DEEPDALE

[Patrick_Mucci]

GETS IT.

With all of the rain in the greater New York area, Deepdale is being maintained with fast and firm conditions.]

The fast firm conditions make it FUN to play, yet accentuate the challenge.

Simple challenges, like pitching or chipping to a green take on new dimensions when the surfaces are fast and firm.

If Deepdale can present fast, firm conditions, I don't know why so many other courses in the greater NY area can't.

My unofficial and uninformed read on the situation is that Deepdale is firm and fast because they get it and they want to be firm and fast, and that they've done whatever they've had to do over the last few years to GET TO firm and fast.

Where there's a WILL, there's a WAY.

And, Deepdale has succeeded in presenting great playing conditions for members and guests.

Their leadership and their staff should be complimented for their vision and their efforts.

[cary lichtenstein]

Has Deepdale resolved their dispute with the city?

[Dave Bourgeois]

From what I understand Deepdale does not get that much play.  Does this have anything to do with what you have seen?  Is Deepdale on a particular piece of land that might have better than average drainage?  

[Jason Blasberg]

I heard on the news last week that Gov. Pataki signed a new law basically thrawrting what North Hills was trying to do.

I can't confirm that b/c I haven't read anything on it directly but if the village had succeeded in taking the property a golf course would have been the center of one of the greatest abuses of political power of our time.  Hopefully the story was accurate and the village tirant has gone away.

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Cary

The attempted takeover of the Deepdale Golf Club by the Village of North Hills under the principle of eminent domain has been denied. It was ended with the stroke of a pen when Governor George Pataki signed a bill preventing the village takeover of the club for the village's private use. Senator Michael Balboni (R-East Williston) sponsored the legislation that would prohibit municipalities within the Town of North Hempstead from seizing private recreational facilities in order to use the facility for the same purpose as the private owner.

www.antonnews.com/manhassetpress/2006/08/25/news/

Steve

[Voytek Wilczak]

GETS IT.

With all of the rain in the greater New York area, Deepdale is being maintained with fast and firm conditions.]

The fast firm conditions make it FUN to play, yet accentuate the challenge.

Simple challenges, like pitching or chipping to a green take on new dimensions when the surfaces are fast and firm.

If Deepdale can present fast, firm conditions, I don't know why so many other courses in the greater NY area can't.

My unofficial and uninformed read on the situation is that Deepdale is firm and fast because they get it and they want to be firm and fast, and that they've done whatever they've had to do over the last few years to GET TO firm and fast.

Where there's a WILL, there's a WAY.

And, Deepdale has succeeded in presenting great playing conditions for members and guests.

Their leadership and their staff should be complimented for their vision and their efforts.

Did the city cut off their water and that's why they are firm and fast?

Just kidding.

[John_Cullum]

Where is the great expense in MAINTAINING firm and fast conditions?

[grandwazo]

Pat

I haven't played Deepdale in a couple of years and I was glad to see that the Annual LI Caddie Scholarship Classic has been rescheduled and relocated to Deepdale on October 16th.  Bob Capazzi is involved as always and I believe that there are still openings available.  If anyone is in the area and would like to see first hand the conditions Pat is describing I suggest you contact the LIGA.  It's a good cause....I've personally had the experience to see a good friends son who had caddied at Seawane receive a scholarship award which he took with him to Penn State.

Deepdale has always had the best reputation in the area with regards to its conditioning, and in my experience has been in pristine condition the times I have played there over the years.  I'm glad to hear I will find it that way next month, especially after playing lift, clean and place for what seems like the whole summer on my home course.  

When I have had the chance to play Deepdale I get the sense that all the courses of that "newer" generation that followed in the area (Pine Hollow, Glen Head, Woodcrest, Tam O Shanter, Muttontown, Old Westbury, North Hills, Glen Oaks, etc) each have a look and feel on various holes that emulate the design elements that Wilson employed at Deepdale.  It's probably the topography that dictated this the most, but Deepdale to me, along with Meadowbrook, are the most consistently well designed and well maintained golf courses in the area and Wilson should get a ton of credit of making the most of terrain that so many other designers were not fully capable of mastering.

