"firm and fast", the greens?

[TEPaul]

We've talked quite a lot about "firm and fast" conditions on a golf course. When I talk about firm and fast conditions, I'm always talking about the course "through the green", not the greens themselves.

And I said one of the real architectural revelations to me was seeing NGLA firmer and faster "through the green" than I'd ever seen an American course. It was a real joy to play the course like that--much more difficult too as it was very dicey to control the ball "through the green"! And when a course like NGLA is that way all the little nuances of its architecture are highlighted more than you can imagine!

The greens at that time were very fast too--they told me 12 on the stimp, but I can't imagine they were really that fast. I think they were quite firm too, and that's my question.

What would be the ideal consistency and speed of greens like NGLA's when the course "through the green" was that fast? Would you like to see the greens show a "pitch mark" or not? If they were so firm that they wouldn't show a "pitch mark" that's quite a different "playability". For instance, the people I've talked to recently say Seminole's new greens are firmer than anything they've ever seen in their lives--that they're like linoleum!

Ideally, the perfect "maintenance meld" to me would be a course extremely fast and firm "through the green" but with greens that would allow for a great ground game but also for the option of playing the aerial game well too. Would the perfect condition for the aerial game require fast greens but where the ball would still pitch and hold or even spin back or not? Would that be the perfect "maintenance meld" for a really fast course?

If you had all that it would seem to be the best of both worlds--the best of both eras!

[Rich Goodale (Guest)]

Tom

From my experience, the best links greens, when properly prepared, will NOT take a pitchmark.  They will, however, take spin from the properly struck shot, and rarely get into double digits on the "Stimpmeter."  How the greenkeepers manage to get that combination, I don't know, but I like it!

[Brad Miller]

Tom, to me the perfect MM would be slight pitch marks, those that are tough to locate, not the ones we all see, particuarly those that have been left by a group infront! WF was playing this way through most of Nov this past year, what a treat Well struck irons held in most cases, with slight marks, nothing but a perfectly struck shot would hold #6. What was so much fun was thinking through every shot to the green and the options one had to play depending on distance and pin position. This was the F&F'est I have ever seen an American course, both through fairways and greens.

[Lou Duran]

Tom,

I agree totally with your "maintenance meld" ideal.   It is in keeping with many of the masters' principles, i.e. that a golf course be enjoyable (playable) to the most, regardless of playing ability.  Concrete greens like those seen at times in the U.S. Open will not accept shots by a large majority of golfers.  Challenging the player to pitch short in order to stay on the green is probably alright once in awhile.  Making it a consistent requirement is as just as obnoxious as the current trend of keeping the entries and surrounds so soft that the aerial game is the only choice.  The main problem that I see with the ideal meld is that it is difficult/costly to keep the greens soft enough to be receptive while keeping the surrounds "firm and fast".  

[TEPaul]

There's another reason for asking these questions on here and getting some good feedback and sensible info.

That is that some of the very well informed people at my club (and I do mean that sincerely) have remarked on these varying green conditions in the context of "easier or harder" to play when we restore our greens to their original sizes!

There is a lot of merit in what they're saying and it's all just another factor of the ideal "maintenance meld" to me!

[GeoffreyC]

Tom

Reread Linc Roden's book! The maintenance meld he describes at Huntingdon Valley in the 1940's and early 50's seems about what you are looking for.

[TEPaul]

GeoffreyC:

I have read everything Linc wrote and also analyzed carefully what Huntingdon Valley has done over the last recent years! I recognize it as probably the best example of a course that has really gone all the way back to the "playabilities" of the past--and I'm very impressed with not only what they have actually done but also their extremely impressive effort to bring their membership along on this!

There are a few aspects of what they've done, however, that I recognize we will never be able to interest our membership in! And that is probably true too of many other clubs. But there are ways, I think, to get our course firm and fast and still have it look to our membership a bit more like what they expect today!

[Paul Turner]

I leave it to Patric Dickinson with his colourful description of the turf at the Mildenhall 9.

The turf through the green has all the quality, without the looseness of texture, of seaside turf: it is dry and springy but more closely knit and it holds the ball without favour-it has the sense of a first-rate prose style-direct, without frills, yet without concessions, with certain quirks of mordant wit, but over-all with a wonderful fluency and power.  You replace the turf with respect.  Several notices tell you to do so.  This is no place for the golfing spiv.

The greens are pure poetry:

My myne of precious stones, my empirie,
How blest am I in thus discovering thee!
To enter in these bonds is to be free…

It is no use imagining that even an indifferent putt will do.  If you have the freedom of the greens at Mildenhall you know how to putt: you can putt anywhere.  There seems to be a consistency of soil here which is unyielding, hard yet viable.  The feel to the foot is unlike anywhere else.  Some of the secret, again, is this seasideness-found-inland: yes, the greens here are like swimming in a mountain lake, as compared with the sea.  The lake is clear cold--you can see to the bottom; and it is unresilient, not buoyant as salt.  On  good seaside greens you still get a sea-quality—ones ball is buoyant, it floats, if you are putting well, and sometimes reaches the hole on a line you do not see.  At Mildenhall, never.  A belly-flopper of an approach will not do.  The approach must be clean, the putt perfectly timed and struck: then the reward-to stand and watch, with certainty, the long putt going home to the bottom--a marvellous clear-water feeling.  I know of no other greens that are so utterly scrupulous.  Putting upon them is a sheer aesthetic delight-in one’s own skill pitted against the best of the greenkeeper’s.  If Plato had played golf, there was  the place for him Ideally to Putt