Are Shelves and Plateau's a thing of the Past

[Donnie Beck]

It seems the majority of modern courses I have played have had pins cut on the sides of slopes. After three jacking numerous putts I started looking around for better pin locations and low and behold there were none to be had. With the speeds of modern greens why aren’t architects designing more classic greens with pin-able shelves or plateaus? I love bold greens as much as anyone, but I can’t stand putting a 6 footer on the side of a hill.

[JESII]

Donnie,

We have not met so don't take this the wrong way, but why would you ever want an area of a green to be flat? I'm obviously not aware of the course(s) you refer to but with green quality so good these days the dead flat plateau's offer no putting challenge at all.

I also question the premise that classic greens were constructed with flat shelves. I see you did not use the term flat, but you seem to imply it by your complaint about putting 6 footers on the side of hills. I can accept misinterpreting this shelves to mean flat areas, but wouldn't you agree that with soil drainage capabilities today and green quality standards today that a highly undulating greens and tougher pins make sense to provide and equal challenge once on the green?

[Kyle Harris]

Jim and Donnie,

When I think of shelves and plateaus, I think of areas on the green that are "geographically" seperate from the rest of the green, if you will.

A common "short" hole green features a large surface with several different areas and levels.

I see a biarritz green as three seperate shelves, each with their own internal contours, ie a "Horshoe/thumbprint."

[JESII]

No disagreement from me, but that still leaves plenty of opportunity to have a serious sidehill putt. That is what I thought strange about Donnie's post, he seemed to imply that pin positions should all be on 0% grade areas.

I'm betting his three putts cost a few bucks and he was pissed and looking   for someone to blame. No problem Donnie, they'll all go in next time just follow these fundamentals
1) low and slow  
2) follow through  
3) keep your head down until you hear the ball go in  

To all you gurus out there, what happens with #3 if you miss?

[JSlonis]

Sully,

Donnie is the Supt. at Fishers Island Club.  Check out the course review on this site...it's a truly spectacular place.

If I can decipher what Donnie is saying, I'd say:

I don't think he's calling for little to no slope within greens, but just commenting on the lack of the features he has mentioned in some of the modern courses he's played.

[Kyle Harris]

BTW, Jamie...

Nice shooting today. See you tomorrow at RG.

[Tom_Doak]

Donnie:  

I've had just the opposite reaction to modern architecture ... that everyone's greens were either dead flat or multi-tiered, because a lot of architects are building their "pinnable" areas with no more than 2% slope in them, and if you have a green which takes up any grade you have to deck it out to get under 2%.

This is why I've tried hard to design my greens without distinct tiers, and rely more on the sorts of tilts which you apparently despise.  Sorry!

[Patrick_Mucci]

Donnie,

I was thinking of a related topic just last night, the sectioning of a green into quadrants or shelves and plateaus.

I think they are a thing of the past.

A few people will cite an occassional green or course where they've been built, such as # 1, # 7 and # 9 at Friar's Head, but, in general, they are antiquated.

When's the last time you saw a new green like # 1 at Westhampton ?

The evidence that there're becoming things of the past is the existance of the trend to flatten existing greens that contain contours, plateaus and shelves.

OWNERS and Architects have forgotten that the interest and intrique in golf is largely centered in or around the green.

How creative can you get with a TEE ?

The trend to remove the character, the playing challenge from contoured greens as a result of increased speeds has diminished the desire to build new greens with shelves and plateaus.

And, because of this, purists, lovers of the game, will always love the NGLA's of the world, the courses designed by CBM, SR and CB.

[JSlonis]

BTW, Jamie...

Nice shooting today. See you tomorrow at RG.

Thanks.  Hopefully another good round tomorrow will get me to Merion.  Look forward to meeting you.

[George Pazin]

Just out of curiosity, would it be possible for people to define a little more clearly what it means for a green to have quadrants, versus different plateaus or shelves?

After reading Patrick's many posts on NGLA #6, it always sounded to me like it had the desired greens within greens, but through contour rather than tiers.

