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Frank Sullivan

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My Kind Of "Weather" Delay
« on: April 02, 2009, 03:53:04 PM »
I just tuned in to the Golf Channel coverage of the Houston Open, and play is suspended due to high wind...well actually, due to the greens being too fast.

I love it...I can't remember a tournament being postponed due to fast greens and wind...I wish I could sneak out there with my putter!

K. Krahenbuhl

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: My Kind Of "Weather" Delay
« Reply #1 on: April 02, 2009, 03:55:28 PM »
Frank,

I was out there last Saturday.  There is not a better conditioned course in the country right now.  It looks like they might have done too good of a job.

Frank Sullivan

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: My Kind Of "Weather" Delay
« Reply #2 on: April 02, 2009, 03:58:06 PM »
Frank,

I was out there last Saturday.  There is not a better conditioned course in the country right now.  It looks like they might have done too good of a job.

Yeah Kyle,

They are saying that the course is in flawless condition, and the greens are running 14 and above...even with the rain they received last night!

Frank Sullivan

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: My Kind Of "Weather" Delay
« Reply #3 on: April 02, 2009, 04:01:47 PM »
Update - Play has been called for the day.

jeffwarne

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Re: My Kind Of "Weather" Delay
« Reply #4 on: April 02, 2009, 04:23:10 PM »
Frank,

I was out there last Saturday.  There is not a better conditioned course in the country right now.  It looks like they might have done too good of a job.

Yeah Kyle,

They are saying that the course is in flawless condition, and the greens are running 14 and above...even with the rain they received last night!


I wouldn't call it "flawless",
 unless you think having to halt play isn't a flaw.....
Hopefully, one day "great condition" won't mean superfast
"Let's slow the damned greens down a bit, not take the character out of them." Tom Doak
"Take their focus off the grass and put it squarely on interesting golf." Don Mahaffey

Greg Chambers

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: My Kind Of "Weather" Delay
« Reply #5 on: April 02, 2009, 05:07:53 PM »
amen, Jeff, amen
"It's good sportsmanship to not pick up lost golf balls while they are still rolling.”

Anthony_Nysse

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: My Kind Of "Weather" Delay
« Reply #6 on: April 02, 2009, 05:13:25 PM »
I think that every course in Texas has fast greens downwind today! Colonial is empty!

Tony Nysse
Asst. Supt
Colonial CC
Ft. Worth, TX
Anthony J. Nysse
Director of Golf Courses & Grounds
Apogee Club
Hobe Sound, FL

Scott Warren

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: My Kind Of "Weather" Delay
« Reply #7 on: April 02, 2009, 05:55:26 PM »
It looks like they might have done too good of a job.

Wouldn't a good job involve golfers being able to play the course?

K. Krahenbuhl

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: My Kind Of "Weather" Delay
« Reply #8 on: April 02, 2009, 06:03:36 PM »
It looks like they might have done too good of a job.

Wouldn't a good job involve golfers being able to play the course?

Which is why I said they did too good of a job.

Brad Fleischer

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: My Kind Of "Weather" Delay
« Reply #9 on: April 02, 2009, 06:07:35 PM »
Correct me if i'm wrong but they did want augusta like conditions did they not ? Give the "pros" a warm up to the masters . Well sometimes you get what you ask for . Round 4 last year was pretty windy. If they played that would have been fun to watch.

Scott Warren

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: My Kind Of "Weather" Delay
« Reply #10 on: April 02, 2009, 06:32:10 PM »
It looks like they might have done too good of a job.

Wouldn't a good job involve golfers being able to play the course?

Which is why I said they did too good of a job.

If the Supt had access to weather reports for the past week and still cooked up what he did, he deserves the red face this episode will bring. I played a UK seaside course at 9-10ish on the stimp last week in a 40mph wind and it was close enough to lunacy.

Please, can the stimp-off now end?
« Last Edit: April 02, 2009, 06:33:54 PM by Scott Warren »

K. Krahenbuhl

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: My Kind Of "Weather" Delay
« Reply #11 on: April 02, 2009, 06:57:15 PM »
It looks like they might have done too good of a job.

