[Mark Saltzman]

The photos are of a shallow green on a par 5.  There is a backboard that allows players to land a couple of yards long (intentionally or not) and have the ball come back onto the green.  But, unlike most backboards, which continue to go 'up' but turn into rough, this one is maintained at fairway height and turns into a run-off area.





A couple of thoughts:

1) Interesting because shots attempting to carry into backboard but landing just a bit long will not stop but instead will land on the downslope kicking the ball much farther away from the green.

2) Recovery shots from the run-off become much more difficult because of the uphill then downhill nature of the shot (basically have to try to get ball to stop just over the top of the hill).

3) Generally backboards are very large areas and even shots landing in the longer grass will bounce back toward the green.  Not the case here, one must be precise.  I find, especially for the better player, backboards give too wide a range of yardages that the player can hit it and he has little fear of penalty (ie low risk, high reward), but I think the risk/reward scale is better with this feature.

Perhaps this is a common feature and I just haven't noticed it, but it really stuck out to me.

Comments?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Mark,

Southampton seemed to have an abundance of holes with this feature.

I suspect that you would find it on older courses built in the early part of the 20th century.

Recently, I played a 1927 course with this feature on a number of holes,

My guess is that the "runoff" feature is the product of more recent maintainance practices

[Jeff_Brauer]

Mark,

I would say the up and over mounds are more common to the sides of the greens, and fw to the top of the backboard behind the green is far less common, but then, I haven't seen all the courses of the world.  In general, so few shots go long on the typical hole - especially with a short iron approach - that I doubt many courses would go to the expense of maintaining fw over that mound just to kick those few shots even further away from the green.

Patrick may be right that older courses in the US have more.  The typical GBI course has more short grass all the way around the greens in many cases, but in the US, rough around the greens became almost standard (perhaps because of US Open setups until recently, perhaps because of cost?)

You might say ANGC no. 15 is like that, maybe not with a big mound, but I have seen Masters shots go way over and bound into the pond on 16.

[Mark Saltzman]

Mark,

I would say the up and over mounds are more common to the sides of the greens, and fw to the top of the backboard behind the green is far less common, but then, I haven't seen all the courses of the world.  In general, so few shots go long on the typical hole - especially with a short iron approach - that I doubt many courses would go to the expense of maintaining fw over that mound just to kick those few shots even further away from the green.

Patrick may be right that older courses in the US have more.  The typical GBI course has more short grass all the way around the greens in many cases, but in the US, rough around the greens became almost standard (perhaps because of US Open setups until recently, perhaps because of cost?)

You might say ANGC no. 15 is like that, maybe not with a big mound, but I have seen Masters shots go way over and bound into the pond on 16.

Jeff,

Thanks for the response.  I understand why golf courses that use rough as a hazard would not use this feature, but most of the courses that have significant backboards are courses with very little rough (such as Ballyneal, Sand Hills and Prairie Club).  One of my main, I don't want to say criticisms, but maybe nitpicks of all these courses was that if one was a bit creative they could use these back or sideboards without fear.  For example. the approach into 16 at SHGC if from more than wedge distance, I would just aim a little left of the green, knowing that the massive kicker would funnel the ball towards the middle of the green if I pulled the shot at all.  I had zero worry as I was playing reasonably well and knew any solid shot would leave me with a decent birdie putt.  If that hill instead of continuing up to the left, started turning down then there would be much more risk in using the slope and I would have a lot more to think about. 

Perhaps I am alone in this, but I think this is a really interesting feature that I wish I saw more.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Jeff,

Remember, in the early part of the 20th century, fairway irrigation systems were rare, thus balls "ran out"

That's why I think this feature seems to be prevalent, to slow down or redirect balls that ran through the green.

I believe that mowing them to fairway height is a modern maintainance practice and not how they were maintained at the early and mid part of the 20th century.

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