East Lake's Bentgrass Greens

[BCrosby]

I was there and what a great experience it was.  All except the US losing the cup for the first time on American soil.  Intersting US team captained by Fred Ridley; Robert Gamez, David Eger, Jay Sigel, Allen Doyle (didn't play due to a back injury but was selected to the team and present) Ralph Howe III, Doug Martin, Kevin Johnson, Peachtree memeber Danny Yates, Greg Lesher and an 18 or 19 year old Phil Mickelson.

I was there too. It's always a great way to watch golf when they limit the gallery to ten or eleven people.  

That was a very strong US team. I am still amazed that they lost. On a course many of them knew well.

Bob

[Don_Mahaffey]

I would honestly like to know what happened this summer at EL. From some of the comments above, it sounds like I am missing something obvious.

So help me out here. What did EL do (or what was it forced to do) with its greens?

Not many other courses in the area are suffering as much and they get much more daily play than EL.

Bob

Chances are your never going to get the answers your looking for...especially not on an internet chat room.
Courses have troubles sometimes...and unfortunately; sometime they get hit with the perfect storm of bad weather, high expectations, and just bad luck.

[Tim Copeland]

1 guy can miss 1 rotation of his greens and in that kind of heat...the bent will wilt....and die.

The answers will never be known...unless you have an in to the inner workings of the club.

For those of us who have cared for Bent in the South....there is no question what happened....heat got em...and no amount of sub-air....1/4" tining...aerification............bone meal.......or whatever other voodoo you want to throw at em could save em.

I could not think of a better scenario to finish the year....we have seen how the best play on perfect greens......NOW lets see how they play on greens like the regular muni joe gets

[Anthony_Nysse]

The weird thing with all this that we need to keep in mind, is that many times, this kind of stuff it sight specific. There is one club in my area with bentgrass greens that I would put up against anyone’s, anytime of the year in regards to firmness and speed. I putted on them 3 weeks ago and they were absolutely incredible. On the other hand, the course up the street has temporarily closed their bentgrass course to reseed.  The conditions are the same and each course has access to the same stuff.....

Tony Nysse
Sr. Asst. Supt.
Long Cove Club

[Mike_Young]

If I had to guess they were trying to keep them too close.....BUT....having said that ....they have one of the best Supts in the business and he knows what he is doing....I would not second guess him.....

[Tim Copeland]

If I had to guess they were trying to keep them too close.....BUT....having said that ....they have one of the best Supts in the business and he knows what he is doing....I would not second guess him.....

2nd guessing is the least of his worries

[A.G._Crockett]

I would honestly like to know what happened this summer at EL. From some of the comments above, it sounds like I am missing something obvious.

So help me out here. What did EL do (or what was it forced to do) with its greens?

Not many other courses in the area are suffering as much and they get much more daily play than EL.

Bob

Bob,
Honestly, I wonder the same thing, I really do.  It just seems strange, given the condition of bent elsewhere in the area, and given what one would presume to be the resources and knowledge base at EL.

Largely, it was a fungus-free summer for bent in ATL, and the supers were able to control the water and keep things pretty good at a lot of courses with low budgets, small maintenance staffs, and lots of rounds.  

I guess it was bad luck, but that doesn't make it any less strange.

[Kalen Braley]

I also heard that the players will not be able to touch the greens until the 1st shot on Thursday.  Will the other courses in the Atlanta area be getting some unexpected practice round drop-ins over the next couple of days???

I suppose Tiger could just skip the last event and roll the dice that neither Stricker nor Phil will win, which I beleive are the only 2 who can prevent him from winning the whole thing...

[Lyman Gallup]

Mathematically, Sabbatini and Choi also have a chance.  Here is some text from the PGA Tour site:

"A victory by either Woods or Stricker at East Lake would give them the inaugural FedExCup. The same goes for Mickelson, who took the week of the BMW Championship off, as long as Woods doesn't finish in second alone.

Either Sabbatini or Choi could also win the FedExCup with a victory in Atlanta, but neither controls his own destiny.

In Sabbatini's case, Woods must finish 14th or lower, while in Choi's situation, the game's No. 1 player must be lower than 22nd. Points earned by Stricker and Mickelson could also figure into the equation in either of those scenarios. "

[Anthony_Nysse]

It's my understanding that the pro am is going to be played at Charlie Yates golf course across the street. (par 58, I believe) They have bentgrass greens and very tiny budget. I'm going to guess that their greens made it though the summer...?

Tony Nysse
Sr. Asst. Supt.
Long Cove Club
HHI, SC

[A.G._Crockett]

The newspaper report here this a.m. is that there will be no Pro-Am.  There will be some sort of a clinic instead, and there will apparently be no practice round putting allowed.  

