Modern day disconnects

[Patrick_Mucci]

Have riding greens mowers cause a disconnect in the relationship between "Guarding" green side bunkers and the greens ?

Have they forced architects to offset bunkers, making the approach to nearby hole locations less formidable ?

Has modern maintainance equipment adversely affected architecture and play of the game ?

[paul cowley]

Patrick...yes it has, and for the reasons you have suggested....but primarily only at the courses that cannot include walk mowing of greens as a budget item and have to depend on tri plex mowing instead.

[Joe Hancock]

I didn't realize there was a ban on all walking greensmowers.

I have seen many examples, such as Landfall Dye Course, where the design was with full intent on the greens being walk mowed.

If the design and operation model of a new course is to keep man hours and budgets to a minimum, I suppose a wise architect would design such that they could accomplish this goal.

I don't think there is an industry wide attempt at design exclusively for the triplex mower.

Joe

EDIT: What Paul said....

[Scott Witter]

Pat:

Good topic.

I agree with Paul and also having been in the maintenance part of the business and using both riding and walk behind mowers and now applying that experience as an architect I feel riding mowers have certainly diminished what could and should be more effective hazard/green site relationships.

However, having said this the use of short grass around green sites has helped to bring them more in line with your assessment.

Joe:

"If the design and operation model of a new course is to keep man hours and budgets to a minimum, I suppose a wise architect would design such that they could accomplish this goal."

I did design & build a course with green surfaces that were meant (and agreed to by the owner during design and const) to be mown with walk-behind mowers, but after the fact he switched to tri-plex because he was cheap.  This has hurt many interesting pin positions and done considerable damage on many surfaces from tires turning tight, compaction in these areas ans slipping when wet.

[Joe Hancock]

Scott,

In your example, it is neither the architect's or the equipment's fault. Rather, the owner made a decision which adversly affects the way the course plays, apparently.

Pat's question is directed more to how the equipment affects the job of the architect, and I'm just saying it doesn't lock an architect into designing for triplexes.

There's been many more courses screwed up with fertilizer and irrigation than there has been with triplex greens mowers, IMO.

Joe

[Ron Farris]

The equipment use has an impact not only on the green complex but also the bunkering themselves.  Some superintendents want specific distances between bunkers to allow for riding mowers, mounding must meet with mowing equipment capabilities, especially if one is mowing around bunkers with an outfront deck rotary mower.  As once stated by Pete Dye -(paraphrased) The most exciting part of courses like Augusta are the sever contoured  holes such as those along Amen Corner.  The steeper slopes create wonderful strategies along the creek edge and the green and collar contours allow for shot imagination and a variety of options for the golfers.  If a superintendent simply does not have the proper equipment to meet the design intent then less than ideal conditions prevail.  Disconnected - quite possibly if you are a low budget course without the manpower and equipment replacement capital to allow for dramatic design with strategy, beauty, and harmony with Mother Nature designs.

[Chris Cupit]

Pat,

Yes.  Having just finished a renovation I can tell you that if we had tried to use triplex mowers to mow greens, the super would have wanted at least 9 foot widths from green edge to bunker edge.

Kinda hard to intimidate a better player with bunkers damn near 10 feet away!

We walk mow.

[Jon Wiggett]

It is interresting how the factor of cost saving is always brought up when someone is trying to push reasons for using triplexs on the greens. Are they cheaper, yes they are! But, are they much cheaper, no they aren't! A Triplex costs around 4 times that of a hand mower but only has half the lifespan. They use 10 times the fule and cost far more to maintain. The extra damage caused by them to the course, not just the greens, uses a lot of work to put right and the chances of an oil leak at some point (usually right before the club championship) is also a high risk.
In fact the only real advantage they hold over hand mowers is they are much quicker. I personally prefer to hire an extra person for 3 to 4 hours a day and cut the greens from hand.

[wsmorrison]

Those riding green mowers not only caused a disconnect with the greenside bunkers but also a loss of complicated outlines to greens. So many greens today are round or oval where they once had interesting shapes and pin positions in relation to bunkers and fall-offs, which are often not in play as much.

[Gary Slatter]

Our greens are older than riding mowers. We use a combination, walk mowers around perimeter and riding mowers to finish up. Our plan and preference is to go to 100% walk mowers.
Regarding the use of riding mowers - after three or four years on the greens we move them to tees and approaches for a few years more use.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Pat,

Yes.  Having just finished a renovation I can tell you that if we had tried to use triplex mowers to mow greens, the super would have wanted at least 9 foot widths from green edge to bunker edge.

Kinda hard to intimidate a better player with bunkers damn near 10 feet away!

Chris,

This is what I've noticed, the offset between the bunker face and putting surface and the expanded margin of error created by the disconnect between the two features.

On short holes it would appear to mute difficult approaches and recoveries.

Wayne,

I was thinking about the configuration issue as well.

In looking at old photos, the greens appear to have much more interesting perimeters.   Many of the modern greens seem to have their perimeters determined by the ability of the riding mowers to negotiate the turns, hence they appear less convoluted.

