Sustainable golf Question #2

[Don_Mahaffey]

Whenever we have a discussion about sustainable golf, we always seem to talk about a lower level of course conditions. Does the use of sustainability always mean our courses will have a reduced level of conditioning?

Are there examples of courses adopting sustainability and suffering from reduced conditions?
Are there any examples of the opposite, courses adopting sustainable principles and increasing the level of conditioning?

[Adam Lawrence]

I think it depends on how you define good conditioning.

One of the best sustainability case studies in the UK is Willie Park Jr's Temple GC in Maidenhead. Temple is - largely - built on chalk downland. Like many courses, tree planting, watering and feeding had changed the nature of the course; less fescue and browntop, more poa and perennial rye.

Some years ago, a number of influential members of the club steered Temple down what, for want of a better term, could be termed the Jim Arthur route. Dry it out, starve it, return it to traditional fine grasses, cut down a lot of the trees.

Now, Temple is, in my book, a very well conditioned course. It is mostly extremely dry, fine grasses dominate, and the playability is excellent. Much of the out of play space has been returned to native grass, with a lot of rare orchids and excellent biodiversity. But of course, there are plenty of people who go there and bemoan the colour of the turf and say that it can be spotty.

But to me, the best conditioning for UK conditions, if it can be achieved on a particular property, is a multistand of fescues and browntops, playing firm and bouncy and with the characteristic spring under your feet. Not all golfers would agree.

The Temple story is well documented by longtime green chair Malcolm Peake in his books and articles. And there are plenty of other courses going down the same route. An interesting project is the ongoing renovation at the Wisley club, an RTJII-designed course (Kyle Phillips was the lead architect) in Surrey. Wisley is one of the few US-style private clubs in the country. They have now rebuilt two of the three nines, under Bobby and Bruce Charlton's supervision; the third will be done this year. Fairways were poa and have been regrassed with a traditional fescue/bent mix (greens are creeping bent). Time will tell whether they can keep the place dry enough to resist poa ingress - they have a very demanding membership, including loads of European Tour pros - but I would say that the conditioning of the new-look holes is _dramatically_ better than they were before, and certainly more sustainable.

[BCrosby]

Don -

Whatever sustainability means, isn't the first step down that road designing golf courses that can be maintained at a reasonable cost? Which brought to mind a prescient Doak post from 2006:

"I was having dinner with my wife the other night and talking about the state of our business when the truth suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks.  We've been dodging around it for months here but never coming to the big conclusion:

..... The truth is that our standards for construction and maintenance have become so costly that THEY don't work ... not the game of golf itself. ....200 courses are being built right now in America, and about 175 of them are being built to a standard that makes no sense.

If we don't come to our senses soon, we deserve to all go out of business.

There are lots of people right now to whom the economics don't matter....  It is not something we should be banking on long-term."

Me again: "Sustainability" was not a word used much in 2006, but I think Tom was warning about something very similar six years ago. As was Mike Young.


Bob

[Melvyn Morrow]

Don

Perhaps it may be advisable to define which areas in the world you are referring to as I do not actually concur with your general statement, well not here in GB

Melvyn

[Don_Mahaffey]

Melyvn,
It is a question, not a statement.

If I were to make a statement about the question, it would be, I believe that the use of sustainable practices does not automatically mean reduced conditions. With the caveat that we are using conditions to mean a playing surface for golf.

[Chris Johnston]

Don:

I think we Yanks have become way too tethered to over irrigation and over fertility as we perceive "lush" to mean good.  At Dismal, we relish green, yellow, and even brown which provide the firm and fast that we want. 

Funny thing, what we want is more cost effective but members also have to accept our goals wrt playability. 

[Melvyn Morrow]

Don

Surely golf courses were born out of the rough unwanted parts of the land only really habitable by sheep. So why have we suddenly gone away from sustainable land to produce these super expensive over cultivated manicured pieces of art more akin to a stately home garden than a golf course.

The best courses IMHO are still on easily sustainable land, generally greatly assisted by Nature with some helping from the hand of Man. 

