Run-away greens - Where'd they run-away to ?

[Matthew Mollica]

Many of the Aussie members of CGA will know that the green on Kingston Heath's 17th slopes away from the golfer.

It is also a blind approach on a long par 4, which makes it even tougher. The green site is devoid of bunkers, but has great subtle undulations.

This may not be "fair" (gee I hate that term), but surely this feature can be used at least once on a course, especially at a course such as Kingston Heath, where most play involves people intimately familiar with the course - (small, regularly playing membership, or championships).

It's a great question Pat, with the ground game, or "non-dart board golf" being more and more desirable. This is one strong feature which would seem to encourage such play...

Matthew

[SL_Solow]

Tom Doak in his Anatomy noted that fall away greens are one of the few remaining defenses against the length of current players assuch greens, when properly maintained, are not as vulnerable to approach shots from short irons.   I agree with those who suggest that their lack of popularity is attributable to the desire to eliminate blindness and increase fairness.  In my own experience at Briarwood in Deerfield Illinois, our 9th hole is a long (445 from back tees) par 4 with an original Colt & Allison fall away green which incidentally contains a fine stand of Washington Bent, a wonderful grass no longer in use.  For years as greens chairman I withstood , along with our Greenskeeper, complaints about the "unfair" green and requests that it be remodelled.  Finally, when the course was  the subject of a 'sympathetic renovation' by Mark Mungeam (for an unbiased review consult Shivas or Evan Fleischer) the green was restored to its original size leaving the front to back fall away slope.  Detractors remain but most have been educated.  We remain vigilant.

[Tom Doak]

Patrick,

Most of us are taught that surface water should drain off greens in more than one direction, so I seldom build a green where EVERYTHING goes to the back, but I've done a lot of greens where a good portion of the green drains to the back, partly because I'm a big fan of Garden City.

But I concur with Ken B. that they also just aren't very popular.

Beechtree alone has several front-to-back greens -- the third, fifth, sixth, tenth, fifteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth greens all take 30-70% of the drainage off the back.  Of those, only the tenth and fifteenth ever make anyone's list of favorite holes on the course.

On the other hand, Pacific Dunes has no greens which really slope away.  All of those green sites are tied into dune features behind them, and it would be pretty difficult to make a slope toward the dune at the back look natural.

I think it's more about the visibility than the playability.  For interesting playability, I still think reverse slopes are an important element -- but not many golfers really like them at Oakmont, either.

[Jeff_Brauer]

If you think its a new phenomenon, check out the golden age writers.  Tillie wrote about steeper greens for pitch shots, and flatter ones for long iron approaches.  With standardized clubs and swings now, we would probably reverse that, although not always.  Now, its "how much spin do I need" not how much run do I need.

Most of the old architects did slope most greens up at the back to help hold shots, so they were playing to a broader audience, even then.

Many of our remodels are because "we can't hold the greens"  I am sure other architects are the same.  I have studied it on a few courses, and I think you need at least a 1.3% upslope to stop shots, if that is your goal.

[Michael Dugger]

Jeff B.

Goodness gracious me.  Are we really designing so that players can hold the greens?  Isn't that a problem with their game, not your greens?  

[TEPaul]

I know we've had this front to back green question on Golfclubatlas before but I don't see that one of the really good ones has been mentioned on this thread--PVGC's #12. Believe it or not the green didn't just happen that way, George Crump very much wanted that on that hole and at first he wasn't getting what he wanted so obviously work on #12 was redone and he got what is now there--one really great front to back green. But actually that one is even better due to it's sideways angle to a shorter drive which makes it a little right to left and a little front to back--not to mention shallow vs wide depending on the length of the tee shot.

[Matthew Mollica]

Tom - another great one - the 3rd at Royal Melbourne West, had escaped attention prior to this time.

A mid-short par four, with the last 80 or so yards running downhill slightly, and the green continuing the gradient, and obviously, very hard to hold.

One can make the task a little more simple, by playing the tee shot to the right, as much as possible. Take the direct line to the flag, and one finds that the shot is played to the green as it slopes away at it's steepest.

Tight bunkering left and right, with a swale to collect short approaches, at the right.

A beauty. How did we forget it....

Matthew

[TEPaul]

Other types of green surfaces that slope AWAY from the golfer are greens that, for instance, have a side to side ridge in them where the front portion of the green may slope from back to front but the rear portion will slope from front to back. A very good example of this is the very short little par 4 #12 at Old York Road in Ambler Pa (never before mentioned on here).

Another interesting front to back sloping design feature I like more and more would be the result of continuous sand splash (evolutionary build-up) just over large fronting bunkers, generally on short holes. The best examples would be Merion's #8 and #13! These two holes, it can be seen from old photographs, have had the fronts of their greens (just over the fronting bunkers) raise sometime 2-3-4 feet!

I think there's some poetic justice to this as it basically stays in balance for interesting playability as the aerial game becomes more and more prevalent and sophisticated.

These are definitely a type of hole where the ground game option does not exist! But if you look at the history of these holes, the ground game option was never intended to exist on these approaches. That's why fronting bunkers covering the entire fronts of these greens were designed that way and why these types of holes were almost always the short to very short ones. Their overall purpose was obviously to create variety in design on a golf course, and to occassionally test a particular type of shot as the only type of shot that was functional.

For an interesting historical note, Merion's #8 green was originally designed as a front to back fallaway green surface but it was changed by Wilson and Flynn before Wilson died in 1925. Now it's very much a small back to front sloping green  with that previously mentioned front to back (kicker) just over the high fronting bunker!