Laser leveling vs Classical Architecture

[ian]

When "any" of you select the section of the tee that you will tee off from, are any of you looking for a noticeable slope... or are you like the rest of us just looking for a nice flat lie? Flat tees spread wear, the size of them is to spread wear, the number of tees is to spread wear.

Laser the tees for god's sake! Laser has been in use for all 15 years I have worked in this business for a reason. People can not see grade as well as they think they can.

For what its worth, I go 1% one forward or back and 1% to the right or left side. I always grade in the direction of the natural slope. So downhill tees grade forward. Why? Everything drains better and looks more natural......and I lazer everything.

[Mike_Young]

Brad,
Funny you should mention lawsuits and laser leveling.
I had a certified builder from GCBAA bid a municipal job I designed.  I had written a spec for laser leveled tees.  It basically said to laser level all tees at specific percentages.   The builder set up a laser on a tripod and used it to shoot elevations on the tees.  He claimed that this was laser leveling and got by with it.  I think the builders Assoc has been in the midst of writing a recommended specification for lasering tees.
You now need to psecify that the tee be graded to the specified percetnages of slope with a laser guided blade otherwise you can be taken.
Mike

[Forrest Richardson]

I would guess that any and all architects working in the era many here consider "the perfect, most exact time of all golf design" would have died for perfectly level teeing grounds.

[Mike_Young]

There is no reason you cannot laser level a slight crown in a tee box.  The laser is basically giving you a flat plane.  The slope or slopes you wish to create can be manipulated by the operator.   Some still place the tee surface plane at high right front , low back left with a laser.

[Forrest Richardson]

The teeing ground is the point at which the course and its architect unleash the golfer to decide his own fate. It is the starting line in the 200m sprint, the foul line in bowling, the platform from which the diver springs. To suggest a crowned teeing ground be always different or groosly imperfect is not in keeping with this simple beginning point of common likeness: The teeing ground is a relatively flat portion of which each hole begins. While none can be honestly exact, they should follow the train of design which has them generally level. The laser level is not necessarily better, but it is enjoyed by those who today build courses. Strings and old-fashioned string levels work well, too.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Redanman,

Perfect grass, perfect sand, perfectly level lies, even on tees - overkill. Nohing more unappetizing on a golf course than homogeneity of grass color.

Try agronomically managing five different strains of grass and see what it does to your budget and your playing conditions.
Your romantic notion of catering to and cultivating imperfection is absurd in the real world of golf.[/color]

Perfect green, hard-edged different colors of green, various homogenous shades.  It is one thing that makes some of the Ross restorations I have seen such as a couple in Chicago, one in Netown Square, Montain Ridge near one of your homes less attractive than they could be.

I don't think you understand the problems associated with maintaining different strains of grass in the fairways and greens[/color]

And Patrick, read better.  I did not say no x-rays to diagnose; not a "no " to gamma knife tratments and by theway close to straight is good enough much more than you think.

I have a finger that I broke playing football.
It points, at a 20 degree angle toward magnetic North.
Straight, the way nature intended it, is better then crooked.[/color]

I said lasers in search of Orthopedic application.  They are  historically not helpful far more times in ORS than not, very harmful at time (AVN of the Medial Tibial plateau post arthroscopy is one area well documented and probably goooooogle-ble. Its Orthopedic use is more expensive, slower).

How can you reason that because one particular laser application doesn't produce perfect or great results that it should be abandoned as a tool for all other procedures.[/color]

New and technological is not necessarily better. Infra-red positioning for femoral and tibial cuts in TKRA is really cool, but too expensive, too operator dependent, too blade-toggle dependent and yields statistically insignificant result variation to win wide acceptance. It also has a cascade effect from any location errors which lead to a potentially perfect set of mistakes.

It could be, but it also could be that they'll perfect the technique and dramatically lower the cost in the coming years.  Should we abandon technology because it's not perfect at the time of discovery or invention ?[/color]

You would think form reading the ads and seeing the wonderful colour brochures for mini-incision hip replacements  from the institutions populated  by patients who pay cash for their medical care and private rooms (Such as $15, 000 surgeon fees for their hips arthorplasties while medicare pays $1200) that any surgeon not performing every arthroplasty through a 3" incision is a hack who should be tortured and sent back to the 20th century in prison.

That's convoluted and flawed logic[/color]

Your take-it-and-run with it approach neglected to read my entire short post, so I thought i'd amplify sans colour in this case.

You are out of your know-it-all realm here and iwon't try to explain it to you, rather I'll leave you with another expression for applcation from our armamentarium

"Better is the enemy of good", and it is very true.

I've seen people who have had cataract surgery, surgery for detached retinas, beating heart minimally invasive by-pass surgery and a host of other surgeries not possible just a few years ago, thanks to developing technology.  And.... I'd rather have a surgical procedure today, then the procedure available 10-20-40-60 years ago.[/color]

The read I get from the archies is that the laser levelling is useful for time-saving.  That I can accept, but I kinda like the slightly crowned tee box, personally.

What makes you think a slightly crowned tee can't be created by laser guided devices ?   And, if it's time saving, it's saves labor and money, and provides a quality product.  Does that help in the bidding process ?

Why on earth wouldn't you use it ?[/color]

Also, I am, however fully in favor of laser-levelling the oils and photographs as the hired help locates the new Mike Miller painting and Robert Maplethorpe photos in the study,on the wall "perfectly" - courtesy of Bob Villa and Sears.  That is certainly cost effective and time saving.

That's an equally absurd analogy, but you knew that[/color]

[Patrick_Mucci]

Redanman,

I think you're the one who is incapable of understanding.

Lasers aren't better because they're lasers, they're better because they produce a better product more efficiently.