Unprecedented would be an appropriate word.  For those of you elsewhere on the planet, I cannot stress how weird this is to me.  The bent greens elsewhere in Atlanta are stressed, but very much alive and well.  We just finished our club championship yesterday, and we have had many, many years with greens far, far worse than what we played this weekend.  The same is true, as far as I know, around the metro area.  EL must have had a "perfect storm" of bad stuff happen.

[TEPaul]

Look, the trouble today is too many people are trying to turn American greens into some kind of agronomic rocket science.

If East Lakes greens have taken a hit and lost a bunch of turf all East Lake needs to do is take a page out of Merion greenkeeper Richie Valentine's maintenance playbook.

Richie lost a bunch of turf in one of his US Opens. Richie just said: "Big Deal" and he told his crew to go get a bunch of grass clippings, sprinkle them on the greens, keep 'em watered and nobody would know the difference.

[Craig Sweet]

TPAUL...Nobody would know the difference except for the grass sticking to your ball when you putt

[TEPaul]

Craig:

Jeeesus Man, how picky can you get? The choice is putting on dirt of having a little grass sticking to your ball. I thought these guys were supposed to be good. Adjusting your speed to take into consideration grass sticking to your ball is no different than playing "grain", except in this case the "grain" will be adhering to your ball in increasing volume depending on the length of the putt.

Big Deal.  

[Gary Daughters]

Tuesday practice round and Wednesday pro-am both cancelled.

[David Lott]

So, what kind of grass did EL have on its greens when Bobby Jones played? How did it hold up? Anybody know?

Is the problem the grass or the subsurface?

Can you have a "authentic" restoration of an older course without restoring the greens to the type of grass prevalent back in the day?

[A.G._Crockett]

David Lott,
I don't think EL would count as a restoration in any sense of the word.  The routing is what Ross did, but much more has probably been changed over the years, most recently by Rees Jones when Tom Cousins bought the club at renovated it and brought it back to life.

[A.G._Crockett]

I'm sure many of you have already looked at this, but if you will go to Geoff Shackelford's website, there are links to photos of the greens.  When you follow the link to the photographer's site, look under blogs to find the East Lake pictures.  Some are not particularly revealing, but some are startling for a PGA Tour event.  As I've said before, these are NOT the norm in metro Atlanta this summer, IMO.

[Peter_Herreid]

So, if we can assume that most of the worst-case scenario stuff is true, and that at least some of the plans for the greens going forward will happen---does this mean EL will essentially be shutting down after Sunday to rectify this, or is it more of a matter of "how it looks and plays" for the 30 pros, and the membership will be back at it next week?

How much play does EL really get during the fall and winter anyway?  My suspicion is that any reno. can be accomplished with comparatively little fuss over the quiet winter, but that the membership may not want to give up the remainder of the fall season...

[Kalen Braley]

Does anyone have any recent pics they can share?

I guess its hard to know just how bad the greens are with all of the talk.  I've played on greens with dead patches so I can understand that....are these worse than that??

[David Lott]

The "membership" of course usually has about 280 opinions if there are 370 members. But doubtless most are less than thrilled about the publicity.

I'm sure that at least some of the member opinions will be to have the tournament elsewhere next year, and for all years after that.

The greens will affect the outcome (as they always do in some fashion--eg. Oakmont), and many will find the effect to be unfair.

And then we will be reminded that golf like life is not fair and the caravan will move on.

[Gary Daughters]

Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports today that East Lake's greens will be re-done with a "more heat resistant strain of bermuda" in April or May, and that play will be suspended from then until the 2008 Tour Championship.

I believe Champion needs to be planted/seeded in spring.

[BCrosby]

Peter -

The busiest seasons at EL are the fall and spring.

I don't know what they plan to do about member play post-tournament. My guess is that they will allow play (bad greens and all) until next May when they can begin to redo them with a Bermuda hybrid.

Wayne -

A couple of friends saw the greens about two weeks ago.  They were pretty shocked by their condition. But they both assumed that they didn't understand how the process worked and that all would be fine by the tournie. Didn't happen.

The other thing to note here is that EL's greens are all USGA specs. They are, however, the only greens I know of in the ATL area that had so much trouble this summer. That does not prove that USGA specs were the problem. It does make you wonder whether the extra money you pay for USGA specs is worth it.  

Bob

[Ken Moum]

Does anyone have any recent pics they can share?

I guess its hard to know just how bad the greens are with all of the talk.  I've played on greens with dead patches so I can understand that....are these worse than that??

There's a link to 42 pics on this blog:
http://golfincontext.squarespace.com/journal/2007/9/10/monday-september-10-2007.html

[Kalen Braley]

Thanks for posting that link Ken.

I guess I was expecting to see worse than that, but then again pics and seeing them in person can differ greatly. I've played on greens with massive 100 sq ft areas that were completly devoid of grass...

Hope they are ready to go by Thursday...

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