Piping Rock, The Creek, North Shore (what's left of the original design), Nassau, GCMC and Engineers to name just a few of the classics we have in Nassau county all fall in to a completely different category having been built in a different era and for the most part having been preserved closely to the original design intent.  

That being said, and I know this is a Deepdale thread, but I just have to say that I played the Creek on Monday in an outing the day after their club championship, on an absolutely perfect day, also with firm and fast conditioning, and all architectural discussion aside, the view from the 6th tee is one of the great views in all of golf, and all the holes that follow up until 17th are some of the finest I have had the pleasure to play in all my golf experience.  

Deepdale, as good as it is, sits squarely on the "service road" of the Long Island Expressway, and if my recollection is correct, at no point during your round are you able to forget that fact.  

Playing golf at the Creek, or any other of the courses found on the shores (both North and South) of Long Island provide that quality, to take you away, so that all is left is just you, your game, and hopefully friends you can share the experience with.

[George Pazin]

Deepdale, as good as it is, sits squarely on the "service road" of the Long Island Expressway, and if my recollection is correct, at no point during your round are you able to forget that fact.

This is surprising to me, as it directly contradicts what a friend who just played there told me. He thought it was a phenomenal place and experience.

Nice to hear the folks at Deepdale have achieved victory in both the legal realm and the (perhaps more vexing) green committee realm.

 

[grandwazo]

George, don't get me wrong, it is a "great place", but the background "hum" is a part of the Deepdale "experience".

[George Pazin]

I have hearing problems that result in a 24/7 hum, so I wouldn't even notice.

 

[Ed_Baker]

"Getting to fast & firm," is a much more complicated and expensive process than most golfers realize. It also has a degree of what I call "site quirk" so that it may be less attainable or too expensive to attain and then maintain from course to course. It is not simply a matter of turning off the water as many members opine.

The first ingredient needed to attain and then maintain F&F is a membership that buys in to it, and a committee and Board of Governors that's willing to protect the superintendent during the transition from verdant green cranberry bog golf to F&F, which depending on the site may take from one to three seasons to achieve. Without this culture in place F&F will lose to green,soft,lush,cranberry bog every time.

CONGRATULATIONS to DEEPDALE, MERION,HUNTINGDON VALLEY, ect. that have made the effort and succeeded.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Pat said "where there's a will, there's a way".  Is that always true?  

YES

Staying firm and fast in a wet summer takes moolah and lots of it.

HOW SO ?  

Who besides places like Deepdale can spring for that kind of scratch?

WHY do you think it takes MORE money ?

Didn't Tom Doak clearly indicate that fast and firm is less capital intensive ?

[Patrick_Mucci]

From what I understand Deepdale does not get that much play.  Does this have anything to do with what you have seen?  

NO

Is Deepdale on a particular piece of land that might have better than average drainage?  

NO

[Tom_Doak]

Firm and fast conditions can be a function of money well spent, or money not spent, depending on the design and locale of a course.

Some courses are on poor soils, and others are poorly designed so that the surface drainage in the landing areas is not good.  These conditions can only be corrected with $$ for drainage.

In other places, firm and fast conditions are primarily a function of water management.  Sometimes that means laborers for hand watering; sometimes it just means having a watchful superintendent; and sometimes (in really mild climates) it's just not that hard to pull off if you want to -- it can even cost less than bright green.

[TEPaul]

John Cullum said:

"Where is the great expense in MAINTAINING firm and fast conditions?"

John:

Actually there can be a pretty great expense in maintaining firm and fast condtions in certain circumstances. I'll get into that in a second.

If ANYONE thinks any golf course can maintain truly firm and fast conditions immediately following very wet natural conditions they are completely dreaming, even if a particular site happens to drain like a sieve. Assuming such a thing is simply compeletly illogical and untrue.

But back to how it can be of considerable expense to maintain consistent firm and fast conditions. On this particular subject there is none better in explaining the ramifications of it and the cost considerations of it than Merion's Matt Shaeffer. I've listened to him do it next to a blackboard which includes diagrams of where the additional costs go.

