Another point to make about these greens is the only information available regarding Suttons maintenance is what has been done at Royal Melbourne from day one. Remember, the new Suttons greens aren't "exactly" the same as the old. When they took samples from the old greens back to the lab to propagate a hand full of the old bents wouldn't set seed.
That's fascinating, and would explain why the New Suttons definitely doesn't play like the old Suttons Mix.
What I can tell you is contrary to belief Jim keep the greens very lean and underwatered, I know because I sprayed them and was a part of watering them for a long time.
Remember, back in the Crockford years I'm sure there wasn't near the traffic as today and if you could go back in time I would love to see just how fast those greens really were compared to today??? 9' on the stimp may have been really fast to the members back then? There was nothing to truly measure the speeds back then and now all we have are stories and rumors that the greens were faster 50 years ago than they are today.
I can't contest your personal watering experience, and it would be no surprise to learn that greens considered very fast 50 years ago would not be considered fast by today's standards.
That said, look at the colour of the greens in the photos above. Like most contemporaneous pics (taken at any time of the year), they all show lush greens. Many old photos show brownish or straw-coloured greens. And remember, the greens were fast enough, exactly 50 years ago, during the 1959 Canada Cup (World Cup) for both Sam Snead and Cory Middlecoff to putt off the surface of 6W and into the front bunker.
Peter Thomson and Ken Nagle won that event by a 10-stroke margin: they had the course-craft to play RM masterfully. When Thomson played RM, he kept his ball below the pin even if that meant leaving his approach off the green. Better a long chip than a downhill putt on a hole like 6 West.
For those of you who don’t know RM well, I wish I could show you an old TV clip, dating back almost 30 years. In a 5 minute segment of World of Sport, club pro Bruce Green demonstrated how to putt the green of 6 West. His putt was almost the full width of the green, going from right to left. He must have aimed 40 degrees away from the pin, and after a rounded arc (almost semi-circle) his ball finished beside the pin. Goodness knows how many takes were needed. Last weekend I faced the same putt, and the borrow was a metre, tops. I think that the change is partly the difference between the old and new Suttons mixes, and partly that the greens get too much water. However you explain the change, the courses play very differently with benign greens.
I understood that the old Suttons Mix was a blend of many bent varieties, both brown tops and creeping bents. It was supposed to be such a special combination because it survived on low nitrogen applications, maintained density through winter, was wear resistant and, of course, provided true and fast surfaces.
Stephen's spot on to point out that the courses face much more wear now than in the Crockford era. Between the two courses, 40,000 rounds are played per year. On weekdays back in the 1980s, you hardly saw another sole. There would have been far fewer rounds played decades earlier (smaller membership). So it is astute to question whether, if the greens were still kept Crockford-dry, they would stand up to the traffic.
Thought experiment: suppose someone came to this group of experts and said something along the lines of, "We want Crocky's greens back -- maybe not the exact strains but whatever it takes to go back to how those greens played. We are willing to close the club for 2-3 years, or go with temp greens, if you tell us that's what it take."
Could you do it?
YES. I think it would be reasonable to presume that large sections of the membership weep over what has happened. The club has tolerantly gone through 3 green replacement programs in the last 20 years:
- at least 15 greens replaced in the Penncross experiment
- all greens replaced in the New Suttons experiment
- was it 18 greens damaged in the poisoning incident? Some of those greens were killed & had to be fully returfed
Plus, there have been green surrounds, tees and fairways dug up, not to mention the peculiar goings on involved with the Hawtree experiment...
If it only took one more go with the greens to get things right, many would be rejoicing - that would be dignified rejoicing, mind you.
(They wouldn't have to close the courses - the previous green replacement programs have staggered the work over time.)
Stephen,
Thanks for so many interesting comments, best of all your account of when the New Suttons greens went in. BTW the 5th turf in that trial was another creeping bent, SR-1020.
Going back to the question of nasty chemicals, I gather that fungicides, worm treatments etc were applied in the Crockford era, as well as arsenate of lead. Is it only the arsenate that you suspect to have had an effect on poa suppression?