"I don't think there is a correlation between stimp meter readings and how dry and firm fairways are maintained as Cabel pointed out you can have very tight, fast and soft fairways."
Steve:
There really isn't much of a correlation with what we call firm and fast fairway conditions and a stimpmeter.
If some course actually goes to the trouble to cut their fairways so low that the thought of using a stimpmeter to gauge how "fast" their fairways are, or how much "speed" they have they will generally run into some real problems both agronomically and playability-wise.
I'll give you a few really good examples of that.
But first, again, firm playing conditions are the key not fairways where the ball will end up trickling around slowly like on a "fast" putting green.
Again, if a course is appropriately "fast" through the green (all areas other than tees and greens) the ball will bounce and roll a long way in the rough as well as on the fairway. Obviously that fact alone pretty much nixxes the necessity of a fairway cut that's so low or close that the ball actually starts filtering around slowly like on a fast putting green.
So back to why the latter can create both agronomic and playability problems.
Well, I just came back from the PA Open at Mystic Rock at Nemacolin Woodlands, a Pete Dye course that holds the 84 Lumber Classic.
One fairway, the 10th, is very canting right to left and the fairways are cut pretty close or tight. The 10th fairway is about 35 yards wide but unfortunately the fairway cut is so low or close that it doesn't matter where the players hit driver on that fairway, the ball will just release and filter all the way down to the left side within 2-5 steps of the left rough in a fairly small and narrow bowl.
You can imagine what that area looks like and plays like----eg it has about 100 divot marks all over it all the time. It's so bad that some players were hitting less than driver on that 435 yard hole simply to avoid that bowl and a lie in a divot hole.
That fairway is cut too close and it's too "fast". Basically you can place a ball on the high right side and it will trickle about 35 yards into that bowl on the left.
This doesn't have much to do with the firmness of those fairways which was pretty good in that tournament with bounce and roll-out of about 20-40 yards in some cases.
Those fairways needed to be mown a bit higher so a ball hit to the right of the 10th fairway would have a good chance of staying up on the high canted side of that fairway even after bouncing and rolling maybe 20-40 yards with the tee shot.
Fairways definitely don't need stimpmeters, that's for damn sure. If people start doing crap like that on fairways on some of these modern courses most all balls are going to find their way to the low spots on fairway areas and generally end up right on top of some drain head.
Who in the hell wants that?
On fairways, rough and other areas of "through the green" what you want is "firmness" to promote the bounce and roll of the golf ball. You don't need "fast" or "speed" on a fairway that requires a stimpmeter like on a green or you will create some real agronomic and playability problems on some "through the green" areas.
Pat Mucci has not been paying attention to me again. He started this thread, and, as usual, he's about 3-4 years behind times on figuring some of this stuff out. But I have no doubt he will probably defend his point that fairways need to be stimped to promote firm and fast conditions. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
