Golf's agronomics---the $64,000 question

[TEPaul]

What if the likes of Ross, Mackenzie and Flynn could come back today and see the state of golf's agronomy compared to what they knew?

Would they;

1/ Be so impressed they'd practically faint and say to themselves--"We can't believe golf's agronomics has actually reached this state of perfection".

Or, would they say;

2/ "This is way too clean, too perfect, and just too damn much!"

The reason I ask is it just may be worthwhile to look back through the evolution of golf's agronomy in the entire last century to see where it once was, how it evolved and where we are today. Is it legitimate to wonder if perhaps an entire industry that may concentrate on agronomic remediation has been built up around golf thereby massively adding to expense and perhaps continuously defining the parameters of "fairness" within the playability of golf?

There seem to be some who are looking back at this century long agronomic (and related subjects) issue---eg Hurzdan and Mel Lucas.

Has golf's agronomy come too far, too close to perfection? And where is it going from here?

[mikes1160]

TEPaul,

I hear the hackles raising on the backs of 18,000 superintendents

Seriously, what is the problem here? You (the elite golfers of America) wanted faster greens, greens that wouldn't wither in the heat, no hard-panned fairways, beautiful striping on fairways and greens, courses free (or relatively free) of insects and disease. You saw the Masters on tv and wondered aloud why your course could never look that green. Latshaw striped the fairways at Congressional during the U.S. Open and suddenly every greens committee starting banging on their supts. to do the same during their member-guest.

All agronomy (and superintendents) has done over time is to respond to and meet the demands of golfers and architects. What is the cost of hand-raking a thousand bunkers (i.e. Whistling Straits) vs. using a mechanical bunker rake on the average course?

Besides, was Ross really enamored of his sand greens at Pinehurst?

[Jeff_Brauer]

TePaul,

Good question.  I am fairly certain that most of them (well, at least from the writings of Ross) would be somewhere in between.  They recognized the need to improve playing conditions, certainly.  However, what exists now is so superior, its not hard to imagine that they would say we've gone overboard, simply because its beyond their wildest dreams.

Ross endorsed the formation of the GCSAA in a letter, which was presumably to allow sharing of ideas and practices.  And the USGA started their Green Section in that era - nowhere do I recall their charters saying anything like "We'll give this progress 10 years and then just stop....."

My prediction on where maintenance will go is that the primary play surfaces - tees, greens, and fairway landing zones - will continue to improve, based on golfer demands.  Roughs and outer areas will be let go as water and cost pressures mount, and thus we will have a hybrid of new age and golden age maintenance. If that occurs, it should sure increase strategy, as the difference in missing a fairway or green will be greater than it is now.  Also, it may be a way to keep tournament scores in check - unpredictable lies off primary areas are hard to practice for.

I also predict that the trend(s) will be variable.  In places like Minnesota, where there is plenty of water, there will be restrictions, to be sure, (government needs something to do!) but not so much as Arizona.  Thus, I sense more of a return to regional differences in golf courses, also similar to the Golden Age, where playing a Florida course was really different than playing a NE course, etc.

All of these could be good things, IMHO.

[TEPaul]

"Seriously, what is the problem here?"

Did I say there was a problem? I thought I said it was simply and interesting question to consider. Generally there're two or more sides to every question! What if the sides to this question were a triangle, a sqaure, a rectangle, a pentagon or even an octagon?

"Golf and its architecture (and agronomies) is a great big thing and there really is room in it for everyone." It's the "Big World" theory of golf agronomics.

It seems to me one of the more dangerous philosophies in all of golf is that "one size should fit all". There are certainly enough people and golfers in this world who feel that American agronomic perfection in golf may be a somewhat dangerous thing if taken too far and wide around the world. And perhaps what we need over here is a good deal more of what others do elsewhere---and there's no real reason to assume that can't also mean agronomically.

[TEPaul]

Jeff Brauer:

You make good points and for some very interesting reasons. Another reason to consider this question is there are numerous real architectural purists on this website who occasionally propose a return or restoration to architecture of a day gone by. Are they also considering the state and level of agronomics that went along with that old architecture and those old courses in days gone by?

Personally, I believe many of those purists have no real idea what the agronomies of those old courses way back when looked like and played like. Some of them may look at it in old photos and such but they surely never played it! In other words, do they really know the extent of what they may be asking for? I doubt it.

This is all sort of part and parcel to a very thoughtful remark Jim Finegan once made to me;

"The old courses and their architecture were wonderful, and it's prudent to restore or preserve them well, but we can't forget the some of the advances in the ensuing years (agronomics included) and with real thought it's probably possible to make them even better than they were at their best way back when."

