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Jason Topp

  • Karma: +0/-0
Frozen Greens
« on: November 28, 2005, 02:44:19 PM »
Quenching the desire for one last round in the midwest this year, I played a round on a course on a beautiful 45 degree day that followed a cold snap.  As a result, the greens were frozen.

After watching my first approach bounce 40 yards over the green, I found the challenge on a rather mediocre course to be really entertaining.  Unless into the wind, drives rolled an extra 30 yards.  Landing your ball in the correct spot on approach shots spelled the difference between a good result and doom.  It was like a turbocharged links course.

Doesn't this kill the greens?  Does the type of green construction change the impact of allowing people to do this?  This course apparently is open whenever not covered by snow and the greens seemed fine.

A_Clay_Man

Re:Frozen Greens
« Reply #1 on: November 28, 2005, 03:18:29 PM »
Jason- SInce most of the courses get over watered during the heat of the summer months. I really look forward to Winter golf, for many of the reasons you touch on.

What happens is;  even the most subtle of features becomes a viable potential tool. This can best be described as "coming alive"  as it relates to a firmer canvas. Even in the summer.


JESII

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:Frozen Greens
« Reply #2 on: November 28, 2005, 03:18:51 PM »
Played yesterday outside of Philadelphia and about half the green were frozen, that's a real challenge. Which ones are frozen, and which parts of the greens are frozen. It becomes especially difficult on the second and third chips to each green. ;D

Troy Alderson

Re:Frozen Greens
« Reply #3 on: November 28, 2005, 03:23:35 PM »
The problem is not the ice in the soil freezing the green, but the transition between frozen and not.  This is when the greens become half frozen and traffic on the greens has the potential to severe the roots and cause die back.  That is what I have experienced in the PNW.

Troy Alderosn

JESII

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:Frozen Greens
« Reply #4 on: November 28, 2005, 03:26:56 PM »
Troy,

We hear the same from our superintendent in the NE.

Any idea what the risks are then of playing on a day that might thaw some of the greens? It seems to be the riskiest type of day. We literally had about half the green frozen and half not, and a couple (because of shade) were partially frozen.

Jim Adkisson

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:Frozen Greens
« Reply #5 on: November 28, 2005, 03:29:34 PM »
While outside getting some lunch in our first cold spell of the year, I was looking forward to "tundra golf" this next weekend...We have one fun track in the area that is playable only when there is a drought or a freeze and the marsh-like conditions turn into tundra...playing the bounces off the pool table-like aprons and greens is great fun.  Just be sure to knock off the collected ice from the soft spikes before walking on the greens!

Flog On!

Kyle Harris

Re:Frozen Greens
« Reply #6 on: November 28, 2005, 03:29:45 PM »
Played yesterday outside of Philadelphia and about half the green were frozen, that's a real challenge. Which ones are frozen, and which parts of the greens are frozen. It becomes especially difficult on the second and third chips to each green. ;D

Jim,

Your post implies that there are places to play indoors in Philly. I know of the range in Oreland! But a whole golf course!?

 ;D ;)

JESII

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:Frozen Greens
« Reply #7 on: November 28, 2005, 03:32:53 PM »
Fair weather golfer, huh?

Wait 'til you have a couple kids. :)

Jason Topp

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:Frozen Greens
« Reply #8 on: November 28, 2005, 04:06:06 PM »
Mark - I also found it to be great fun.  Interestingly for me, my score was a little better than usual - seven over par, but I made four birdies and an eagle.  No need to talk about the other holes.  

Usually, I'm pretty happy if I get one birdie in a round and two is a rare day.

I was fortunate in that the greens stayed frozen.  I've played the same course when they were soup, which provides another set of challenges that I do not like as much.