Of the whopping 50-100 courses I've played, I can say that I like contour and/or pitch a whole heckuva lot more than than tiers that are relatively flat but separated by mini slopes. But what do I know?

[Derek_Duncan]

I have the same response as Tom Doak -- I see more courses with tiers/plateaus dividing their putting surfaces than I do subjectively shaped putting surfaces. I would also think that creating non-linear/irregular putting surfaces that still work in tandem with the lies and angles of approach would be a much more demanding task than just sectioning off greens with two or three levels.

[JESII]

Jamie

I do know that Donnie is the super at Fishers Island but I assumed from his thread that he was referring to a group of other courses that are significantly 'younger' than Fishers.

I felt the theme of his post was that flat sections (separated any way you like) are becoming less popular and that that is a bad thing. I can't really make sense of Pat Mucci's stance on this even though he seems to be trying to agree with Donnie but everyong else seems to think slope is preferred to flat and that it would simply be a matter of intelligent hole locations to get the most out of the green.

Thoughts?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Derek Duncan,

Could you cite 10 golf courses that have these shelves and plateaus that you describe ?

[TEPaul]

The green designer I admire the most of any, Perry Maxwell, seemed to be able to design greens that had slope, contour and some shelves or tiers too. Maybe not all on the same green but some came close to that and without even being that big. And he somehow managed to do all that and never seem excessive on greens.

[TEPaul]

On the other hand Crump himself did some greens at PVGC that had some shelves that were too radical even in the teens and those greens had to be redesigned early.

[George_Bahto]

I think segmenting greens, even today, into a number of plateaus of one kind or another is, occasionally, one way to counteract what is happening to golf courses because of today’s technology - segmentation using different plateaus but separating these areas with more dramatic transitions, in essence making a larger green into two or three smaller targets.

Example: 3-shot par-5 (for us mere humans) that leaves the player with short-ish iron to the green but he must play to a small target and will have serious but very interesting putting problems if in the wrong “section” - this opposed to the big “sweeper” greens we are seeing being built so often today.

Obviously this calls for large greens.

[John Foley]

Some new (relatively new) plateau greens I've seen

Hunters Pointe near Niagara Falls CA - Grahm Cooke
Waverly Oaks &  Shaker Hills (w / great green on a par 5 6th hole w/ three tiers going higher as you go back) - Brian Silva
Bay Club Mattapoisett - Booth & Faxon (16th green is world class)
Shanendoah - Turnings Stone Cascino - Henderson
Arcadia Bluffs - Henderson

I wish more would build these. I'm reallly tired of flat boring greens.

[Tom_Doak]

Pat:  I have been trying to put out of my mind the modern greens  with multiple levels, but here are a few:

The TPC at Sawgrass (a lot of those pin placement areas are actually 0% flat)

Practically everything by Nicklaus in the 1980's (The Bear at Grand Traverse, Grand Cypress, Desert Highlands, etc.)

[Donnie Beck]

I just got back in after and evening of chasing fish. What I was referring to was it seems to me a lot of modern greens are being built with such sweeping slopes that there are not many realistic pin positions. I was playing with a partner who had about a 30 footer uphill and blew the putt past the hole by about 2 ft. The greens were so slick that the ball actually went by the cup and rolled back down the slope and fell into the hole. Another example... How about a 4 footer going down hill that is just touched and lips out and ends up 10 feet past the hole. I am not implying that I want greens dead flat, but I am just curious as to why people aren't creating more pinable areas with today’s green speeds. Two classic greens that have a ton of movement yet have numerous pinable locations would be #1 at NGLA and #1 at Yale. I could come up with many more examples, but both of those would be considered very bold greens in most eyes, yet both are very pinable.

[RJ_Daley]

Are we overlooking one of the original proponents of multi-tiered putting greens, seperated in tri-tiers or quadrants, requiting approach shots to be played to smallish 2000sqft sections on 8000sqft greens.  Robert Trent Jones Sr.?  Didn't he speak of this in his book?  I don't have the book handy, but I could swear he advocated for these multi-tiers early on.