[Jeff_Brauer]

TePaul,

I look at old photos, and can't help but think I wouldn't want to play those courses over their modern, improved maintenance versions.  And, Ross also wrote about trying to be fair to the golfers, etc. and I can't help but think that to a point, improved maintenance improves strategies, as well.  

We debate on this site if getting in a perfectly maintained bunker reduces penalty so much as to negate strategy.  However, if you fired a shot within 5 feet of the pin, but the greens are so bumpy that making the putt is a 50% proposition at best, does that reveal the true strategy of a hole?

[TEPaul]

Jeff Brauer said;

"My prediction on where maintenance will go is that the primary play surfaces - tees, greens, and fairway landing zones - will continue to improve, based on golfer demands.  Roughs and outer areas will be let go as water and cost pressures mount, and thus we will have a hybrid of new age and golden age maintenance. If that occurs, it should sure increase strategy, as the difference in missing a fairway or green will be greater than it is now."

Jeff:

That's also very thoughtful and interesting and it brings into question one of Max Behr's most enduring philosophies and permises. In a nutshell, he felt the distinctions between where to go (where to hit the ball or NOT) in a strategic sense had already become too stark and too defined, and Behr wrote these things back in the 1920s.

He felt that golf's architecture and also its agronomies had already become so defined that where to hit it or not had almost become moralistic---eg fairway=good/moral, hazards, bunkers, rough etc= bad or evil! That all this was too much of the "game mind" of Man always too ready to define everything along moralistic lines of good or bad or perfection or damnation!

And that this was not exactly the way of Nature where the lines and definitions between these things where inherently blurred and for good purpose in golf---including good and even deceptive strategic purposes. Basically Behr's feeling was the ways of Nature should never lose its part in the equations of golf (and it's architecture).

Perhaps Behr was just all wrong. Or perhaps he was right or somewhat so. I think we can certainly agree, though, that generally speaking in golf's agronomics today his premise and philosophy has been so "passed by" as to be almost beyond recognition!

[TEPaul]

"TePaul,
I look at old photos, and can't help but think I wouldn't want to play those courses over their modern, improved maintenance versions.  And, Ross also wrote about trying to be fair to the golfers, etc. and I can't help but think that to a point, improved maintenance improves strategies, as well."

Jeff:

On this point, at least to the point of strategies, I couldn't agree with you more! Perhaps, one answer to consider would be to blurr (agronomically), somehow, the distinctions alone the so-called boundaries of where to go or not to go. C&C apparently experimented with this in Austin. It seems a most interesting concept and just might satisfy better the on-going debate between "fair" and "unfair" in golf!

In a certain sense the way Troon was recently may have been a good answer. It didn't seem all that bad to miss some of those fairway, just don't miss them too much--but if you missed them just a little or even by a whole lot one was never all that sure whether one might get really lucky or really unlucky!

[T_MacWood]

I thought the comments of Hamilton were interesting when he compared the condition of Troon to a municipal course in America. Is the game more enjoyable in America as we get closer and closer to 'perfect' conditions? I know its more expensive...more enjoyable, I'm not so sure.

It seems to me the British game has preserved the role of luck,  of suspense--the bad bounce, the potential for a good lie in the rough, less than pool table like putting conditions.

[TEPaul]

Tom MacW:

I hope you notice the parallels in this question between the basic subject of your interesting series of articles on the dynamics of the perfections of "classic" architecture (building architecture) and the desires and implications of the "Arts and Crafts" Movement!

For anyone who hasn't seen them it's well worth reading Tom MacWood's five part essay on the "Arts and Crafts" Movement found within the "In My Opinion" section of this website.

[Jeff_Brauer]

TePaul,

I'm trying to get a handle on good ole Max's thoughts with Sunday morning coffee in hand.  And, speaking of moral issues, doing it while consciously deciding to let the kids sleep in and - GASP - skip church......

As to blurring the distinctions of where to play....hmmm

Certainly, on approach shots, the green is always the place to be, complicated only by, perhaps, a deep hazard on one side and a benevolant bail out on the other, rather than the good shot/bad shot of bunker left, bunker right, which might induce a play off the green sllightly to the safe side....

As to tee shots, my first impression is that you could only return to the fuzzy definition by returning to the original concepts of many holes - 60 yard wide turf swaths, not splilt into rough and fairway, with trees or native grasses beyond - ie no perfectly defined fairway.  Of course, under my prediction for future maintenance, the golf world would actually go more towards target golf with limited defined "good areas" like already exist in desert courses with 90 acres of turf.

Going back to the wide, undefined landing areas would require, at most courses, a reduction in turf quality, mowing tightness, watering, etc, that I don't at the moment see golfers giving up......

Perhaps you can envision a different scenario?