Michael Wharton-Palmer

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:Frozen Greens
« Reply #9 on: November 28, 2005, 04:26:29 PM »
All of this talk about frozen greens and temperatures in the teens, I almost fell glad that I am sidelined after shoulder surgery...you bravehearts in the north are way more manly than this here transplanted Englishman ;)

Jason Topp

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:Frozen Greens
« Reply #10 on: November 28, 2005, 04:38:06 PM »
Micheal:

It seems a lot less brave when compared to the alternative of a third consecutive day in a house with about 20 relatives.  I spent most of the weekend being called "Stinky Uncle Jason" and then engaging in a mass wrestling match with six kids and three dogs.  My son is getting stronger and it is only with vetern guile that I still can dominate while not injuring the four-year-olds in the middle of the melee.

Kirk Gill

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:Frozen Greens
« Reply #11 on: November 28, 2005, 04:40:33 PM »
There's a local course here that drags a bit of chain-link fencing around after snowstorms to ensure that their course is the only one open. I've played it on New Year's Day in the past, and my friends and I would pretend we were putting at Augusta, as the rock-hard greens would challenge any stimpmeter to register an appropriate number. The course would provide little styrofoam cups to use as tees, since, the ground would be too hard to receive the real thing. This course, of no real interest at any other time, would suddenly be transformed into a serious test. Instead of sandy "waste areas," there are drifts of snow. We would travel beyond the realm of firm and fast, to hard and icy.
"After all, we're not communists."
                             -Don Barzini

Tony_Muldoon

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:Frozen Greens
« Reply #12 on: November 28, 2005, 04:49:23 PM »
The problem is not the ice in the soil freezing the green, but the transition between frozen and not.  This is when the greens become half frozen and traffic on the greens has the potential to severe the roots and cause die back.  That is what I have experienced in the PNW.


Wellcome Troy.  

Round London the pay and play courses stay open and are busy on the weekends as the keen golfers arrive at their private courses to find them closed. The problem with the golf is that the ground rarely stays frozen all day and the short grass on the greens mean they are the last parts to thaw out.  Two saturdays ago the golf became ever more challenging as the round progressed. We had to guess which bits surrounding the greens would stop the ball dead and whcih would propel the ball straight through the green.  

I also think most courses look lovely with a heavy frost on them and the frozen cobwebs were especially fine.
Let's make GCA grate again!

Sean McCue

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:Frozen Greens
« Reply #13 on: November 28, 2005, 06:27:36 PM »
Kirk,

  I hope you were wearing your flack jacket while playing that track. ;D
Be sure to visit my blog at www.cccpgcm.blogspot.com and follow me on twitter @skmqu

Ted Kramer

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:Frozen Greens
« Reply #14 on: November 28, 2005, 07:52:31 PM »
Lido on Long Island is open year round.
I played out there very regularly for about 6 winters while I lived in Long Beach. . . frozen tees and greens, windy as hell, just plain cold . . .
I've enjoyed those rounds more than I can explain.
Lido is a joy in the winter if you can brave the bitter cold.


Winter whips the bay
Golf your ball along the ground
Below the wind's grasp

-Ted

Doug Siebert

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:Frozen Greens
« Reply #15 on: November 29, 2005, 12:03:04 AM »
Despite living in Iowa, I'm too much of a fair weather golfer to encounter this regularly, but occasionally there will be a warm spell in January with temperatures in the 50s and I'll get out to play 9 and see semi-frozen greens -- usually you get a nice combo of about 10-20% of turf on the course frozen, the rest mushy down to 1/2" to 1 1/2" depth.  Never seen everything frozen where you couldn't even get a tee in the ground.  That would certainly liven up the ground game!

The funniest thing is that sometimes the pins are frozen in the cup, since water from snow melt or rain never soaked into the ground due to it being frozen, so the pin is just locked in place and totally impossible to remove.  At least they don't have to worry about having them stolen!  Sometimes you can't actually get the ball into those holes, so we just claim its in if it hits the pin.

Also funny to watch someone hack a terrible shot into a water hazard and BOUNCE right out.  Saw my dad do that on a short par 3 a few years ago and it ended up 10 feet from the hole, and he birdied the damn thing.  I hit a pretty good shot and only managed par.  Sometimes golf isn't fair, winter golf less so ;)
My hovercraft is full of eels.