The thing is it is possible to maintain firm and fast conditions when the weather permits without browning out the course. To do that a club needs a considerable amount of man-power basically to constantly syringe the golf course. That kind of thing can drive maintenance budgets up to sometimes even double the high-end courses that spend around one million a year on their operating budgets.

For those who don't understand the difference and distinction between syringing and irrigating all I can say is they must understand those distinctions if they are going to fully understand this subject of firm and fast and all its ramifications that include color, dormancy and such.

If a club does not have the budget and the resources of a Merion or an Aronimink or a Oakmont all of which maintain consistent firm and fast conditions without really browning out (the agronomy going to a browned out natural dormancy state) they will never be able to maintain consistent firm and fast conditions without having their agronomy brown-out to a natural state of dormancy or even some degree of "managed turf loss".

[Tom_Doak]

Tom:  Isn't it the part about keeping it green that costs all the money, and not the part about keeping it firm and fast?

[TEPaul]

JohnC:

Another real expense in maintaining consistent firm and fast conditions is this whole new area of massively sand top dressing fairways and such. That costs a lot of money and so do some of the more sophisticated and quick healing tyning procedures that basically de-thatch. The two biggest obstacles to consistent firm and fast conditions are soft ground and turf with too much thatch, and they are probably obstacles to firm and fast in about equal measure.

[TEPaul]

"Tom:  Isn't it the part about keeping it green that costs all the money, and not the part about keeping it firm and fast?"

TomD:

Absolutely it is.

The problem around here this August (which was the driest since 1896) is some of these clubs, like mine, going to firm and fast maintenance procedures looked at their courses that were seriously browning out and going to a state of dormancy and some turf loss and then they see the likes of Merion, Aronimink and Oakmont that were super firm and fast and basically just a really cool consistent color of lightish green.

Our members thought we had done something wrong. I just told my club that if they want to double our maintenance budget (basically man-power) we too can have 20 or so people on the golf course all the time syringing the whole thing the way those really big budget firm and fast courses I just mentioned do.

This is essentially Matt Shaeffer of Merion's message on firm and fast management. He's not advocating that all courses spend the kind of money Merion does, he's simply explaining that these clubs that don't spend that kind of money have got to get real about their expectations primarily relating to firm and fast and color.

[John_Cullum]

I understand that naturally wet conditions prohibit firm fast conditions. But I have the same question as Tom Doak- Isn't it the concern about browning that primarily leads to the increased expense. As was recently noted by one of our esteemed posters, golf is played on a surface, not a color.

[John_Cullum]

We crossed in  cyberspace

[TEPaul]

"As was recently noted by one of our esteemed posters, golf is played on a surface, not a color."

John:

Of course that's true but explaining why most firm and fast courses brown out and what it means to the agronomy is not the easiest thing to do to entire memberships. I feel they will accept it if you explain what's actually going on but initially about 99% of golfers don't understand it without having it explained to them.

First of all probably 95% of golfers think browned out (dormant) grass is dead grass. It's nothing of the kind and if it gets about an inch of rainfall, in about a day or two it'll be green again.

There's an easy way of telling if grass is dormant or dead. You just run your hand over it and rough it up and if you can see little pieces of green underneath it's just dormant and will snap right back to green with a good rain. If you don't see any of those little areas of green underneath that section has gone and bought the farm on you and crapped out and you have to reseed or resod. The latter is what "managed turf loss" is all about.

What I just caledl "managed turf loss" is basically a sort of Darwinian process of killing off the weak stuff so the stronger stuff will take its place. That transition can take some years sometimes.

[JESII]

Tom,

Could you please explain to me how a regiment of syringers keeps the course firm and fast? I think that is what you do in an effort to get firm and green. From what I see in my limited travels is courses that aim for firm and green typically get just the green part. Regardless of budget.

Are you telling me Merion, Aronimink and Gulph Mills had the ball bouncing 50 yards down the fairways back in mid-August?

You should have seen how Scott had HVCC during the one small stretch of weather that really permitted F&F this summer. I think it takes an understanding and committment to get there. The committment needs to be on the part of the green committee (and chairman), while the understanding needs to be demonstrated by the superintendent so when conditions allow it they have the course ready to swiftly dry up as well as stay health during the dry stretches.