Wouldn't a good job involve golfers being able to play the course?

Which is why I said they did too good of a job.

If the Supt had access to weather reports for the past week and still cooked up what he did, he deserves the red face this episode will bring. I played a UK seaside course at 9-10ish on the stimp last week in a 40mph wind and it was close enough to lunacy.

Please, can the stimp-off now end?

Speed is the only way those greens are interesting.  The tournament is set up as an Augusta preview...to do that you need lightning fast greens.

Marty Bonnar

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: My Kind Of "Weather" Delay
« Reply #12 on: April 02, 2009, 07:02:11 PM »
I tuned in tonight (UK) and was initially disappointed to not have any 'live' golf to watch this evening. I often scoff and mock the US Tour's excuses for crying off a game, but, the combo of wind and bikini-waxed greens appears to have done for them this week.
I ended up pitying the poor Super who, doubtless, was told in no uncertain terms by his Greens Committee, to make the place superfast - like AUGUSTA! - only to be beaten by Old Mother Nature. She ALWAYS wins in the end.
Poor chap. Better luck next year...
FBD.
The White River runs dark through the heart of the Town,
Washed the people coal-black from the hole in the ground.

Mike_Cirba

Re: My Kind Of "Weather" Delay
« Reply #13 on: April 02, 2009, 07:17:26 PM »
Let me see if I have this straight...

I have to admit that I didn't watch play today and just heard the circumstances of the cancellation through reading this thread.

So, in a spring tournament, in flat, flat, flat Houston, the greens were cut so short that golfers could no longer play because there was not enough friction present to hold a hard round object in place once acceleration and momentum would have normally been expired.

So, in a game that was born and grew up along the windy coast, we have now taken it so far afield in our quest for what is trumpeted as ideal agronomics that a 25mph wind, with gusts to 40mph, make the game unplayable!?!?!?   :o :o :o ::) ::) ::)

They cut the grass so short that they couldn't play?!??!?

This is a new low, literally.  

Some wonder why purists get upset when classic courses with interesting green contours get flattened and neutered because they won't support "modern green speeds".

Others wonder why we get upset when we watch greens die, or watch them so susceptible to disease, because they are overwatered, overcut, and overstressed, and call us dinosaurs when we say a green at Huntingdon Valley left to grow a little longer and develop a little grain is ideal, as opposed to the Muirfield Village, ANGC model.

Some wonder why some of us are so critical of magazine rankings where courses like ANGC are held up as the ideal, whether or not its eventually good for the game, good for our courses, or a sustainable economic and agronomic and even political model for the game going forward.

"It's what the public wants", goes the cry.

Bull, I say.   Those who know better and care about the future of the game have a higher responsibility than to continue to sell opiates to the masses because they've been force-fed a diet of modern "need for speed" sensibilities from various self-interested parties over the past 20 years.

..end of rant. 
« Last Edit: April 02, 2009, 07:36:56 PM by MikeCirba »

K. Krahenbuhl

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: My Kind Of "Weather" Delay
« Reply #14 on: April 02, 2009, 07:24:04 PM »
Definitely not a good thing...but it was what they asked for.

Jason McNamara

Re: My Kind Of "Weather" Delay
« Reply #15 on: April 02, 2009, 07:25:35 PM »
If the Supt had access to weather reports for the past week and still cooked up what he did, he deserves the red face this episode will bring. I played a UK seaside course at 9-10ish on the stimp last week in a 40mph wind and it was close enough to lunacy.

It's Houston.  Weather forecasts for one week out are essentially useless.

Tyler Kearns

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: My Kind Of "Weather" Delay
« Reply #16 on: April 02, 2009, 07:31:49 PM »
I love it...I can't remember a tournament being postponed due to fast greens and wind...I wish I could sneak out there with my putter!

