Designers/Builders...construction of greens "wells"?

[paul cowley]

I have experimented over the years with the shaping or excavation of the well created during green construction...the "well" being the area that is created to contain the gravel, drainage piping and greens mix during construction of greens that are not push up types.

Just curious about the favored method by others.......

[Jaeger Kovich]

Not sure what you are asking...

[paul cowley]

That's exactly what I am refering to Jaeger, tis a group excavating a green as part of its construction. Could be a bunker, but unlikely.

[Dick Kirkpatrick]

Jaeger:

You need a better operator on that excavator.  LOL

[Tony Ristola]

Dick: LOL

I've done it a couple ways, and haven't employed the shape-the-green-and-then-core-it out-method as in the photo.

I'll have the area stripped of topsoil exposing the subgrade, or have a pile of fill waiting. Usually some fill is required. Then I'll shape the green. If I do it, there will be no grade stakes, if someone else does it I'll give perimeter heights and some interior heights and general instructions and a rough sketch. Then we'll adjust in real time. Sometimes we'll let the green sit for a day or two. Sometimes for weeks depending what else is going on.

Once it's shaped, and the pipes installed (if the green needs drainage) I may ring the green with topsoil or I may not.  When topsoil rings the green before filling the well, I try to have the operator install it a couple centimeters below the rootzone so when I finish the green, I can spread a little sand over the topsoil.

The benefit of not ringing the green is the topsoil doesn't get compacted when you drive in the greens materials. The disadvantage is you use a bit more rootzone as it spills out; there is nothing to contain the rootzone. Of course you can use a barrier.  You can also ring only part of the green; leaving openings for material delivery.

[Don_Mahaffey]

Not sure what you are asking...

....are you one of the two guys playing pocket pool?

[Tom_Doak]

Paul:

When we are building a new course and are going to build USGA greens, we shape the well and subgrade rather than at the finish grade level, to save a step in the process.  The advantage of this is that once I approve the subgrade, then I know we can keep those contours at the surface just by probing through the sand.  If we shaped the finish grade, and then had someone core it out as shown in the picture, I'd have to trust that they get everything excavated just right ... and I've seen too many operations such as pictured above to want to do that!

On existing courses where we are rebuilding greens, finding a contractor who can core things out just so is crucial to the process.  The best job I've seen was by a contractor whose first step was to have a crew excavate a two-foot ring around the green by hand, with flat shovels ... the workmanship was better than anything I've seen, and it enabled the excavator operator to start coring out the rest from just the right elevation.  I've never seen anyone else do as good of a job.

[Richard Chamberlain]

Tom, and other Arkies out there,

When building these USGA Spec greens I sometimes struggle with the visualisation of the base contours about 400mm below finished surface level, and the immediate tie in of the surrounds. If there is a prominant feature like a ridge line running in from outside and continuing through the putting surface I sometimes struggle to know when its a perfect fit when the subgrade sits so low.

I realise that in a perfect world the gravel and drainage layer goes in and then the sand has to be a constant thickness but we all know there is room to fudge a little at the surface if its not quite right.

I'm ok with the internal contours of the green but the tie ins are sometimes no so clear cut.

Do any of you guys have similar issues ?

[Tom_Doak]

Richard:

It's not so hard to visualize most of the contours from the subgrade working out, but it's really hard to shape a false front or a roll off the side of the green in the well.  Fortunately, my associates now have a lot of practice at that, and I'm amazed at how well they do it.  Occasionally, if it's late in the process, I will just tell them to take an excavator and dig out the last 3-5 feet if I want to extend the green out over the edge of a slope, but they all pride themselves on being able to do it with the dozer.

If you are going to fudge the tie-ins, I would prefer to fudge it in the topsoil on the outside.

[Jaeger Kovich]

The picture above is from a renovation. The green was cored out (pictured above) and reshaped at subgrade with a dozer/excavator combo. We cut an entrance way into the green through a bunker we were eliminating in the back.

... I was standing on a truck when I took the picture, and in the trackhoe the next day... my first green project, last summer

[Mike_Cocking]

Years ago we used to shape to grade and then well out the green but a few of us decided shaping the base was much quicker and whilst it requires a bit more imagination, shouldn't produce an inferior product.  Of course whilst shaping to grade does make it easier to tie into surrounding features, you do have the problem of what to do with a couple of hundred cubic metres of dirt - which if you've shaped the surrounds inevitably means trucking it away from the grensite.

