Fast and Firm 6500

[Gary Daughters]

I had the fortune to play a fairly short classic golf course several weeks back.  About 4 days prior, the course had gotten torrential rain.  For the most part it had dried and the grass had been mowed, but it was playing quite slow.  I became prejudicial when one of my better drives backed up.

The next morning I was having a friendly chat with the supe, and I asked him whether he likes the course to play faster.  A little, he granted.  But then he observed that at 6500 yards it doesn't need to play fast.

That seemed to make sense, but then it didn't.  Seems wrong for his course, and more importantly, wrong in principle.

Is he right or is he wrong?

[John_Conley]

I suspect he's right.  He probably values his job.

[Phil_the_Author]

Gary, Which course is it? Without knowing that how can we answer?

[Gary Daughters]

Philip,

I was posing the question more in general terms, but I see what you're saying.  The course I referred to is Mid Pines.  Obviously there are lots of trees around the course, but mostly they are far enough back that a ball can scamper quite a way without finding them.  

Something that struck me was that even after the rains some of the fairways were being watered. So the course played longer than 65, and maybe that's the goal.  

In any event I don't like having a drive back up.

[Adam Clayman]

It shouldn't matter that the course is perceived as short. The F&F will make balls run out a long ways, yes. But how many times will that be in the proper direction?, or, result in the proper positioning? More often than not it will lead to finding more pine straw. Since I've never been to mid Pines, I suppose I'd be disappointed if there wasn't pine straw.

[Tim Taylor]

Gary,

I almost started a thread called "Firm And Fast Is Dead". Of all the courses I've played this year, only a few have been F&F - PB Dye adn Renditions in Maryland, Wren Dale in Pennsylvania, and Nicklaus North and Whistler GC in Whistler, British Columbia.

All the others have been very soft, sometimes following rain, but sometimes not. This includes (just off the top of my head) Beechtree, Royal New Kent, Reston National, Westfields, Augustine, Hidden Creek (the one in Virginia, my club), Mattaponi Springs.

I guess it's the corrolary to "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM": no super ever got fired for having a lush green golf course.

Granted, it's been a tough year in the mid-Atlantic. All of our rain seems to have come in bunches, with hot periods in between.

Tim

[Gary Daughters]

Adam,

I was thinking along the same lines.  Given the right setup firm and fast, like length, would seem to be a defense.  And, of course, more fun.

And yes, there is plenty of pinestraw at Mid Pines.  To my mind an underrated "hazard."

[Phil Benedict]

Adam,

And yes, there is plenty of pinestraw at Mid Pines.  To my mind an underrated "hazard."

Pinestraw is a great hazard because it doesn't result in a lost golf ball but it's hard to play out of, at least if you are not used to it.  One of the things I love about Pine Needles/Mid Pines is that you don't lose many balls there.

[Doug Siebert]

Its not hard to play off pinestraw, I don't think it should be considered a hazard -- any difficulty it provides is 100% caused by the trees it has fallen from that are in the way of your intended line and/or swing path.

Its no different than playing from a bare lie, you just can't ground your club.  Jack Nicklaus probably doesn't even notice the difference between pine straw and a Scottish fairway.

One nice thing about playing off pinestraw is that you can work the ball off it.  A highly underrated portion of the difficulty of playing from among the trees with your ball in thick rough is that you can't work the ball (most of the rest being that it is very hard to hit a ball that rises no higher than 4' in the air from 4" of rough!)

[Gary Daughters]

Doug,

If pinestraw is like playing a bare lie, than you and I are playing out of different types of pinestraw.  I can hit down hard on a bare lie but not so with pinestraw, especially with a wedge in my hands;  hit beneath the ball and you're scratching your head because you've just plopped the thing 2 feet.

And yes, low limbs can be problematic.

[TEPaul]

Regarding firm and fast playability, my feelings are that firm throughout is the best policy for the long-range endurance of agronomy and the best policy for playability.

However, having that is a goal and not necessarily something any super can produce all the time. We need to be aware of the recovery time involved in drying a course back out from natural rainfall.

We also need to be more aware of the time it takes to transition a golf course and its agronomy over from a years long culture of over-irrigation and chemical dependence to one of dryness and probably organics. Even in the best of situations this process might take a few years minimum and even more importanly we need to understand what the turf-loss rate will be in that transition period.