[Derek_Duncan]

Pat--

What I see far more often in modern architecture is a proclivity to build greens with flattish pinnable areas. These putting surfaces may not have extreme variances between levels ala MacDonald's double plateau or whatnot, but they generally tend to feature level sections. Off the top of my head here are some courses in my area that primarily feature greens with flattish areas divided by one or more tiers, ridges, or plateaus:

Atlanta Athletic Club
Golf Club of Georgia
Just about every course on the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail
East Lake
Grand Cypress
Ross Bridge
The Farm
Great Waters
Cobblestone
Plantation at Sea Island

Clearly not every green on these courses features sections cut by a ridge or plateau, but that's the general style. I see far more of this type of green than the undefinable, random putting surface that Donnie Beck describes.

[TEPaul]

"Two classic greens that have a ton of movement yet have numerous pinable locations would be #1 at NGLA."

Donnie:

I'm not so sure that's true. I doubt NGLA's #1 does have numerous pin positions, at least they seem somewhat concerned about the functionality of some (not that I personally agree with that).

When I was last up there some time ago they decided to put the pin in the frontish left bowl (the NGLA Singles tourney). Obviously the newish maintenance department had never put it in there when they did that. They were also talking about recontouring the back of the green that includes that magnificent back left bowl. I was pretty surprised to hear they'd even consider such a thing. I guess most don't even realize the back of that green was built by former super Karl Olsen, and not Macdonald.  

[Doug Siebert]

JES,

With all due respect, I don't think flat areas on the green lack challenge.  A man (or 15 year old girl for that matter) who can make dead straight six footers all day are going to be able to beat a lot of players of otherwise better abilility who are unable to do so.  If you have such a putt, and KNOW it is flat, it can work on your mind (well, at least it can work on MY mind) making you feel like there is no way you should miss it, so that if you do, it is much worse than missing a slick little downhill right breaking putt of similar length where if you miss it you may be unhappy, but don't feel quite so much like there is no way in hell you should have missed it!

I have to disagree with those who say that shelves and plateaus should be a thing of the past, however.  If anything, they should be more in use today because for many reasons, true shotmaking is more and more of a lost art.  If you have a lot of holes these days where better players are approaching with a short iron or wedge, giving them 3 30' deep plateaus versus a 90' deep green of relatively continuous slope from front to back is going to produce a lot of discomfort.  A lot of good players today can't skip it up from the lower to upper tiers and thus having to get the distance just right to land and avoid spinning off the correct tier will make their "simple" wedge shot a lot more difficult than a similiar shot might have been for good players 50 years ago.

Now I'm certainly not as good as the "good" players I'm talking about here (plus handicaps to pros) but since I certainly can't play that shot either I can point out that I sometimes play some fairly odd strategies when faced with such a hole.  Sometimes I'll play a middle iron off the tee to be left with a longer shot into the green, sometimes I deliberately play into the rough to take the spin off my approach, sometimes I'll play a half shot with a less lofted club as if I was playing into a 40 mph headwind.  That's all because of a tiered green where I don't feel like (or know from experience) that I can't reliably hit an approach with the correct distance and proper spin to keep it on the correct tier and being on the wrong tier is a serious enough penalty that I'm inclined to do something out of the ordinary to avoid it.

If a green was, for instance, tiered from right to left obviously this wouldn't affect me the same way because while I might stil want to try to end up on the correct tier, I've got a lot fewer options in my bag to try to "force" hitting it the correct direction than I do trying to control the amount of spin/roll my ball takes after landing.

[Donnie Beck]

The Modern Sweeper

The Classic Tier


Which is more interesting to you? Which has better pin locations?

[TEPaul]

Donnie:

The top one is OK but the bottom one with the box (and the X for the pin location, I presume) seems a bit small and a bit square to me. But the bottom one seems pretty novel to me and it looks pretty hard to hit with an approach shot so I think I'll go with the bottom one as my preference.