We also used to put stakes in the green sub-base to mark aggregate and profile depths but also changed this in favour of probing.

There is nothing worse than a tie-in which doesn't meet seamlessly so I'll spend a lot of time trying to get this right.  Of course you can still get problems post construction if someone is allowed to turf around the green without first removing the sand and just pushing sand up from the green.  errrrgggghhh!!

Following on from Richards comment the tie-ins are definately the hardest part to get right with USGA and generally speaking I think if the green works to a downslope (e.g. a false front) its harder to keep the surrounding ground low enough and visa versa when working into a ridge.  Not that the latter is a huge problem - except that you just use a bit more sand.  To avoid this I'll errr on the side of caution if there is a drop off so that once finished your not down to a couple of inches of sand before the shape looks right.

[Don_Mahaffey]

Paul:
...finding a contractor who can core things out just so is crucial to the process.  The best job I've seen was by a contractor whose first step was to have a crew excavate a two-foot ring around the green by hand, with flat shovels ... the workmanship was better than anything I've seen, and it enabled the excavator operator to start coring out the rest from just the right elevation.  I've never seen anyone else do as good of a job...

On another thread from the recent past we were discussing the value of GCA. I said something along the lines of 'within all the clutter is a few nuggets..." the above is a nugget, at least to me.

When we built Wolf Point we tried every way imaginable to build in the most efficient manner, but with quality always driving the process. With the bunkers, we tried everything we could think of and eventually settled on roughing them with an excavator and then finishing by hand. We knew the look we wanted and we just could not get it right without significant hand labor. It was worth it as the bunkers have aged nicely and we’ve had zero cave-ins or drainage failures.
To hand dig the perimeter of a green would be unimaginable to most contractors. But, with a sensitive restoration/renovation it makes perfect sense.

[Kalen Braley]

I've heard the term before, but don't understand what it means in comparison to a USGA green....

...but can someone explain how a California green is built and what the primary differences are between that and a standard USGA green?

Thanks in advance

[Lester George]

I think most architects are largely a product of "who taught them".  Not to say we don't ever switch our methods, but for the most part we are comfortable with the way we learn the business. 

I was taught to create the well in my greens and work up from there.  I was taught to "see" the finished product in the subgrade and surrounds and complete the task on paper for the purposes of drainage, contour, estimating, budgeting etc.  I have always done it that way on my new courses.  On certain restorations, the "coring" process was employed with strict pre-marking of grading stakes starting at original grades we want to preserve.  One of our best exaples was Cavalier Golf and Yacht Club.  Instead of stating with shovels around the edges, I only let the excavator operator go withing about 8 inches of the edge, then went with shovels from there out. 

Bill Coore visited me during my application process for the ASGCA and saw my green plans and was completely perplexed that I could do it that way.  He said he could never do it like that because he didn't think in that demension.  I was kind of surprised as I thought the majority of GCA's did it like that.  He explained that he learned to build the entire complex and then core it from Pete Dye.  Thats when I started to consider my "education" theory.  I have found in most cases that it stands.

Lester 

[Greg Tallman]

Just bring in Jerame Miller and let him wing it...


waiting for Jim Lipe in 3... 2... 1...


Actually we had brought everything to subgrade 8" below finish as we will cap the final 8" of the fiarways with sand. From there the green was staked on 90's, 45's and 22.5' and cored the corresponding depth to support the final construction mix including gravel, choker  , and sand.

JM would take a cut at a quadrant of the green until he hit the levels and contours dictated by Jim and then base the rest of the green from there using this as their new "green plan" and adjusting the remaining levels according to the quadrant they finished. All the while patronizing the Driector of Golf who likes to play archie  .

Should have some photos of the new work at 5 up pretty soon. It is going to be quite good and fit the land perfectly.

[paul cowley]

Well from the previous posts it seems that push up bras and greens both have their advantages...naturally!

[Tom_Doak]

I think most architects are largely a product of "who taught them".  Not to say we don't ever switch our methods, but for the most part we are comfortable with the way we learn the business. 