ForkaB

Re:Frozen Greens
« Reply #16 on: November 29, 2005, 03:36:55 AM »
I wrote this a year or so ago for a blog I had, and it still reflects my thoughts.

Winter Golf in Scotland

October is the finest month, covering
warm but cooling turf with dying leaves
full of breezes that do not waft, but prevail;
descending into darkness, with shafts of light.

On my home course, the winter greens are appearing. They have been demarcated for several weeks now with lines of lime and even officious signs, but as the year grinds to an end, they are becoming more lifelike very day.

It will not be long that we will be playing "winter greens," patches of mown fairway to the front and side of our "regular" greens. So small (200 sq. ft. or so) that they can be hit only by the most accurate and creative shot, and yet so close to the tee that you think you should hit them all, even those still 450 yards away......

Fortunately, the days when we will be playing only winter greens will be few and far between. On an average day, only 3-5 of the regular greens will be out of play, due to early morning frost. On at least 1/3 of the winter days we will be able to play to all 18 of them. It will be a rare (but excitingly bracing) day when all winter greens will be in play.

My course is probably an "average" one for Scotland--on the water, but with "parkland" turf. Inland parkland courses will rarely see their regular greens from November to early March, whilst proper links courses will probably not even see the need for "winter" greens.

Regardless of the condition or set-up of the course, however, winter golf in Scotland is a pervasive and often magical thing. For the most avid golfers there are regular inter- and intra-club competitions. Where I play, in Fife, the Scratch Winter League runs from October to March, and is as competitive as team matches get throughout the year. At my club, the Winter-long 4-ball knockout is one of our most popular competitions. For less avid golfers, wintertime is chance to get out on the course for a brisk walk with your friends, or even yourself. For parents, it is a chance to get out with your children without fear of mindless reprobation.

The light in Scotland can be amazing in the late fall. In the deepest days of the winter, the sun hardly rises above the horizon before it is time to slide back into the West, leaving only traces of light pink and dark blue to let you know that there has been a day at all. In October and November, the pinks are pinker and the blues bluer, and they last longer than they will do in the months to come.

But, even in the darkest days, you can still golf, and golf well. On Christmas Eve you can golf in your shirtsleeves in Dornoch, at the latitude of Juneau and Moscow. In Fife, you can play 5 holes in a blinding snowstorm in February, go sledding with your children that afternoon (after a malt whisky or two in the clubhouse....), and then play the next day when the snow has melted. And then.......before you know it, it is March, and the snowdrops are come and gone and the daffodils are out in all their colour and turf is warming up, and it not long before the "true" golfing season is upon you again.

I, for one, always look forward to that day, but I will never ever regret that there has been a winter. In many ways, winter golf in Scotland is as good as it gets.

RJ_Daley

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:Frozen Greens
« Reply #17 on: November 29, 2005, 11:43:36 AM »
I missed my big chance to play in those exciting winter conditions yesterday.  We had a strong southerly wind blow up and bring 50degree weather after some very cold stuff.  We have a course that is open year around, if you can see any ground.  Orange balls, the whole bit.  

But, that lovely southwind blew my F*&$^king roof off!!! >:(  I had to deal with getting a guy to come tarp it and now the insurance nightmare begins. :'(

But, the course that is always open, and takes a beating, you would think would have greens that are crappy all year around.  I haven't played it at all during the regular season this year, but I kept hearing reports from others that the greens at that course were better than our county home course this year, which suffered tremendous winterkill from last winter/spring.  So, there are some issues with turf damage, or lack of it, from winter play that I don't understand, but apparently aren't assured destruction from traffic on frozen greens.  But, there is nothing like hitting a lofted 9 iron or wedge a foot from the hole and watch it bound 40 yards off the green.  Zing! :o
No actual golf rounds were ruined or delayed, nor golf rules broken, in the taking of any photographs that may be displayed by the above forum user.

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