It could, I believe be asked why we have deviated from the true configuration or perhaps the real concept of a golf course for all this fake and artificial settings which to be honest appears to be alien when associated with the game of golf.  Again is it not that question is the ‘Land fit for Purpose’ ?

Melvyn

[Tony Ristola]

I recall Royal Birkdale left the proven practices group.

It was back in the late 80's when Trevino stated something along the lines that Birkdale was receiving too much water, too much fertilizer and if they kept it up the pro's would shoot the lights out. Then came the 1991 Open and the then poa greens were too slow coming into the tournament, and mowing heights were reduced just prior to the tournament, and the greens were bumpy. Not long after that, the greens were excavated.

I do believe Royal Birkdale could be put down in the learning the hard way camp. First managed sustainably, then not for a couple decades, and then returning to proven principles.

I wonder how many courses were influenced by Augusta in the 60's and 70's to abandon proven practices?

[Bill Brightly]

Don:

I think we Yanks have become way too tethered to over irrigation and over fertility as we perceive "lush" to mean good.  At Dismal, we relish green, yellow, and even brown which provide the firm and fast that we want.  

Funny thing, what we want is more cost effective but members also have to accept our goals wrt playability.  

Chris is right, I'd say well over 95% of American golfers equate lush with good. The USGA is very slowly starting to change the mindset, but it will be years before any meaningful segment of the US golfing population begins to change its viewpoint, especially in the private clubs where huge maintenance budgets are the norm.

In the last year as Greens Chair at my club I tried to raise the topic and explain why a little brown is OK and the committeee looked at me like I had 3 heads. Our Superintendent quietly smirked as I crashed and burned. (He would support it, but he knows our membership...)

Funny thing happened the next week. I was cutting the grass at my office (I have a few small strips of grass and I'm too cheap to hire a landscaper) and my vice-chair (soon to be Greens chair) drove by, slowed down and yelled out the window: "Brightly, let it go brown!" Progress is slow, but I am hopeful!

[Tony Ristola]

Don:

I think we Yanks have become way too tethered to over irrigation and over fertility as we perceive "lush" to mean good.  At Dismal, we relish green, yellow, and even brown which provide the firm and fast that we want.  

Funny thing, what we want is more cost effective but members also have to accept our goals wrt playability.  

Chris is right, I'd say well over 95% of American golfers equate lush with good. The USGA is very slowly starting to change the mindset, but it will be years before any meaningful segment of the US golfing population begins to change its mindset, especially in the private clubs where huge maintenance budgets are the norm.

In the last year as Greens Chair at my club I tried to raise the topic and explain why a little brown is OK and the committeee looked at me like I had 3 heads. Our Superintendent quietly smirked as I crashed and burned. (He would support it, but he knows our membership...)

Funny thing happened the next week. I was cutting the grass at my office (I have a few small strips of grass and I'm too cheap to hire a landscaper) and my vice-chair (soon to be Greens chair) drove by, slowed down and yelled out the window: "Brightly, let it go brown!" Progress is slow, but I am hopeful!

Bill,
Hilarious.

Concerning maintenance, the US and Europe are like Venus and Mars. Funny enough, Canada seems to be somewhere in the middle.

[Jaeger Kovich]

Don - When are you going to start posting your pictures of 7-9-or-11 gang mowers being pulled by a tractor followed by the same tractor performing many other uses, versus all the expensive sit down mowers that only do 1 function, are expensive, and break down constantly?

I had an architecture professor in school who actually wore a shirt that said "Less is more".... In golf maintenance, isn't a huge part of the sustainable approach: Less, but more efficient machines, that perform multiple uses by a few well trained individuals.... Multitasking baby!

[Tom_Doak]

Don - When are you going to start posting your pictures of 7-9-or-11 gang mowers being pulled by a tractor followed by the same tractor performing many other uses, versus all the expensive sit down mowers that only do 1 function, are expensive, and break down constantly?

I had an architecture professor in school who actually wore a shirt that said "Less is more".... In golf maintenance, isn't a huge part of the sustainable approach: Less, but more efficient machines, that perform multiple uses by a few well trained individuals.... Multitasking baby!

