988 when this work was done, but I have extremely confident that the greens were put back to exactly the grades they were before we arrived to core the greens.
It was not a restoration of the greens, but just a coring and change of turf.  We also oversaw the leveling of several tees and installation of considerable drainage throughout the fairways.   This project was lead by the head greens superintendent, Brad Kocher.
I was in charge of the project for the Nicklaus organization while building the Pinehurst National course.   Nothing was mis-calculated regardless of what you may have read or heard.

[Patrick_Mucci]

JWL,

Thanks for info from the Horse's mouth.

A question for you and other superintendents.

Wouldn't top dressing over the years tend to flatten greens rather then build up crowns ?

Rain, irrigation, wind, mowing combined with gravity would seem to redistribute top dressing to lower, rather then higher elevations, provided that Sir Isaac Newton knew what he was talking about.

[John Nixon]

Wow, this court certainly believes in keeping hearsay out of the room....

According to Pete Dye, a man who I certainly have no reason to suspect of fabricating stories or quotes, the Man himself said that the greens were not as he intended them to be, and he meant to correct that situation. Some in this thread seem to want to dispute that story. If Pete sez it happened that way, it's good enuf for me.  

[TEPaul]

JWL:

I've never even seen Pinehurst #2, so personally I know nothing about those greens from before or after the USGA spec rebuild in 1988. That story about the miscalculation on USGA spec layering and the solution of grading the edges down to tie into the existing surrounds has been told to me a couple of times by Stephen Kay, New York based architect who worked with Pete Dye. I think the story had something to do with Bill Newcomb who also worked with Dye (or maybe Stephen Kay was on to another story about Bill Newcomb). He was pretty detailed in his account of #2s greens and he certainly did say that O'Connor lasered all the grades very intricately. It seems to me from what Kay was saying one can certainly get the grades on most of the surfaces accurate in relation to each other (O'Connor's laser theodolite method) to what it was before the redo but if more height went into the redo than was taken out you'd get a situation where the sides of the greens wouldn't tie in very well with the surrounds.

He said one solution was obviously to do the greens again (taking out the excess height) but they decided to simple grade the outside edges of the greens down to the surrounds. If they did that I could certianly see why balls might shed off the sides of those greens more than they once did.

As for the greens becoming "domed" or "crowned" from constant topdressing---I've still never heard anyone explain how that could be. Why would all the topdressing build up on the middle of the greens? That doesn't make a lot of logical sense to me unless they happened to be dumping a lot more topdressing on basically the middle of those greens for years!

As for Pete Dye mentioning that Ross told him many times he wanted to take the crowns off those greens that does seem odd. Pete Dye was a pretty good player from Indiana. My Dad knew Pete and Alice pretty well since the time Pete and Alice went to Rollins College. Pete and Alice were both in the insurance business after that--Pete being very successful in that profession--a member of the so-called "Million Dollar Club".

Pete didn't even get into the golf architecture business until the early 1960s so I'm not sure what he was doing hanging around Donald Ross who died in 1948!

Tom MacWood:

As to why they don't or didn't take those crowns off the greens of Pinehurst #2---why would they? Does it really matter how those crowns got there or when or by whom if the course is popular and respected with those crowned greens?

But again, as to whether those greens are more crowned or raised in some way or whatever now than they were when Ross was still alive all I can say is when you compare relatively recent photos of them to photos of them when Ross was still alive they certainly seem to be more raised now than they were then. Is anyone denying that or are they only wondering exactly how they got that way?

[JWL]

TEP
I am not even sure that we are both talking about the same time that Pinehurst worked on their greens.  I was involved in 1988, I think, and Ed Connor was definitely involved with Brad Kocher.   It seems to me that work was also done back around 1980 that I really don't know anything about.  Perhaps Stephen Kay could be referring to that time span.
I do know that in 1988 the greens were only cored and the outside grassing was undisturbed, so the tie-ins that you refer to were not changed.   I really have no understanding of what Pete was speaking about concerning Ross's desires.   I didn't know Pete knew Ross personally.  I also didn't know that Stephen Kay worked for Pete.  I know he did work for Newcomb, but I am not sure how that is pertinent to this conversation.  I really feel like I am missing something in this entire discussion, but I do know what happened in 1988, and the greens were not raised above what they were prior to the coring exercise.  Cheers!

[Jeff_Brauer]

With Jim Lipe here telling it like it was, I hate even to chime in.  But I have heard Pete Dye tell that story, too, so here are a few details as I recall them.

Pete says there was a period in Pinehurst where they (Tufts or his super in the late 1940's) really poured on the sand topdressing.  For what reason, I don't recall.  Further, they dragged it in in circles, wearing down the outsides proportionally more than the middle, resulting in the crown.  Perhaps the "outside" use of drag mats occurred because horses were still pulling them and they didn't want hoof prints on the green, but I don't really know.

Alice went to Rollins College and played competitively there, and Pete, if I recall, spent his WWII military service maintaining an AFB golf course and playing with the brass.  So, they hung around Pinehurst a lot in those days, and he met Donald Ross there near the end of his life.  

He was obviously interested in architecture then, even if only from a competitive amateur perspective.  He always said it was his favorite course.

[JWL]

Hi Jeff
I hope my posts on this subject are not being construed to be in opposition to what Pete has said about the evolution of #2's greens.  What you said makes perfect sense to me.
I was only trying to point out that that had to have occurred prior to the coring procedure that was done in the late 80's.
The tie-ins were made to the edges as they existed at that time without any shaving or modification due to a miscalculation in the mix that was applied.  That statement is what got me in this conversation to begin with.   Prior to that, I am unaware of what transpired on the greens, but yours and Pete's explanation, in light of Ross' apparent desire for the greens, is most likely what transpired.   Cheers!

[T_MacWood]

TE
It looks like I got my answer from JWL as to why the mistaken 18 inches was never removed... it never happened. There are numerous legends floating about and one of the many benefits of GCA is putting some of them to rest.