When you played Boca Rio didn't you notice the five markedly different strains of grass on the 4th and 5th fairways ?

Grasses with different colors, different leaf blades, different heights, different growth rates, different competitive qualities, different agronomic needs, etc., etc. ?  
Is that your ideal fairway condition ?

A contractor was supposed to deliver and grow in one grass, 419 Bermuda, but missed the mark and five grasses, none of them 419 Bermuda, were introduced.

Why do you think that States have certification programs for grass ?

[Forrest Richardson]

As I commented: There is no real question that the intent of architects past and present is to have fairly level teeing grounds — regardless of how they get that way.

Two thoughts:

1. Compaction and maintaining levelness is probably a more fitting topic, as the damning force against levelness is settling. Getting tees level at the onset is accomplished many ways and with many tools — old and new. The route taken is of no great consequence to anyone but the builder / shaper.

2. The idea to have crowned tees or less-than-level tees for the sake of matching some ancient condition is absurd. I find it comical, too. The notion is as fake as wood-grain Formica, although not nearly as practical.

[Mike_Trenham]

What if you are not going to rebuild every tee on the property?  My thought is simply that the tees should look similar to the others on the course.

My fear is oversized perfectly level tees that do not look appropriate on a classic course.  Yes we probably need larger tees on par 3's from where the men typically play than originally built, but other than those tees they don't need to be too big.  We put in two sets of massive forward tees at my club a few years ago and most of the players that use these tees hardly swing hard enough to take much of a divot or use an iron for the distance.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Mike Trenham,

Size and/or oversize has nothing to do with laser leveling.

The size of your tees should be determined by utilization patterns, and is a totally seperate issue.

Whether your club wants to do 3 tees, 7 tees or all 18 sets, lasering makes sense.  At least bid the work.

As a seperate issue, I see clubs undertake projects in house, often diverting resources from the day to day maintainance issues.  And, often, these projects are paid for FROM the usual maintainance budget rather then from a special capital projects budget, further stressing the maintainance staff.  Dedicating the funds from capital improvement budgets and outsourcing the work can be very beneficial to the superintedent and staff.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Redanman,

Better players can handle inconsistent grasses better, better players are identified by handling inconsistency.
Do you think that better players constitute the bulk of the membership at all clubs, OR are they in the great minority ?[/color]

Regarding the levelling, lasers are fine, but they are an affectation - my club has more money and more technology than yours.

Boca Rio versus Lehigh ?[/color]

 I have no objection whatsoever to the use of lasers, but when golf is made more expensive, it leaves people out. MOney matters to more than it does not.  Golf is supposed to be more inclusive.

Then it may surprise you to learn that lasers are less expensive.  Now what ?[/color]

Transits, levels, chalk lines, stereotactic intra-craninial surgery/radiation location and whatever else you want to lump in the mix

Cerainly laser transits and picture-hanging are more accurate, anyone who looks at the products in use can understand.

Pictures "stay put" on the wall except in Los Angeles and Tokyo.

A tee on a golf course is not going to stay put.  It evolves.

You're wrong, tees on a golf course DO stay put.
The footpads don't disappear or distort, unless they were  built improperly.[/color]

IF the laser is quicker and doesn't add significant cost, fine.

That's what we've been saying, haven't you been listening ?
[/color]
I recently played a holy grail sort of course with a gentleman of some reputation and considerable means who is of the national senior amateur calibre and his course was bandying about laser-levelling of their tees.  He has played all over the world.  He, on his own without any influence from me expressed disdain for such affectation which he felt was also inconsistent with the history of the club. (Obviously this description with one or two exceptions depicts PJM,Jr., obviously it wasn't).  Why bother, he said, it's been OK for years and it's not going to stay that way.

I can't comment on his course because I don't know all of the facts, but, perhaps he doesn't know all of the facts about laser leveling.  Some great players know nothing about construction techniques, agronomy or architecture.  At least that's what many on this site have been preaching for years.

So you cite some unnamed source ?  Third party hearsay,
Inadmissable supporting evidence.[/color]

A levelling technique of any kind isn't used on some rank munis and it really is OK and it's cheap for their application.  There are gradations of precision from there in the execution of construction (Patrick, I do know more than "enough to be dangerous" about the construction business)  of the tees. Lasers are indeed fine, I just commented that they were among other things overkill. (After all C & C are now moving onto randomness  beyond strategy so isn't laser levelling counter productive?  Shouldn't we be moving the tees into the rough and then the heather? (I digress with my hyperbole yet again....)

Laser-levelling is just fine, but it is just another piece in the armamentarium of yet another 19th hole pissing match? Tees do not remain as built for very long.  You can probably prove it mathematically, but that's beyond my mathematical program writing ability.

Tees do remain as built for VERY, VERY long periods of time.
Perhaps you're confusing mowing patterns with construction stability.[/color]

Play computer golf if you want "perfect" conditions.  "The quest for "perfect conditions" is as much if not more negative than positive.  We now have big flat fast, fast, fast greens. HO-hum.  

Are architects laser leveling greens to specific pitches?  Is it far off?  The technology and the programming ability is there to create it, it won't be that hard, if it's not already being done.

You're rambling.
Hoping to find an argument to fit your position.
We're talking about tees, not greens.[/color]

And again - perfect is the ultimate enemy of good.

Perfect could also be the ultimate enhancer of good.[/color]

[Craig Sweet]

This thread has quickly evolved into a discussion of tools rather than desired outcome.

The original tees on your course where of a certain size, set at a certain angle to the fairway, either elevated or not.

If you want "historically accurate" tees then make historically accurate tees, and use whatever tool you want.

The laser is nothing but a tool for guiding the hand of man. Someone, someone less than perfect, will be operating a machine and a rake and the result will be something less than perfect.