[V. Kmetz]

The brief thread on Supt. Currier leaving Bethpage for Glen Oaks has touched on the green speed issue - ie; you don't need to get rid of classically-designed, severe contours if green speeds are kept reasonable.  I agree with that sentiment primarily, but there's another aspect  of which I would like your opinion, as in my own vacuum I fear it's too radical:

My question is:
Why do green speeds have to be at or near uniform speed throughout the 18 holes of a golf course?

My initial follow up is:
What would be so unfair about that?  Why can't one green with slope like Bethpage #15 be maintained at an 8 stimp while flatter greens like #2, 3 be pushed to 13+?  I mean is it beyond the competence of our maintenance industry and elite playing sphere to embrace such course set-up?  I realize that #15 BB may not be the best example as there may be only two solid pins even IF the green speed was taken down 25%; but in general it seems to be an irritatingly unquestioned precept that the greens roll at X number. Why can't it be "this one is flatter and faster, this one has sharp slopes and is slower, those

Maybe I'm missing something through ignorance, but I like when putting is a real "shot" and not just a "controlled large shoulder muscle move."  I enjoy that sometimes the challenge is how to maintain path when you really have to give it a strike or other times a subtle "cut" is required to hole a ticklish five footer, to just help it along a grainer green take the minute break you detect.

In the overall, I think short pitching, chips and putts are the one Game area where skill levels are more tightly bunched and the differences between elites and novices, while enormous, are still the least.  I like that on some local greens running a humble 6.0-7.5, different putt and short shot styles can be employed and reasonably executed by the all levels of player.  Spinners, cutters, toppers, floppers, bumpers, skidders, a little dribble here, a little on the toe there...all these things are beautiful finesse points of cognitive reverie in the Game and uniformly fast greens thwart that joy most of all.

But I'm also the guy who looks at a hole of 100 yards and thinks "How can I make no worse than four?" so i'd like to hear your thoughts on the subject:
 

[Mac Plumart]

OH...you've touched on my pet peeve.  But maybe it is because I am such a bad player (11.2 index and only been playing 2.5 years).

I can't stand when green speeds vary from hole to hole on the same course.  And I really can't stand when the practice green runs a different speed than the greens on the course.

I get my speed lock in on the practice green, then hit my first putt of the round and it is a totally different putt.  UGH!!!

Sometimes, I think I should analyze the cut of the grass on the practice green and compare that to the cut on each and every hole and and try to derive how fast each and every putt should be while factoring in slopes, hills, grain, etc...but golly that is a hole lot of brain work and I am not that smert of a gui.

Am I wrong here or am I right?  Uniform cut and speed should be mandatory for all greens on the same course.

[Rick Shefchik]

I feel like a lonely advocate for varying green speeds. The alternative is leveling and softening all the interesting greens built before the mania for lightning-fast green speeds. Seems like a much cheaper and more historically sensitive approach to let the more severe greens run a little slower, rather than blowing them up so the speed is identical on all 18 holes.

[Jud_T]

Rick, keep all the contours and keep the same speeds. If that means running a bit slower, so be it.  It's hard enough to get a feel for the speed without each hole being a crapshoot!

[V. Kmetz]

Rick:  Your not lonely anymore as I agree.

Mac:  I definitely started this thread to hear opinions such as yours, so I don't want to trample it in the least.  I just feel like you're selling yourself short when it comes to calling yourself a "bad player" even though I've never seen you play.  I don't care what your handicap is or how long you have been playing, if you are engaged and practiced, then you can derive as much reward from a variety of Game skill challenges (of which 18 different green speeds would be one more adjunct element) as a so-called "good" player.

You don't hang on to some ubiquitous miss of an easy billiards shot or an obvious bad play at cards, do you?  Why then should you hold on to  the three-putts that could crop up in your round because of varied green speed?  I mean how dismissable are a few three putts when balanced against the repeated grace of wondrous vexing greens with dramatic, imaginative contourWith the differences in slope, distance, borrow and cup location that already exist from putt- to putt, keeping the greens at a uniform surface speed actually thwarts "locking in the speed" as you described it, because if every one is maintained to 10, an uphill putt doesn't roll like that 10 and the downhill putt doesn't roll like that 10, so you're already off calibration already.  

I like the chance for myself and others to exhibit and elicit Game skill.  The dexterity of judgement and finesse necessary to size up the various shots on a golf course is one of those skills, one that would be enhanced I think with varied green speeds.

cheers

vk

[Mac Plumart]

DAMN IT, Vinnie...you are simply too smart for me!!!!   

Your jedi mind tricked worked.  To demonstrate game skill I think you called it...I like it.  Take every putt for what it is worth, examine each and every one...don't simply repeat the same motion that you have memorized over the years.