But in just an analysis of how firm and fast playability works I believe that the most essential component is to first create firm approaches. Approaches are the link to the entire firm and fast strategic equation. In other words, if the LZs and rough is firm and fast and the greens are firm and fast and the approaches aren't firm and fast the entire strategic balance or equilibrium of firm and fast playability just won't connect and the course won't perform well strategically---eg multiple options.

Next in importance is green surface firmness, followed by firm and fast "through the green" elsewhere (other than approaches). The latter is less important than the first two components, in my opinion, particularly on short golf courses.

But if it hasn't rained in a week or two and a golf course is soft and slow it's probably pretty safe to say that golf club is just not into the maintenance practices and the strategic philosophy of firm and fast.

[Gary Daughters]

TEP,

I always learn something when you post, so thanks.

Unfortunately what you describe not a little tweak but a major commitment to a philosophy that, as Tim Taylor implies, just doesn't seem to fly over here.

2 obstacles that quickly come to mind:  the golf course as amenity to a residential development, whose function is chiefly "aesthetic" (and its trickle-down effect).  And the sad mentality of the preponderence of our golfing brethren, most of whom seem to consider the firmest, fastest, finest courses on Earth to be "goat tracks."

What're ya gonna do?

[Adam Clayman]

Gary, I too prefer any chance for recovery over the alternative. The softer pine straw surface does require special attention, but no more so than a hard/bare surface. Actually, I find the mindset over both shots to be simialr. Hitting the ball first by placing it back in my stance.

As for housing developments and their need to be green... The big world theory allows those who prefer that type of claustrophobia, to play away. In this forum, I think we can assume that the focus should be on the great fields of the sport.

What's really awesome is, when there is a demand for someone's new interpretation of the craft, they get hired to produce it.


 

[Matt_Ward]

Gary D:

Job security trumps strategic considerations in the bulk of instances.

In addition, most golfers are ignorant of the fact in which the aerial and ground games can make for a better overall golf course and add to their development as golfers.

Lush is easy to see and far faster to graps for Joe Sixpack and Mary Wineglass. Superintendents also realize that pushing golf courses to bring forward firm and fast conditions are really a roll of the dice and it's the kind of roll they prefer to avoid.

[Gary Daughters]

Adam,

To paraphrase Dickie V, you're one of my PTP'ers, baby.  A TEP All-Star.

But no, I'm not stipulating that this forum must be preoccupied with your "great fields of the sport."  No way, baby!

Beyond said great fields are the not inconsequential matters of the psychology of the game itself and the state of the courses played by the vast uber-majority of those whose golf budgets don't exceed the capacity of our gas tanks. That's the real deal, baby!

I'm of the opinion that the "firm and fast ideal" would transform the courses we plebes so often play and would elevate the game.  Unfortunately, I have witnessed the trend in reverse.  Some investor tosses money at a neglected muni shaped by the hand of nature and then it's lush, green and gone.

[Doug Siebert]

Doug,

If pinestraw is like playing a bare lie, than you and I are playing out of different types of pinestraw.  I can hit down hard on a bare lie but not so with pinestraw, especially with a wedge in my hands;  hit beneath the ball and you're scratching your head because you've just plopped the thing 2 feet.

And yes, low limbs can be problematic.

How many inches of pine straw do you have piled up where you play??

Usually I just see a small layer of needles that my ball sits on top of, its just like a tight lie on a very firm fairway.  Sometimes the ground isn't level and big piles will collect in small hollows and if your ball ends up there I could see it being problematic -- though I'm usually just more concerned about taking my stance gingerly because the ball can move so easily under such circumstances even without grounding the club.  But I've never had my ball sitting on enough pine straw to be able to hit a wedge under it!

Anyway, I'm a picker/sweeper with my irons, if I take enough of a divot to replace more often than not it is not my best shot so perhaps my iron play just works better where pine straw is concerned.

[Gary Daughters]

Doug,

I'm talking 1-3' inches of pinestraw.  We see a lot of that down here.  Often you'll get some soft, sandy soil beneath it, too, but you can't be sure in advance since you can't see it for the pine needles. (You can guess with your feet).

It takes a bit of thinking, plus chance.