[Michael_Stachowicz]

Isn't it funny to think that agronomics evolved in a way that helps negate advances in equipment technology.  How would the golden age architect's designs change with the advancements in agronomics if equipment stayed the same?  For example thick irrigated rough has counteracted deeply grooved irons, fast, hard greens have couteracted the the aerial game (and excessive spin), and the aerial game off the tee has removed many ground features from play that were once important (fairway turfed mounds meant to penalize and reward).  I would submit that this game would be brutal due to the advancements in agronomics if we were still playing the gutta percha with hickory shafts.

[Don_Mahaffey]

When I read the essays in Geoff's Book "Masters of the Links" I come across many places where the authors express the desire for golf courses to be "natural". Off the top of my head, I believe it was Robert Hunter's "The Ideal Golf Course" where while describing his dream course he writes that there should be no definition between tee, fwy or green. Obviously he was influenced by TOC, but his desired course conditions are echoed throughout this collection of essays.
Most US courses strive for definition and uniformity, not very natural characteristics. I would guess that the old guys would be impressed with modern agronomy, but would suggest course conditions be dialed back a bit, especially the desire for uniformity in color and texture.

[Mark_Fine]

In talking to William Flynn's daugther one day, she told me that "Chinchbugs" were his "enemy".  She would find him laying in the grass, looking feverishly for the critters.  Something tells me that if Flynn could have found a way to eliminate "the enemy" as well as other diseases, pests,... that caused the grass on his golf courses to be less then perfect, he would have done it.  

If Ross or Flynn came back, it would not be so much the perfect condition they would have been concerned about, it might have been the expense to get it there.  

Let's not forget, MOST courses are by no means in perfect condition - not even close.
Mark

[RJ_Daley]

I think the discussion is moving more towards what the old master golf course architects would favor.  I mean, Brauer's sense of it is probably correct that the active and prolific GCAs would welcome the new advancements in agronomics because it would give them more lattitude in design ideas.  But, once they recognized that soil conditioning, irrigation precision, mowing efficiency, and pest managment had reached a certain level that started to make everyone's expectations drift towards an Augusta Syndrom, then they would have declared that those agronomic advances had gone too far.  These old archies, just like our modern ones had to be business men first.  Except for the ultra extravagant GCAs that operate in a different zone (one where cost is no object) where they are expected to come up with 50million dollar and higher show piece budgets; the rest have to live in a more cost conscious world where construction and maintanence budget projections matter.

Therefore, I think old age archies would say it is time to turn the agronomic research and future advances not to how lush and perfect we can make turf management.  Instead, they would be encouraging how survivable and on an economic conservation based model that we can make courses in all kinds of conditions.  They would say we know how to grow grass on a cue ball, but at too high of a cost to build and maintain, with too much input.  What can we discover to grow survivable and less nutrient, water demanding turf and provide decent playing conditions to again allow them to show off their design talents without so many "other" extravagant and costly turf growing inputs.  For example, wouldn't you archies out there rather not be confined to 90 acres of total turf in desert areas, if more space could be designated for design of turfed areas, if new less water demanding or more poor water quality paspulums for example became a cost efficient option?

Which way should agronomy research go, genetics or chemicals?

[TEPaul]

Michael Stachowicz:

What you essentially seem to be saying is modern and advanced agronomics can or has served as a sop or a foil to be used to cover up, minimize or mute the deleterious effects of technologically advanced golf equipment on both the game and on existing architecture.

Of course this is probably true to some extent. It's probably just what can happen as two parallel areas and industries (golf equipment and golf agronomics) continue to evolve and grown. I doubt it was ever some grand master plan or even conspiracy on the part of something like a manufacture/golf regulatory organization (the regulators of B&I) cabal!

[TEPaul]

"If Ross or Flynn came back, it would not be so much the perfect condition they would have been concerned about, it might have been the expense to get it there.  
Let's not forget, MOST courses are by no means in perfect condition - not even close.
Mark"

Mark:

I hope you can see that's sort of what I'm trying to get to here with various answers to this question. Many of these men, those old architects, particularly Flynn was not only interested in improving golf's agronomies but he, like most of them, were also efficiency experts or certainly very much concerned with economic efficiencies in agronomics. One cannot help but notice that the entire purpose of the work of Piper & Oakley and the Wilsons and Flynn and the rest culminating in the institution of the USGA Green Section was as much about economic efficiencies in agronomics as it was about the quality of agronomics for the playabilities of golf.

The whole idea about more naturalism in golf architecture was a parallel concern and desire amongst some of those early architects--and apparently a very strong one. Those, such as Hunter and Behr and a few others wrote about that time, in the future, when they hoped golf architects could take the art of golf architecture to new heights in quality combined with naturalism--heights beyond anything they'd been able to acheive. They felt that new technologies, those in equipment, research and science might take architecture there.