I like it.  I'll go with it...until I whip out a 4 putt...then I will curse the changing green speeds!!!

Seriously, you've got valid point!

[Tom Yost]

Q:   Are the slopes on the 15th green at BPB that yields only two pinnable hole locations due to increased green speed or was it always that way?  Or was the green changed in an earlier REEStoration?

[Adam Clayman]

Mac, To extend what Vinny touched on, a varied speed (which happens more than you'd think) requires an awareness level that should be fair game in the arsenal for testing golfers and used by people who set up courses for tournaments, and even, everyday play. But it isn't. Why isn't it? My theory...The Pros and whiners of the world (call'em the majority) don't like thaaat. This conventional mindset, if you will, will cryt down the sportsmen who cherishes that level of challenge. Proving once again that "They" whine about how easy the sport has become, and make changes all in the name of toughening up a venue, when in reality, most of these additions make the game easier. Especially for the best players. It truly is golf's saddest reality. Sad, along the lines of corruption in Afghanistan (or anywhere else where corruption is rampant)  where people go along to get along. Or else.

If the majority could've swallowed the erroneous perceived shame, of lowering Par for the course, not one venue would've needed to be made one yard longer, or ever had one green softened. (or sped up) The sport would've stayed a sport, instead of this childish game it's turned into. (Look at Tiger's child like behavior after hitting what "He" considers a bad shot as an example of a teenage twit) Was that a Clint Eastwood reference? I'll stop now before I get even more obtuse.

[Matt_Ward]

Tom Y:

The pitch of the 15th green at BB was always that way I believe.

The issue is that when you cut greens to a speed of 12+ or even more -- then the nature of what the green can provide in terms of pinnable areas becomes a lost cause.

The same can be said of other Tillie layouts where there is no way that A.W. envisioned his greens being cut so tight and low with such savage slopes also included. The 9th at Five Farms comes quickly to mind -- ditto the 10th at Alpine (NJ).

[Phil_the_Author]

Tom,

You asked, "Are the slopes on the 15th green at BPB that yields only two pinnable hole locations due to increased green speed or was it always that way?  Or was the green changed in an earlier REEStoration?"

The 15th green was not changed before 2002 or since.

The "speed" that it is referring to is U.S. open speed. In 2002 15 was stimping in excess of 15 and would have been close to that in 2009 if the rain had not come. Because of its shape and the extreme undulations to the putting surface there are only two small areas where holes can be cut to provide even a semblance of fairness.

To host even an MGA Open championship where the green speed will be in the 12-13 range for this hole (this due to the undulations as well as mowing heights) there is a need for more surface where holes can be cut. In addition, for the everyday player, there is also a need for more hole locations as the entire front quarter of the green is not usable because of the extreme false front. I can personally vouch for that as I 8-putted from 8 feet below an insane hole location cut just past the false front many years ago.

I would also like to suggest that rather than immediately blaming Rees one might ask WHO'S idea was it? WHO APPROVED the expenditure of funds for it? Based on the answer to those questions one may then assign "blame" but ONLY if there is blame to be given.

[jeffwarne]

OH...you've touched on my pet peeve.  But maybe it is because I am such a bad player (11.2 index and only been playing 2.5 years).

I can't stand when green speeds vary from hole to hole on the same course.  And I really can't stand when the practice green runs a different speed than the greens on the course.

I get my speed lock in on the practice green, then hit my first putt of the round and it is a totally different putt.  UGH!!!

Sometimes, I think I should analyze the cut of the grass on the practice green and compare that to the cut on each and every hole and and try to derive how fast each and every putt should be while factoring in slopes, hills, grain, etc...but golly that is a hole lot of brain work and I am not that smert of a gui.

Am I wrong here or am I right?  Uniform cut and speed should be mandatory for all greens on the same course.

I hate it when holes are routed in variable directions and the wind isn't exactly the same as it was on the driving range on every shot on the course. I demand uniform wind speed and direction.

[Jason McNamara]

You only think the game is slow now.

Just wait until Mr. Plumb-Bob-That-Six-Footer-For-Double starts examining the length of the grass to determine whether it's longer or shorter than he remembers the previous green being.

 

[V. Kmetz]

Mac said,
"Take every putt for what it is worth, examine each and every one...don't simply repeat the same motion that you have memorized over the years."

Yes, Mac, to me that is exactly "it!!" Why would you waste the chance to truly "play" a game (a hole, a course) in deference to consistently mechanical notions that are always hectored by the anxiety of "score?"  

I'm not so smart however, but what I've got going for me is that between my own golf and caddying everywhere around here for 30 years, I've been part of over 5000 rounds of golf at the most elite level down to four old men with an aggregate handicap of 125+.  

