Pitch marks! A remarkable indicator

[TEPaul]

JohnV:

It's true, I do tend to come up with a lot of names for various things in golf, particularly in maintenance---such as the "ideal maintenance meld".

But if you check out Bob Crosby's reply #27 on the thread "Are angles of attack obsolete?" you'll see that Bobby Jones very specifically defined, probably in the 1920s, some of the necessary factors of my "ideal maintenance meld" for the older classic style of golf architecture. So I sure didn't invent any of this stuff---I just put some catchy name to some of this old stuff simply to better define it.

It's no secret that since Jones made those remarks quoted by Bob Crosby most all the world of golf course maintenance got into new and modern maintenance practices centering around over-irrigation and such. Apparently that was to create a world of golf courses that were emerald green and really pretty to look at in the minds of most of the world's golfers. The thing that seems to have been forgotten in that app. 50 year span (post WW2) is the ground game and how differently various courses were designed in the early days compared to the "modern age of architecture (far more aerially intended desgins). It's no secret that many of the modern age courses are primarily aerially designed unlike the older style courses.

Basically maintenance practices following WW2 eventually became one dimensional (over irrigation) and the phrase to describe the "ideal" condition of ALL courses, regardless of their type or style was the phrase "good condition". Basically all that phrase meant was emerald green (soft) and immculate (manicured).

All I did was use the term "ideal maintenance meld" for the primary purpose of getting away from that one dimensional description "good condition and to make the necessary distinction that various types and styles of golf architecture can and should be maintained in different ways to highlight the distinct differences in their design intents (primarily aerial vs aerial and ground game oriented).

[Doug Siebert]

Where's the consistency of results by using "a couple strong players with PW" versus the Paulometer?  That's like suggesting there is no need for a stimpmeter because you can just have some good players putt a few balls around and tell you "slow", "medium", "fast", "scary", or "crazy"

I know the suggestion was somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but it really isn't a bad idea to develop something to test a green's surface for firmness.  It would be nice to get clubs competing on something other than stimpmeter readings, and competition in that would carry over into less overwatered greens.  Or at least those who overwater would enter into the "lowest possible Paulometer number" section of the competition, and we would all know to avoid those courses that are well known to attempt to maintain Paulometer readings below 2!

It would also be a way to separate the contenders from the pretenders in terms of how hard the greens and fairways are.  It used to be pretty difficult to tell what someone meant by "fast greens" without a common point of reference.  If someone says that Merion's greens are noticeably quicker than NGLA's, it doesn't mean much to someone who has played neither course.  But now our friends in Australia and the UK pretty much know if we talk about an 8 or an 11 what we mean.  But if someone in the sun baked areas of Texas and someone in the sun baked areas of Australia talk about firm greens, hard greens or teeboxes impossible to get your tee into, today they can't know who has it worse (or better) without some way to measure it.