Jaeger:

Believe it or not, Tom Mead actually got those tractor-pulled fairway mowers for High Pointe when it first opened.  The cutting units were top of the line [more blades on the reel, can't remember how many now] and the fairway cut was quite good.  Naturally, people thought we were nuts -- most of all the equipment salesmen!

[Jaeger Kovich]

Also... I am very sick of seeing so many different mow lines and heights on a golf course... Thanks PGA Tour!... Anything that isn't fairway, green or a single rough height should be gone. Its a waste of man hours, multiple pieces of equipment, fuel, all things that could be put to better uses oh.. and the stupid intermediate rough cut looks terrible more often than not.

2 examples I recently saw on a trip to California that do this really well are San Francisco Golf Club and The Cal Club of San Francisco. Less lines and more efficient use of everything, actually makes the places look better. The fewer lines that catch your eye the more emphasis is put on the large scale of these 2 environments and landscapes.

[Tom_Doak]

Also... I am very sick of seeing so many different mow lines and heights on a golf course... Thanks PGA Tour!... Anything that isn't fairway, green or a single rough height should be gone. Its a waste of man hours, multiple pieces of equipment, fuel, all things that could be put to better uses oh.. and the stupid intermediate rough cut looks terrible more often than not.

2 examples I recently saw on a trip to California that do this really well are San Francisco Golf Club and The Cal Club of San Francisco. Less lines and more efficient use of everything, actually makes the places look better. The fewer lines that catch your eye the more emphasis is put on the large scale of these 2 environments and landscapes.

Actually, I think it's the USGA in their US Open setups, rather than the Tour, which started the practice of having three graduated cuts of rough.  It's supposed to promote fairness, but it loses its luster when driving into the areas the crowd has trampled is better than being six feet off the fairway.

[Jaeger Kovich]

Don - When are you going to start posting your pictures of 7-9-or-11 gang mowers being pulled by a tractor followed by the same tractor performing many other uses, versus all the expensive sit down mowers that only do 1 function, are expensive, and break down constantly?

I had an architecture professor in school who actually wore a shirt that said "Less is more".... In golf maintenance, isn't a huge part of the sustainable approach: Less, but more efficient machines, that perform multiple uses by a few well trained individuals.... Multitasking baby!

Jaeger:

Believe it or not, Tom Mead actually got those tractor-pulled fairway mowers for High Pointe when it first opened.  The cutting units were top of the line [more blades on the reel, can't remember how many now] and the fairway cut was quite good.  Naturally, people thought we were nuts -- most of all the equipment salesmen!

It is such a smart idea. He is a huge advocate for tractors being a big part of golf course maintenance for a number of reasons, and rightfully so. We had a 10 minute conversation in the office about that when he came that one afternoon to do his presentation for us. I showed him a picture of Don M on Mike Nuzzo's blog with one in Texas... He already had stolen that same picture for somewhere else and put it in his powerpoint! (shhh!)

[Jeff_Brauer]

Yeah, but the fairness of a US Open course is absolutely necessary when a club member is playing a $2 Nassau, no?

One of the funniest things I ever heard was one of the Tour pros (shall remain nameless to protect the guilty) at a remodel project.  Some woman goes on and on to him about how she lost the 19XX club championship on the XXth hole because of some unfair feature....

He reaches in his pocket, hands her a quarter, and tells her to go call someone who gives a Sh*#........

[Greg Tallman]

Don - When are you going to start posting your pictures of 7-9-or-11 gang mowers being pulled by a tractor followed by the same tractor performing many other uses, versus all the expensive sit down mowers that only do 1 function, are expensive, and break down constantly?

I had an architecture professor in school who actually wore a shirt that said "Less is more".... In golf maintenance, isn't a huge part of the sustainable approach: Less, but more efficient machines, that perform multiple uses by a few well trained individuals.... Multitasking baby!

Went that route down here immediately following the downturn. It does have its drawbacks (need a triplex to go back and clean up some tigh spots) but overall is beneficial to the overall cost savings measure.

[Jaeger Kovich]

Also... I am very sick of seeing so many different mow lines and heights on a golf course... Thanks PGA Tour!... Anything that isn't fairway, green or a single rough height should be gone. Its a waste of man hours, multiple pieces of equipment, fuel, all things that could be put to better uses oh.. and the stupid intermediate rough cut looks terrible more often than not.

