[TEPaul]

"If the experience is amplified 500-1000 percent, what's an extra hour?"

Adam:

I didn't say the experience is amplified 500-1000%---I said the difference in playability is! That's not the same thing at all as the experience or the enjoyment factor at least not to me but perhaps it is to someone else.

Ed Baker:

That's interesting you had the same experiences I am now with your greens when you restored CR. We were lucky we expanded our greens back to their original sizes before not after we redid our grass to A-4 and upped our greenspeed.

I agree with you and all you said in your post, though, and I can't really figure out why my membership seems to like our greens a foot faster with this type of really exponential "playability". I think the truth is that my membership is probably just not that quick to react or respond. I think we'll be hearing from them very soon that what we're running now is just too fast for their enjoyment. Actually, it's pretty funnty because the most common feedback we're hearing from them recently is not that the greens are too fast but that this year we're using more difficult pins on them. We aren't doing anything of the kind--the pins are the same as always and from the old pin rotations we've always had----they just seem more difficult because the green speed is up one foot into that amazing zone or speed differential (10-11) that creates about a 500 to 1000% exponential increase in difficutly (from about 9-9.5) before dramatically going right over the top a little over 11!  

[TEPaul]

From A.G. Crockett"

"I'm about to recommend to my club that this differential is the "reasonable maximum" never to be exceeded but that we should strive to keep it here as often as possible and not go below it."
You lost me here.  What does this mean?  Also, what are you going to do with this information when you finish it?  (These may be the same questions).

A.G.

What do I mean when I said we should keep it there and strive as often as possible not to go below? That's a good question and even I'm sort of lost as to what that could've meant. You've got to understand that this guy TEPaul is sort of a freethinker--sort of a stream of concsiousness sort of guy and sometimes he may not know what even he means by some of the things he says.

But if you're asking me I guess I might say he's probably just looking for some consistency of speed during those times when maintenance and the course can actually get it.

But actually since I wrote that I talked to the superintendent about that and he said the really good news with this new A-4 grass is its so adaptable he can take the speed down or back up to that "reasonable maximum" any time and very quickly.

What am I going to do with this information? I'm taking it to my club, to my Green Committee and to my Board of Directors and I'm making a very strong recommendation that now that we've actually found our "reasonable maximum" green speed for our golf course we should put it into our Bylaws that it will NEVER BE EXCEEDED! The reason I'm doing that is because the club and course will never need to exceed it as we've now proven this speed differential (10-11) at our particular course with it's particular type of putting greens is all the fun, challenge and interest the club will ever need!

I'm telling them that the reason I'm suggesting this that what we all now know, or should, is that none of us is ever going to change or reinvent physics! That a golf ball does not really know or care wether it's rollout is across a putting green or a linoleum floor! And the stimpmeter and its reading doesn't know or care either!  

And if they accept that fact I'm telling them the ultimate reason I'm doing all this is so that when they agree to cap our green speed in our bylaws (at this stimpmeter differential) they will also agree to put into the bylaws that they will never in the future consider tampering with or altering the slopes and contours of our putting greens because they're a lot of the character of the course and we've proven this speed differential is where our greens really COME ALIVE but just past this "reasonable maximum" is where they go completely over the top in playability for everyone! And when and if that happens at most courses the very first thing clubs and people in them think to do is to soften and recontour their putting greens. I just don't want that to ever be a consideration in the future at my club and our course.

And if they accept all that I hope to take this process of finding what a particular course's "reasonable maximum" green speed is and also the process of putting that into the Bylaws with a resolution to never touch a course's slopes and contours ON THE ROAD!

[Dan_Lucas]

Since opening The Kingsley Club my goal has been to have it play the same way every day, from any Monday through the club championship. Mike DeVries and I started with the idea that the greens should play best at about 9.5 on the dreaded stimp. We didn't want to paralyze people with fear and with the contours on these greens, felt 9.5 would be perfect.