I was taught to create the well in my greens and work up from there.  I was taught to "see" the finished product in the subgrade and surrounds and complete the task on paper for the purposes of drainage, contour, estimating, budgeting etc.  I have always done it that way on my new courses.  On certain restorations, the "coring" process was employed with strict pre-marking of grading stakes starting at original grades we want to preserve.  One of our best exaples was Cavalier Golf and Yacht Club.  Instead of stating with shovels around the edges, I only let the excavator operator go withing about 8 inches of the edge, then went with shovels from there out. 

Bill Coore visited me during my application process for the ASGCA and saw my green plans and was completely perplexed that I could do it that way.  He said he could never do it like that because he didn't think in that demension.  I was kind of surprised as I thought the majority of GCA's did it like that.  He explained that he learned to build the entire complex and then core it from Pete Dye.  Thats when I started to consider my "education" theory.  I have found in most cases that it stands.

Lester 

Lester:

That's interesting to me because I learned greens construction from Mr. Dye as well, and learned to do it the opposite way from Bill.  At Long Cove, we were building out of native sand so there were no greens wells, but at Riverdale Dunes we shaped the wells to eliminate the extra step, and Mr. Dye had no issue with that.  [I recall that was briefly an issue at Sebonack ... we shaped the wells there, too, which we thought we had agreed with Mr. Lipe and Mr. Nicklaus, but then they expressed surprise we would do it that way.]

Of course, both Bill Coore and I have been blessed to build several golf courses on sand where we never had to deal with a green well at all ... and my greens on those courses are generally superior, so maybe I should always insist on the extra step.  But I don't trust the excavator guy as much as I trust my own dozer guys!

[JWL]

TD...tell me again what I was surprised at in the green construction at Sebonack.   I don't recall being surprised by anything in the construction process, but my memory, or lack thereof, is gettin more problematic everyday.   Cheers

[Steve Okula]

I've heard the term before, but don't understand what it means in comparison to a USGA green....

...but can someone explain how a California green is built and what the primary differences are between that and a standard USGA green?

While the specs for a USGA green arer clearly defined by that organization, there is some dispute as to what, exactly, constitutes a California green.

As I understand it, a California green is basically a USGA green without the gravel layer at the bottom; the root zone mix sits directly on the subsoil and drain trenches.

With the gravel layer, the USGA green root zone will retain water longer than the California green without it, in theory.

[Tom_Doak]

TD...tell me again what I was surprised at in the green construction at Sebonack.   I don't recall being surprised by anything in the construction process, but my memory, or lack thereof, is gettin more problematic everyday.   Cheers

Jim:

Jim Urbina and I asked you at the groundbreaking if Jack was okay looking at the green well, or if he preferred to look at the finished surface grade and then excavate the green.  You told us he was fine either way, so we said we would just build the green well, to save a step.  When you returned, and we had built 4-5 greens with just the well, you were adamant that we had agreed to do it the other way.  But then, eventually, it was okay and you and Jack didn't care.

Ask Garrett or Urbina, I'm sure they both remember it vividly! 

[Brent Hutto]

Wow, my head is spinning. Little to no idea what these guys are even talking about.

Please do continue! 

[Mike Nuzzo]

To clarify for a few...

The USGA green is usually a bathtub of a green built within the native soils - it has a layer of gravel underneath the sand - for drainage.
The two ways to shape one are
1.  build the surface exactly as you want - then dig out where the sand + gravel will go.  or
2.  build the bottom surface as you want - looks like a bathtub - then fill with sand - matching the top surface to the bottom

An alternate method to the USGA (California flavor) is to shape the subgrade how you like then add green depth inches of sand (10-12) matching the subgrade - bottom.  You are now left with a raised surface.  Add enough additional sand around the green to blend everything in, especially in the front or approach.  now the approach behaves like the green too.

[Kalen Braley]

Steve and Mike,

Thanks for the explanation, that gives me a better visual.  My basic understanding of it was as Mike said...use the existing soil and then put sand on top of it.  The disconnect was where a green would get all of its contours from, but sounds like the green is formed first and then sand put on top!

Thanks,

[Tony Ristola]

I found this interesting and have posted it previously: http://punchbowlgolf.com/2009/04/chechessee-creek-club/

The super at Chechessee speaks about Bill Coore's method of finishing/building greens. From the 3:13 mark.

[Mike Nuzzo]

Kalen
You can put all the sand on top that you want and shape the green once - as the video describes one of Bill Coore's methods
We shape the subgrade to make sure that it drains and to have uniformish sand - then tweak the top surface a little too