2 examples I recently saw on a trip to California that do this really well are San Francisco Golf Club and The Cal Club of San Francisco. Less lines and more efficient use of everything, actually makes the places look better. The fewer lines that catch your eye the more emphasis is put on the large scale of these 2 environments and landscapes.

Actually, I think it's the USGA in their US Open setups, rather than the Tour, which started the practice of having three graduated cuts of rough.  It's supposed to promote fairness, but it loses its luster when driving into the areas the crowd has trampled is better than being six feet off the fairway.

Just another example of why golf and fairness do not go together. What a waste of resources, especially when most clubs think its a bright idea to copy that way of thinking.

[Greg Tallman]

Also... I am very sick of seeing so many different mow lines and heights on a golf course... Thanks PGA Tour!... Anything that isn't fairway, green or a single rough height should be gone. Its a waste of man hours, multiple pieces of equipment, fuel, all things that could be put to better uses oh.. and the stupid intermediate rough cut looks terrible more often than not.

2 examples I recently saw on a trip to California that do this really well are San Francisco Golf Club and The Cal Club of San Francisco. Less lines and more efficient use of everything, actually makes the places look better. The fewer lines that catch your eye the more emphasis is put on the large scale of these 2 environments and landscapes.

Actually, I think it's the USGA in their US Open setups, rather than the Tour, which started the practice of having three graduated cuts of rough.  It's supposed to promote fairness, but it loses its luster when driving into the areas the crowd has trampled is better than being six feet off the fairway.

Just another example of why golf and fairness do not go together. What a waste of resources, especially when most clubs think its a bright idea to copy that way of thinking.

Had to fight taht idea here when it was being argued that it would benefit our image. If a golfer needs a 2 meter strip of 1 inch cut onland laying along a mile of the most expensinve coastal land around then something is very wrong... we did not institute the intermediate cut. Nt that it would not "look" better to the average player but based on what does it truly ADD.

[Dave McCollum]

One more comment on the long, long uphill battle to educate American golfers.  We hold the first significant amateur tournament of the year here in Idaho.  The tourney is always mid-March which means it’s a crap shoot on the weather.  Even so, we usually get 80 guys with handicaps of less than five.  This year the event happened to fall on St. Patrick’s Day.  I made an Irish themed poster to promote the event.  The copy had a few lines like “welcome to the old links,” fast and firm conditions making the course play as links-like as it ever will, “Irish up and embrace the conditions,” and so on.  Although the weather and course conditions were completely beyond our control and more or less the same as they are every year, a few of our members, very good players, were bitching:  “there goes Dave again, trying to turn this place into goat track.”  Not only do they not get my little newsletter blogs about “brown is beautiful” or whatever, they act like I’ve insulted their religion.
 
Oh yeah, it was cold, blew hard, rained sideways, sleeted, and generally had fine Irish weather for the occasion.  We sent out free shots of Jameson’s to warm the hardy lads.

[Greg Tallman]

One more comment on the long, long uphill battle to educate American golfers.  We hold the first significant amateur tournament of the year here in Idaho.  The tourney is always mid-March which means it’s a crap shoot on the weather.  Even so, we usually get 80 guys with handicaps of less than five.  This year the event happened to fall on St. Patrick’s Day.  I made an Irish themed poster to promote the event.  The copy had a few lines like “welcome to the old links,” fast and firm conditions making the course play as links-like as it ever will, “Irish up and embrace the conditions,” and so on.  Although the weather and course conditions were completely beyond our control and more or less the same as they are every year, a few of our members, very good players, were bitching:  “there goes Dave again, trying to turn this place into goat track.”  Not only do they not get my little newsletter blogs about “brown is beautiful” or whatever, they act like I’ve insulted their religion.
 
Oh yeah, it was cold, blew hard, rained sideways, sleeted, and generally had fine Irish weather for the occasion.  We sent out free shots of Jameson’s to warm the hardy lads.

Try being called a "f-ing idiot" by a guest who then threatens you with Trip Advisor, