NGLA may be suffering from a bit of an unusual modern day dilemma!
It very well could be that a course like NGLA that is famous and has many people who travel in real golf circles and also some very good golfers want to play and do play?
I think that NGLA must get a lot of play and keeps the rounds per season really moving and with a very wide spectrum of golfing levels. This kind of use might put some unusual pressure on course maintenance in some interesting ways.
Could the super feel he never really has the opportunity to do certain maintenance related things that need to be done because the course is in use so much?
Could the super feel he has a true juggling act setting up the course at any particular time to suit and accomodate well a really wide spectrum of golfing levels?
If that's so it might be a real unusual dilemma!
It seems that NGLA is a club that does not put up with slow play! It also seems that certain players, probably members, have gotten into some really long rounds for some reason--the course may be too hard for some of them for some reason while on the other hand NGLA may have the reverse opinion that the course may be too easy for very good players (some of whom come around) and even some members.
So if this happens to be true, what's going on and what could be done about it?
NGLA is the place where the "ideal maintenance meld" first occured to me about three years ago--and it was! But that was just before and during the National's Singles Tournament? Could some of the older less adept members have fun on NGLA with those conditions? I don't know but probably not! And it certainly would take them longer to play the course under those conditions.
So maybe NGLA has had an ongoing "maintenance meld" dilemma basically trying to suit, please and accomodated an unusually broad spectrum of playing levels at the same time to keep play moving well at the same time, to basically offer a challenge to one end of the spectrum without clobbering the other end of the spectrum!
This might not seem like much to some of you but it might to them.
And if that is part of their dilemma, what can they do about it?
Certainly none of us think even a thought of any kind of redesign is the answer. I hope no one at NGLA is seriously considering that either!
I wonder if the answer may be in the height of the rough and the lack of firmness on the course sometimes!
The answer may be to concentrate on keeping the course really firm and fast as much as possible and also keep the green surfaces as firm as possible as much as possible but to cut way down on their roughs, maybe to 2-2 1/2 inches!!
This way the poorer players won't lose their balls much and the good players will have that ideal firmness "through the green" combined with firm green surfaces (that make the aerial shots more intense)!
And when I talk about firm greens I'm not talking about green speeds either. That could be tricky too to accomodate a real spectrum of levels all the time. Good players love very fast greens and poor players struggle to get the ball in the hole of very fast greens.
Maybe something around 10 on the stimp would be ideal for everyone and just reserve something like the 12 they told me they were at one of the Singles tourneys for special occasions.
Another way, again, though, just might be to alter the par for various levels of player by using different score cards!