Frank,

I believe the Australian Open was delayed due to high winds a few years ago. Certainly the downside to extremely firm & fast conditions, as there is no room for error when the wind whips up, it can be a very fine line between fun & challenging and unplayable. 

TK

Ash Towe

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: My Kind Of "Weather" Delay
« Reply #17 on: April 02, 2009, 07:35:45 PM »
Tyler,
They had to cancel the round you are referring to.  Was the cause of much embarassment.

Roger Wolfe

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: My Kind Of "Weather" Delay
« Reply #18 on: April 02, 2009, 07:39:26 PM »
Tyler,
They had to cancel the round you are referring to.  Was the cause of much embarassment.

I can hear them talking in a St Andrews pub right now... "American Babies."  I would pay any amount of money to see that train wreck.  I bet they were worried about not being able to finish.

mike_beene

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: My Kind Of "Weather" Delay
« Reply #19 on: April 02, 2009, 08:34:21 PM »
The winds are bad enough in Dallas and presumably Houston that it wouldn't be safe from a tree falling standpoint.As I have said here before,I was at the Nelson at Preston Trail the day a tree broke and killed a spectator.I remember the sound.Don't remember if windy,but today not your regular spring winds.

Carl Johnson

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: My Kind Of "Weather" Delay
« Reply #20 on: April 02, 2009, 08:36:02 PM »
The winds are bad enough in Dallas and presumably Houston that it wouldn't be safe from a tree falling standpoint.As I have said here before,I was at the Nelson at Preston Trail the day a tree broke and killed a spectator.I remember the sound.Don't remember if windy,but today not your regular spring winds.

I guess that's another good reason to keep trees off golf courses.

Pete_Pittock

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: My Kind Of "Weather" Delay
« Reply #21 on: April 02, 2009, 08:40:57 PM »
I always thought it was the PGA tour staff whichs sets the conditions, and the superintendent carries out their dicta.

Jason McNamara

Re: My Kind Of "Weather" Delay
« Reply #22 on: April 02, 2009, 09:12:50 PM »
Just to provide a little more context, I looked at some of the historical data on http://www.wunderground.com.  Using the data from IAH airport (maybe 5 miles from the course), here are the April averages for the 2000s:

Wind: 9 mph  (more like 12 during the day)
Gusts: 21 mph  (only 1 day in 3 has gusts noted)

Of those days with gusts, approx. 3 days/month have -gusts- exceeding 25 mph.  And maybe once a month we hit gusts of 40 mph.  Not necessarily during the day, either... just whenever the front comes through.

It's a small sample size, but the wind and gust figures showed very little variation on a monthly basis.

Bottom line, the course is set up just fine for the overwhelmingly likely weather for this location and time of year.  Monterey in February and Dublin, OH (the Rain Delay Invitational) at the end of May are much more suspect.

ps. the Dallas numbers are ~ 12 and 26 (vs. 9 & 21), much closer to what you'd find in (say) Wichita.

mike_beene

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: My Kind Of "Weather" Delay
« Reply #23 on: April 04, 2009, 10:54:43 AM »
Did seeing the highlights of the Nabisco with the ball blowing into the water from the green change anyone's mind about the extreme wind decision?

Andy Hodson

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: My Kind Of "Weather" Delay
« Reply #24 on: April 04, 2009, 01:37:50 PM »
The Shell Houston Open has always been a second teir tour event, usually stuck two weeks after the Masters, producing a watered down field.

Two years ago, after much lobbying, they were slotted the week before the Masters. In their(the Houston Golf Association) effort to get the best field possible, the tournament director made the (brilliant IMO) decision to "mimick" as much as possible the course conditions the players would face the next week in Augusta. That means fast greens, shaved banks, and very little rough.

After very positive reviews and the ensuing word of mouth from the pros, this years SHO has 14 of the top 16 players in the world in the field.

These conditions are much more about producing a great tournament than it is about adhering to some "correct" maintanence meld.

P.S. The SHO year in and year out is the #2 contributor to charity on tour.