What were they really thinking? In agronomics the advancements (long after them) took the art of golf architecture to new heights in consistency, immaculateness, increased and improved definitions of playing areas etc. Is that increased "naturalism" in golf? Anything but! That's frankly the opposite of "Nature's way" and naturalism!

So what were they thinking? How were they really imagining things could or should advance in the way of "naturalism" in golf? Just look at that extraordinary series of hole by hole photos of CPC shortly after opening with Mackenzie playing each hole. Why would they have wanted an acceptable level of agronomics and a level of naturalism to get any better or more advanced than that? I think that might have been the absolute pinnacle of it all---far more complete than today for a natural match of good agronomics and naturalism in architecture that could have and would have satisfied any golfer of any era! How can anyone really tell where Mackenzie’s architectural fingerprints started and stopped in those photos? I'd love to play on that course, in those photos taken around 1929 or 1930, its agronomics and all. Who wouldn't?

What were these men thinking with their dreams for the future they might never live to see? Were they dreaming the "Impossible Dream" and didn't realize it? Was it perhaps that they did not realize, for some odd reason, that they had already taken both golf architecture and agronomics and naturalism too as far as they all ever needed to go?

Things clearly continued to advance in both golf architecture and certainly in the quality, consistency and immaculateness of agronomics---and it seems clear both those parallel areas advanced and continued down some paths that those early architects did not foresee and certainly may never have wished for. What happened to the advanced naturalism they were dreaming the future was going to provide which they couldn’t acheive in their own time? It didn’t happen---it went the other way, in fact!

If someone today built courses that looked like those extraordinary photos (1930) in GeoffShac's book on CPC what in the world could anyone today, or in any other future time want more than that? Perhaps, all those dreamers like Mackenzie, Hunter and Behr should’ve just stood on the highest point of CPC back in 1930 and screamed----”Here it is, this is as good as it’s ever going to get in all those things we’ve been dreaming of achieving!”

Damn dreamers--they should’ve woken up and understood where they were and that it wasn’t necessary to go any farther than that!

[Patrick_Mucci]

Tom MacWood,

Weather, soil conditions and location have a lot to do with how a golf course is maintained.  

The golf courses in the UK that we see have some advantages.

[Joe Hancock]

Perhaps we could determine where we really fall in this whole "naturalness" scheme of things. Do you think it is:

a) the $64,000 question

b) the $640,000 question

or

c) (Gasp!) the $ 6.4 million dollar question?

Today, it is not unusual to see maintenance budgets of $640,000 for an 18 hole course. There are some much higher....hopefully none in the GASP! category.

Joe

[TEPaul]

Tom MacWood:

Did Hamilton really compare the conditions of Troon to those of municipal courses in America? I think perhaps Todd may need to rethink that remark in its all and all. If that were true I'd be resigning from my golf club tomorrow and playing little more than municipal golf here-on-out!

[TEPaul]

Joe:

The $64,000 question is just an old cliche derived from the game show of the 1960s for a tough question. I thought about adjusting it for inflation but thought---what the hell.

Labor costs on maintenance bugets are really a huge difference today and they keep climbing fast. We take part in a wonderful Immigrations Dept program that brings Mexican laborers up here seasonally. They're the best---really terrific and dedicated workers!

I sometimes wonder where all the $5.00 a day labor went in our country. Obviously living standards here are too high for that now and all those who should be working for $5.00 a day are hanging out on the street corners of North Philadelphia selling crack or trying to figure out another clever way of scamming one of our entitlement programs!  

[Joe Hancock]

Obviously living standards here are too high for that now and all those who should be working for $5.00 a day are hanging out on the street corners of North Philadelphia selling crack!  

Tom,

There's only one way a peron would know that!.......

Joe

[TEPaul]

Joe:

You'll notice I added to that thought so as not to appear to discriminate against anyone in particular!  

[TEPaul]

Joe:

Futhermore, I'll have you know I've never even seen crack or cocaine other than one time about 20 years ago when some crumb bum I was playing backgammon against in some high class bar tried to pay me in cocaine and ended up spilling the crap all over the felt on my board. I should've taken the ounce or whatever it was out of his hyde. That was as high as I ever saw my vacuum cleaner! I turned it off, unplugged it, whatever, but the damn thing wouldn't stop running for about two straight days!

[Joe Hancock]

Tom,

Honestly, I wasn't accusing you of anything.....just making satrical remarks on your satire.  

Back to the question.....how many people have you ever played golf with that finished a round with the comment " That course was in too good of condition!"?

Joe