[RJ_Daley]

Even if you have 3-4-5-6 greens designed to need walking mowers, and the rest can be done with tri-plexes, wouldn't the extra man hours be minimal and worth it to have key holes designed without regard to offset, or space between green side Bs and the putting surface?  Wouldn't the design character, even on 1/4 or 1/3 of the holes make a really superior golf design?  Would the quality of cut and green speed be difficult to maintain, relatively consistent?

[Steve Burrows]

"Many of the modern greens seem to have their perimeters determined by the ability of the riding mowers to negotiate the turns, hence they appear less convoluted."

Patrick,

Could you please provide examples of "modern" courses that reflect this situation?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Steve Burrows,

Look at any modern golf course with symetrical greens.

Start in South Florida and work your way up north.
They're everywhere.

[wsmorrison]

"Look at any modern golf course with symetrical greens."

Sadly, so many classic courses were designed with complicated outlines that had tremendous strategic implications which are now muted.  I have come to realize that you cannot just look at old aerials and expand out to the former limits of the greens.  Top dressing and other remedial efforts on the greens, if not done on the surrounds change the vertical profile of the complex.  The ability of the folks that mow the greens, the time allowed as well as the physical factors prevent a pure restoration.

How were the greens mowed in the old days that allowed the greens to come so close to the bunkers and steep fall-offs?  In the case of the left side of the 6th green at Shinnecock, a cape of green extended into the bunker.  Is it too complicated to get back to that method of mowing with modern equipment?  How would you design equipment to mow complicated outlines?  

[Patrick_Mucci]

Wayne,

It's not difficult at all.

The mowers aren't the problem.
It's the hours of operation and local ordinances that present the substantive problem..

Today, golf operations start at 6:00, 6:30 or 7:00.
Therefore, greens must be mowed prior to those times.
Many towns have noise ordinances which prohibit a meaningful window for the crew to mow those greens, hence SPEED becomes a critical factor.

Thus, crews don't have the luxury of taking their time, weaving in and around the unique footpad of the putting surface, near features such as bunkers, mounds and dropoffs.

I know of a golf course that doesn't open its doors until 8:30, hence tee off usually starts at around 9:00.

This allows the crew ample time to mow the greens and groom the golf course.

Clubs have changed culturally.

Years ago, young members came to the club at 8:00 to 9:00, had breakfast, played 18, had lunch, hit balls and played another 18, and had a drink or two.

Today, young members tee off as early as possible, at 6:00, 6:30 and 7:00 so that they can get home with their families by mid morning.

That pressure to begin operations earlier, also impacted maintainance schedules, which came into conflict with local ordinances, especially on the weekends.

So, instead of being meticulous, instead of taking the time necessary to maintain and groom the golf course, SPEED in the morning became the PRIMARY factor, and as such, unique configurations suffered.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

[TEPaul]

Patrick:

Yes they have but not as bad as they used to. Back in the Joe Dye era at The Creek to save money they took the big old triplexes and used them on the greens. Those things couldn't turn in corners worth a damn, particularly the squarish corners of some of the Macdonald/Raynor style greens. So what happened? In no time at all those Creek greens got totally rounded off into little round vestiges of what they were designed as. On the old aerials it's shocking.

Mowers are lighter, smaller and better today obviously but the problems with "turning" is still a real one. Those green mowers have to turn somewhere---they can't turn on greenspace or their wheels will make a mes of the turf on the peripheries. So there has to be some space for them to turn on light rough or chipping height grass off the green space. On some greens that are architecturally more veritical like around bunker faces you still need to give them space to turn or they're liable to fall right off the pad and into a bunker or down a bank.

I tell you what Patrick---you should just spend the money and double your tutoring sessions with me and eventually you might get somewhere.

[Steve Burrows]

Does anyone remember a thing called World War II?  Clubs short on money were compelled to cut costs, or fold completely.  As a result, green sizes and shapes were altered, which subsequently resulted in bunkers/hazards appearing distant to the green complex.  This, of course, is not news to any of you, just another valid reason for the apparent lack of interesting green shapes.

Moreover, I will tell you that even the strict use of walking mowers does not make a green immune to alterations in shape and size.  I worked at a course on the north-east side of Indianapolis during college that was perhaps 10 years old at the time.  I was probing the collar for moisture (the collar was constructed along with the green itself and, therefore, should have been USGA greens mix), but was striking only clay soil.  The operators of the mowers, we found out (both the greens mowers and collar mowers), had changed the shape of the green in some places as much as a two feet outward in places and a foot or so inward in others.  It's not intentional, it just happens, and I suspect that this is not an isolated phenomenon.  

Fortunately, the green had been constructed with this possibility in mind.  It is common in greens construction to place a wire (or series of wires), on the borders of the green, hugging the separation liner, so that, in the future, one need only use a metal detector of some sort to find the original edges, mark them, and then commence mowing along those lines.

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

You should visit The Knoll.

The greenside bunkers are deep and right up against the footpad of the green, however, misguided mowing has created 10-15-20 foot disconnects between the bunkers and the greens, and it's got nothing to do with lighter or heavier mowers, it's got to do with a lack of understanding with respect to the architecture and the need to mow the green to the square or non-rounded corners of the greens, creating special hole locations.

Steve Burrows,

I believe that money wasn't an issue at most clubs during
WW II.  I believe available labor and gasoline were in short supply, and as such, maintainance and features suffered.