Golf course conditions in the Golden Age?

[Mark_Fine]

Seems the problem we are facing today with the lack of firm and fast conditions in not a new one.  Here is a quote from Mackenzie talking about the condition of golf courses over 70 years ago –

“Today nearly everyone plays a coarse and vulgar pitch which punches a hole in the green.  With the exception of the Old Course and few similar courses, there is rarely any necessity to play any other kind of shot”.  Mackenzie goes on to say, “Golfers are losing the joy of playing the variety of approach shots that were so necessary in the old days.”

Seems our quest to convert the other 99% to the joys and interest of firm and fast strategic golf is an admirable one but it looks like even Mackenzie was struggling with this some 70+ years ago!
Mark

[Mark_Fine]

Come on guys, was Mackenzie just having a bad day when he said this?  The quote comes right out of Shackelford's book, The Golden Age of Golf Course Architecture.  Were courses already starting to play soft 70+ years ago?  

[TEPaul]

That is interesting 70 years ago. I suppose they had the hoses and the outlets at the greens and their water supplies were better and probably their concern about the firm and fast playability of the greens was much less than today. Back in those days firmness to an aerial approach shot was probably the least of their concerns! Just establishing decent greens to putt on was probaby their biggest concern.

I'm not that concerned about the firm and fast condition as you seem to be Mark, since when some of the famous clubs that are becoming dedicated to this do it then others always take note and start to follow.

[Dave_Miller]

Mark:

Wasn't around 70 years ago to really know.

What I can say is that my home courses I saw the trend as follows:

In 1978 Aronimink hired a new Green Super and he liked to soak the course like I have never seen.  He was very worried about burnout and losing his nice green look. Tee shots hit with Drivers or almost any club plugged and backed up in the Fairway.  On Certain holes it seemed we were always standing in casual water.

The super at Aronimink today has created a much more balanced approach.  The course looks terrific and where he has water it (which is most everywhere except certain areas of the rough) has what I term Green and Firm conditions.  You can play a myriad of shots.  But I also doubt it is the type of condition Flynn referred to.

At Charles River when I joined in the mid 70's the fairways and greens were hard and fast.  

After the watering system came in they were still pretty hard and fast and stayed that way until just a couple of years ago.

Now the super is planting rye grasses and actually overpowering the POA to a large extent but he is so fearful of burnout that we now have very soft conditions all over.

Could it be that the training of the more modern day superintendents is to want things green and lush.

Don't know but I think I could be seeing a trend here.

Maybe Flynn was giving us all a warning 70 years ago "Not to Fool with Mother Nature"

Fairways and Greens,

Dave

[Mark_Fine]

Tom,
By now you know my pet peeve is soft approaches.  I hate them!  They ruin recovery shots and take away the run-up which are some of the most fun and interesting golf shots you can play.  

I hope more courses go to firm and fast (Lehigh was playing that way today   ) but it takes a lot of kicking and screaming to get members (golfers in general) to buy in!
Mark

[Mark_Fine]

Dave,
I hope Charles River returns to the old and more interesting ways!  
Mark

[Dave_Miller]

Mark:
I'm with you I hate soft approaches.  Hopefully we will get it back at Charles River but too many members equate Green with good conditions.
Best
Dave

[TEPaul]

Dave:

Actually Mark Fine quoted MacKenzie as the one concerned 70 years ago, not Flynn!

But Flynn had some fairly novel ideas on this general subject of firm and fast! We all know how Flynn feared the ball going too far and he actually recommended in writing at one point that to conteract the distances the ball my go that the ideal thing to do was to water the fairways to softness so the ball would not bounce and roll but keep the approaches firm (for the ground game approach shot) but to also keep the green surfaces firm too to make the aerial shot play a bit more intense.

I would say this is a novel take on the "ideal maintenance meld", possibly about 2/3 of what I consider the "ideal maintenance meld", but Flynn did have a point about how to counteract distance off the tee, I suppose! However at the green and green-end he got it right it seems!

[ChipOat]

Can't speak for MacKenzie's era, but IMO the culprit in the last 30+ years has been the replacement of labor-intensive "snap valve" watering systems with the electronically contolled automatic systems on a timer.

It is next to impossible to maintain hard and fast with those systems unless the super gives them as much individual attention (i.e. labor-intensive) as the old snap valve set-up they replaced in the name of efficiency (read "labor costs").

[TEPaul]

Chip:

I think you're almost exactly right! These days to maintain consistently firm and fast conditions (or the ideal maintenance meld) it appears there is no alternative to syringing manually on greens!

It might be possible to actually design an irrigation system to "spot irrigate" complete with computer engineering but the problem is that to successfully syring somebody has to go out on the course and determine almost the exact time when it needs to be done and so far I haven't seen a computer irrigation system that has that kind of "eye" on particular areas of the course!

I did see the ultimate in syringing the other day though at Aronimink with some of the maintenance crew out syringing the fairways! And I did ask one of the crew how many of them they had out there doing that (or syringing other areas) at that particular time and he said six!

It was in the middle of a tournament too! That does seem to be manpower intensive but even that may not be as true as we think! At Applebrook the other day on that subject one of the guys who controls the place said the crew is there anyway so doing that is not as big a deal as some think, particularly when you consider what the club is getting for this!

[Mark_Fine]

Beg to differ on the irrigation ideas!  With the the new system Lehigh put in, John can control "individual" sprinkler heads from his Palm computer.  He can run a head for "43" (not 42)seconds if he wants to    and spray as little or as much water as he'd like to select areas of the course.  With the old system, everything was either on or off.  Now problem areas can addressed much easier.  

Manual watering is inconsistent.  Some help don't seem to understand the difference between a light syringing and a soaking!

[ed_getka]

Mark,
 I am curious how soft conditions "ruin recovery shots". I was going to comment, in the firm and fast thread, on how I don't like soft conditions because I have to play a lot of recovery shots with my 10 handicap game. But after thinking about it I thought it was just my personal bias because firm and fast forces me to use my imagination more in trying to recover, but I don't know if that makes F&F better for most golfers. I find F&F to be a LOT more fun. I'm interested in seeing what you have to say regarding the recovery shots.

[Mark_Fine]

Approaches are used "for approach shots".  When approaches are soft, the run-up approach shot is eliminated.  And as I said in an earlier post, soft approaches also ruin recovery shots.  There is nothing worse for example than hitting a low hooking 4I from out of the rough (after a less then ideal tee shot) and watching it check up in front of a green    

Again, I am talking about recovery shots that are in front of the green and that the golfer could benefit from the use of the green's approach.  In this situation, the golfer generally has a bad lie or non-ideal line into the green (that is why they are called recovery shots).  If the approach is soft, the run-up option and the use of the approach goes away!