My conclusions after those observations is: If your true measure of the game is always going to be the medal score you shoot and not the finesse of strategy and skill to arrive at it, these courses and conditions and yardages and tees and daily fees and course rankings and all of it today are just going to degrade you into a sour, frustrated, money-drained golfer.

You, me, and nearly everyone everywhere is never going to be an elite golfer to the extent that we are not going to be an elite ball striker.  Nor are any of us going to be an elite bridge player, billiards shooter, Monopoly participant and Scrabble champion due to our various deficiencies in those activities.  It does not mean we cannot appreciate and employ the finest kinds of game play.  Yale is the best example of Green maintenance I know - that while all cut at "similar" speed, that "similar" speed is slow enough to make the dramatic contours over behemoth pads a dazzling, exhilarating bit of play.

Adam:  Let me extend on your remarks as well.  You are dead-on with your critique of "Score" and "Par" and artificially-implemented device to protect those limited notions as deleterious to the activity as a whole.  Thank God, the USGA and R & A didn't want to protect the winning scores of both opens in their early years.  Imagine how difficult and unkind this game would be getting for all if the elite champions couldn't break 300 every year...forget 288.  

Why isn't it the other way?  Why can't we watch them play nearly the same WFW course as Bobby Jones, same distance, green speeds, shaggier inconsistent conditions and then see what they shoot?  Don't you feel the loss of connection to history in that absence of comparison as opposed to minding Johnny Miller's 63 on a soft day?  Does it matter to anyone if the Open single-day record is 57 and the thing most years is to fire at slow, old school greens and pins and make as many birdies as possible?  

God, I at least know they will never break 18, no matter what so I'm interested to see what they will do to make what is now a necessary birdie to keep pace with a field and boom...that's where GCA and Green Maintenance comes in, even on a course that might be rendered, historically "easier" for Woods than for Jones.  The 1998 -2007 reaction to Woods' 270 at Augusta National in 1997 has been one of the worst blows ever upon recapturing our ability to perceive by just how many shots it is different than the old days.  Now the Masters can be worse than a US Open at manufacturing a number.  

It's not that I mind a tough, embarrassing tournament now and again (I loved Goosen's 04 win at Shinney) but honestly how many "12-3" football games do you want to watch?  I want to see the best players (and all of us) happy confident and engaged to play, not limited and blunted.  How many times during the 2 weeks leading into and through the US Open can you here Mark Rolfing and Gary Koch discussing that "he's gone in the primary rough" again as they go into commercial over the NBC fanfare?

[Tom Yost]

OH...you've touched on my pet peeve.  But maybe it is because I am such a bad player (11.2 index and only been playing 2.5 years).

I can't stand when green speeds vary from hole to hole on the same course.  And I really can't stand when the practice green runs a different speed than the greens on the course.

I get my speed lock in on the practice green, then hit my first putt of the round and it is a totally different putt.  UGH!!!

Sometimes, I think I should analyze the cut of the grass on the practice green and compare that to the cut on each and every hole and and try to derive how fast each and every putt should be while factoring in slopes, hills, grain, etc...but golly that is a hole lot of brain work and I am not that smert of a gui.

Am I wrong here or am I right?  Uniform cut and speed should be mandatory for all greens on the same course.

I hate it when holes are routed in variable directions and the wind isn't exactly the same as it was on the driving range on every shot on the course. I demand uniform wind speed and direction.

It is fair to point out that changing wind direction is easy to observe while changing green speed is not.

[Adrian_Stiff]

I think if a green has very few pinning positions and too many areas where the ball accelerates off slopes when a green stimps at 10 it is probaby going to need a rebuild. Stimping at 12 is pretty rare for long term play, 12 stimps are really for 1 week tourneys so to some degree you have your known pinning areas anyway.

V Metz's question was more about having an odd green at a lower stimp to compensate for the tilts; to some degree this is done in tournaments, sometimes they dont cut a green, I think they may even have missed a couple of days in some events. As for cutting a green at say 1mm higher to compensate for general playing, its a bit of a pain to have to go out with a different mower to do just one, especially if you are cutting with triplex mowers. So if you have that sort of probem the best route may be a bit of reconstruction.

[PCCraig]

I can't imagine different greens being cut at different lengths nor do I think that could be good for the maintenance budget when the guy who is cutting the grass has to constantly stop, determine, and readjust his mower to a new green.

In cases like #15 at BB, it's the USGA and the Tour-level pros talking. The bottom line is that they are all about uniform speeds (and slopes), not just from green to green, but from week to week. Anyone remember last year at the match play held at that course in Arizona with Jack's new sense for wild greens that because of their slope they cut them a little slower to make them fair...the pro's hated it and this summer they closed the course to rip up the greens!

