Greens and surrounds...synergy

[RJ_Daley]

Greens and surrounds go together like peas and carrots, horse and carriage.  You can have the greens fringe 18inches-2 feet then 2-3 inch blue grass rough like a lot of tour courses.  You can have them close cropped way out into areas of hollows and bunkers, well away from putting surface.  You can have them close cut firm run-ups, and back cut higher grass to stop run throughs from going too far.  You can do the greens mow height right into bunkers that encroach into the  the bowels of greens, like we see in Australian classics.

We should see the wider close cut into the hollows at Pinehurst this year as in 1999.  

I love Wild Horse more than Sand Hills because of the greens and surrounds synergy.  They are mostly wide fescue surrounds close cut for putts and chips well off the green, whatever you choose.  Bunkers surrounding greens have the green side mowed low for trickle ins.  There are some greens that have native grasses not very far off the greens fringe.  But, the overall maintenance meld of the presentation of greens related to wide, low mowed surrounds is what makes me love Wild Horse more than any other.

What do you like?

[Tom_Doak]

RJ:  The best surrounding contours of any greens in the world are on The Old Course at St. Andrews.  They come in a greater variety of shapes and sizes than anything you have ever seen ... possibly greater than everything you have seen put together.  Some of them are so funky that they can't mow them perfectly, and there will be a bit of long grass in a little hollow which makes you think twice about taking out the putter!

[RJ_Daley]

Tom, I'd have to believe that your firm must approach the specification of grassing and maintenance practices for greens surrounds that you design as being site specific considering varied terrain, soils, climate, etc.  Could you speak of design examples your firm has done for different courses that had widely different specifications for the greens surrounds, and why you chose the turf species, suggested mowing practices, and placement of greens proximity bunkers and thier shapes in context to the sites.

Then there is the other question of restoration or remodelling a course and re-specifying how the surrounds ought to be maintained.  I wish I could show a number of our GCA.com enthusiasts the work collaboration your firm's Hepner and Superintendent Schaller of North Shore CC in Menasha WI., has done in that regard.  I really think it is the finest work I have seen to date.  There, I believe they converted the style of blue grass rough up against a traditional narrow fringe-collar cut to low mowed surrounds leading to very interesting little collection hollows and brought surrounds contouring directly into the equation of approach shots, making for a vastly superior approach strategy and potentiality for diverse approach results, with more choices of how to play any shots from those surrounds.  Now, care is taken on how much water is applied to keep the bounce in the surrounds, and even though the low cut surrounds are bent, with proper maintenance to keep them firm, they function very well to extend the influence of contouring well beyond the immediate putting surface.

I think that the North Shore project ought to be very widely studied by greens committees and superintendents to see how such remodelling and re-ordering of maintenance practices can bring sparkle to an aging course. It is brilliant.  And, this doesn't even address the artistry of actual bunker restoration.  

I dont want to sound like a Renaissance sychophant.  But, this work is above and beyond at North Shore.

[Ed_Baker]

Great topic RJ,

I think this is one of the elements of "maintenence meld" that really enhances the architectural features of every golf course.

I have been "fighting" the uniformity or homogeneous cutting paradigm for a long time. What TD said about the old course is really the essence of this concept, basically each green complex has it's own unique features and varying the cuts to produce the most interesting golf is the most common sensical approach.

But... imagine leaving a cutting "holiday" here in the states, the superintendents phone would light up like a lightning storm and members would be telling him to fly mow the damn thing, the Augusta syndrome again.

[RJ_Daley]

Ed, I suspect that with staff, commitment to try new things, and a super that is wise enough to take advantage of nuances of the surrounds he has to work with, a varied maintenance approach to how greens surrounds are maintained, would add a great deal of interest and revive a whole lot of older courses.  

I mean that perhaps one green can have the tourlike collars of 2ft backed up by a high blue grass rough, yet by virtue of terrain and location, another can have some interesting low mowed hollows and might be better maintained firm.  Perhaps the theme of the surrounds maintenance meld needs NOT to be 100% consistent throughout the one course inorder to have a series of diverse challenges and thrilling golf provided to the player.  

[Matthew Schulte]

Do you all feel that the severity of the contours in the surrounds should be:
A:  very similar to the severity of the contours found on the greens.
B:  slightly to somewhat more severe than the contours found on the green.
C:  the two shouldn't necessarily have much to do with one another.

Having recently played Royal County Down for the first time I was struck by how relatively flat most (#13 being a notable exception) of the greens are by contrast to how interesting the green surrounds are.  This relative flatness seemed even more unusual when compared against the scale of the surrounding dunes and the tremendous character found in the contours of the fairways.  To my untrained eye this seemed incongruous.  

[RJ_Daley]

Not to be an equivocator, but I'd say both A and B are desirable.  the only thing I think they should not be is C.  They have to have a lot to do with each other.

Being tied into the surrounds is a good thing for green contours, I believe.  Being surrounded with variety of contouring more than greens is a good thing too.  Variety being contoured extensively, to subtlely contoured to flatish, varying from hole to hole is fine.  But, contours that fight the nature of a good game, like highly contoured surronds to consistently flat greens is not too interesting, and more like amphitheater, TPC site golf.

[Tom_Doak]

RJ:  Having never seen North Shore, now I'd like to.  I had no idea Bruce and Brian were good enough to merit mention in comparison to the Old Course!

Matt:  I think you can go with any of those combinations you want.  At Pacific Dunes, I knew Mike Keiser was not a big fan of heavy contours within the greens, so we made them smaller than normal and used the more severe contours at the edges of the greens ... you can still putt over them, but now it's not considered a three-putt.

I wouldn't want to do FLAT greens with severe contours at the edges because it would be hard to make that look natural, as RJ says.  But I've seen a lot of those in the past twenty years!

[RJ_Daley]

Tom, also I apologise to Brian of your firm since he too was at North Shore working hard.  I am surprised you haven't been there.  I think if I were you, I'd have that work front and center on any promotional material I would distribute for the firm.  Of course, if you aren't looking to do much more remodelling or restoration, maybe it needn't be documented and promoted.  

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