As we played and got experience with the golf course, we found at 10-10.5 the back-slopes and contours worked better, the ball came down off slopes to where it should and we didn't lose enough pin positions to worry about.

For a couple of years now I've had members asking if I was going to juice up the greens for the upcoming tournament. My reply was always that we wanted the course to play the same every day and it was a great test of golf that way.

It finally got to the point that enough people expressed a desire for "tournament speeds" that it was worth a try. I half expected that doing this would end the idea. So we double cut and rolled every day to keep them between 11 and twelve for the club championship. I asked every member when the tournament was complete what their thoughts were. I got one, "I don't know, it was awful tough out there." from a very good player, and everyone else was emphatically in favor of it.

We would only do it for the member/member and club championships. Everyone that plays in these is familiar with the course, and that makes a big difference here.

In retrospect, I will back off on the pin positions when doing this. We only have pin sheets for our major events, and I have to set up the entire tournament the day before play starts. On Thursday when I set it up, the greens were rolling 10.5, and the difference going to 11.5 was more than I was ready for. I had to make several adjustments each day moving pins a few feet, without changing the depth from the pin sheet yardages, so that you could stop a ball near the hole. I was amazed at the difference that 1 foot made.

I think backing off on the pins a little will also counteract the pace of play quite a bit, as the difficulty at those speeds is enough. Ther will still be tough pins, but there will be some easier ones also.

[TEPaul]

Dan:

Good post--very detailed and informative. We (GMGC) seem to have come to basically the same conclusion you have, except it seems the top end of our reasonable maximum green speed may be 6" to 1' below your course. I just can't see my greens ever needing to go over 11 for anything---any kind of tournament. The top limit I'm going to recommend to cap is going to be 11. Just out of interest what's your cut height at the top speed you run and what's your rolling program? What kind of grass do you have on your greens?

[Dan_Lucas]

TEPaul,

Frankly, I don't think anything over 11 is what we want either. I really expected to end the speed requests by doing what I did. Luckily everyone understood that this was too fast for everyday play. I could have really screwed myself here and started something bad for the club. Something to think about for other supers as they get pressured in the future, and part of the reason for some of the ridiculous green speeds being maintained out there at higher costs than most realize.

Our greens are mowed at .125" every day. This keeps us between 9.5 and 10.5. For the tourney we double cut and single rolled every day. With water and thatch management we can keep things pretty consistent. We have vibratory rollers that we use once a week after topdressing. The vibration shakes the sand down into the turf canopy so we can mow right behind without having to drag the sand in. We do not use rollers to create speed on a regular basis.

Our greens are a 50/50 blend of L-93/SR1119 (Providence 2). I had grown Penncross for many years and was real hesitant to go with any of the "new" bents, but it was the right thing to do. This combo has been tremendous for us and I am convinced there is no better grass out there. The Penn A/G series can complicate maintenance because they are way too dense to get granular fertilizer and even topdressing into. They form a fantastic putting surface, but L-93, SR1119 and Crenshaw (in the south) are much easier on the super and the budget and the surface can be every bit as good. The L-93/Crenshaw greens that Rusty has at Cuscowilla are another great example.

[Tom_Doak]

Tom:

This discussion has been in the context of existing courses.  I think it's fair to point out that we architects of new courses do not have the luxury of play-testing when we are actually building new greens.  That's why many architects "paint by numbers" when it comes to green contouring.

It would be nice to be able to just build good greens and then figure out the "reasonable maximum" when the course opens for play, but most clients and memberships have already decided what they want the number to be.

[BCrosby]

Tom Doak is exactly right.

The modern fixation with the thrills and spills of super fast greens is an impediment to good golf design.

Those of us that argue for more minimalist architecture, wider fairways, more playing options, better shot choices, less watering and all the rest, should also be tooting the horn for the containment of green speeds. Slower green speeds are necessarily part of that "Renaissance" (for lack of a better word) package. Normal green speeds are inextricably bound up with those other design goals.

Bob

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