[Mark Brown]

Jeff Brauer & Anyone else.

You were talking about today's trade-off between bold contours and green speeds.

It seems that the solution for this for many architects is the
"greens within greens" concept, which may include three separate sections in a green with various types of contours connecting them, which presumably creates more interests for putting -- but can create other issues in design, maintenance and playing the game.

Anybody have any pros or cons about this relatively new design practice or is there a better way to create interest on the greens?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Mark,

I was?  Have you just read my Golf Course News column perhaps?

I think the big disadvantage of three tier greens is that similar shots can end up quite differently.  A steep stairstep might direct one ball 50 ft from the pin and another right towards it.  Of course, that is the point in some cases, but in most cases a gently rolling green that (more or less) increases the odds of birdie when closer is the best choice.

I have heard many golfers say that three or four of triple target greens is the max they think is good on a course.

I am not sure they are new, although they seem more prominent now than in the past.

[Tom_Doak]

Jeff and Mark:  I'm pretty sure they're not new.  Off the top of my head, the earliest one I can remember is the sixth green at National (1911).  And that's if you don't count The Old Course.

Mark:  The only problem with "greens within a green" is that if you use too many of them, they start to look redundant.  The one thing I most vividly remember from my lunch with Herbert Warren Wind in 1982 was him saying that he thought modern designers [starting with RTJ] were too wrapped up in creating multiple pin positions.  He said that if you put the flag in the middle of the green on a great hole, it was still a great hole.

[TEPaul]

Mark:

I agree with Tom Doak that the existence of "greens within a green" has been around a long time.

Certainly NGLA is an example. I doubt that term was ever actually used back then though (I think that actual term was started on GOLFCLUBATLAS.com) and perhaps even the concept wasn't recognized so much back then simply because a lot of the actual function or effect of "greens within a green" has to do with green speed.

For instance, if NGLA runs their greens at or over about 9.5-10 on the stimpmeter #1, #3, #6, perhaps #11, #12 and #14 have legitimate pinnable positions where a ball coming from various other parts of those greens probably will not stop near the pin in those otherwise legitimate pinnable areas.

That to me is basically the definition of the concept of "greens within a green".

The pros of that concept is it can and does become highly strategic (generallly for good golfers approaching those greens) but the cons are a good many golfers look upon this concept as unfair as they seem to believe that a golfer should have the opportunity to reasonably two putt from anywhere on a putting green even if it's somewhat intense. The feeling is it needs to be possible and the same attitude seems to be true regarding recovering to any pin from around a green.

[Tags:]

Tags:

[Tags:]

Tags:

Call to undefined function theme_linktree()