For most of us I would be content with our home golf courses' greens running at an 8 or 9 with slopes when there is slope, and let the pro's change their courses as they need.

Regardless I can't imagine the average player noticing the "softening" of the 15th at BB at the speeds they usually putt them.

[Phil_the_Author]

Adrian and Pat,

At the 2006 Open at Winged Foot several of the greens were cut to a different speed (slower) than the others. A good example is #10. by having it run a full foot slower it allowed for the back 1/3 of the green to be used for hole locations, specifically the left rear behind the bunker. This is a fantastic hole location for ordinary play that hasn't been used in previous Opens for that very reason.

It was used in 2006

[Tom_Doak]

V Kmetz:

The best example I have ever heard of this was Karl Olson telling me that when he got the greens fast at National, on the greens with severe elevation changes and terraces [like #1 and #6], he would fertilize the sloped areas fairly heavily so that those parts of the green would be slower and a downhill putt wouldn't go racing off the green.  If you were on the same level as the hole, the speed was the same, but going from tier to tier it was slower.  I'd never heard of anyone trying to do something like that, but I imagine it was the perfect solution for National.

It does not work so well for a green like those at Winged Foot that are just 4 1/2 percent for a large area.

They've had to do the same thing at Southern Hills on the 9th and 18th greens ... it might have had something to do with all those botched short putts in the last Open there.

[Sean Leary]

I can't imagine different greens being cut at different lengths nor do I think that could be good for the maintenance budget when the guy who is cutting the grass has to constantly stop, determine, and readjust his mower to a new green.

Ignorant question here. How much time does it take to change the mower height? IS it really THAT much more expensive to change the mower height?

[Greg Chambers]

Changing the height of cut from green to green is not a viable solution.  It takes about 10 minutes per reel to adjust it properly, and if mowing with a triplex this would take 30 minutes.  The first group has caught you by the third green.  Not to mention the wear and tear on the parts to be contstantly adjusting the HOC.  And that's assuming you even have an operator you can trust to do this.  The optimal solution would be to have a dedicated mower that only mows those greens, but it would only make sence if you had 4+ greens to mow at that higher height.

[jeffwarne]

OH...you've touched on my pet peeve.  But maybe it is because I am such a bad player (11.2 index and only been playing 2.5 years).

I can't stand when green speeds vary from hole to hole on the same course.  And I really can't stand when the practice green runs a different speed than the greens on the course.

I get my speed lock in on the practice green, then hit my first putt of the round and it is a totally different putt.  UGH!!!

Sometimes, I think I should analyze the cut of the grass on the practice green and compare that to the cut on each and every hole and and try to derive how fast each and every putt should be while factoring in slopes, hills, grain, etc...but golly that is a hole lot of brain work and I am not that smert of a gui.

Am I wrong here or am I right?  Uniform cut and speed should be mandatory for all greens on the same course.

I hate it when holes are routed in variable directions and the wind isn't exactly the same as it was on the driving range on every shot on the course. I demand uniform wind speed and direction.

It is fair to point out that changing wind direction is easy to observe while changing green speed is not.

Tom,
 You've heard of swirling wind right?

I'd say the guys play with and I hit putts on the putting green exactly zero times before I go out to play unfamiliar courses,and many of these are overseas or in "off season conditions"-meaning it may've been a while since they've been cut, --one course we sometimes play has greens that can stimp from 4-7 at most-but another course we often play has greens that stimp 11-12
and rarely does anyone hit a putt on the first green that's all that inappropriately paced.
Surely you can look at a green and evaluate its' speed by is' color and texture, feel it as you walk onto it, or observe your shot rolling onto the green (or someone else's) nearly as well as you can gauge wind.

greens within a course are often very different speeds-those elevated and exposed(in windy enviroments) certainly dry out and get crusty faster-or the ball is more exposed to wind making the ball roll variably depending on the wind.
We've all adjusted to playing right after a heavy rain, and the greens are drying as you're playing.

I'm not suggesting different speeds on greens on purpose, but it does occasionally happen due to enviroment-and judgement of texture and color should be a large part of the process.
Just recently I played a course where they overseeded with rye and parts of the green that had germinated were rolling about a three, and the parts where you were putting on ungerminated seed were rolling about normal for the course (7-9). You could tell the difference by the color-brownish white was fast and green was slow-and most longer putts went through both areas.
One three-putt between the two of us all day-and only because he putted through casual water.

[Roger Wolfe]

We do a tough day where we double cut and roll 6 greens... not mow 6 greens... leave 6 greens alone.  Its carnage and a riot.

[Matt_Cohn]

Challenging? Sure.
Respectful of architecture? Indeed.
Sensible? Yeah.
Low cost? Yup, compared to the alternatives.

Fun to play? No. And that's why I wouldn't want this to happen anywhere I played.

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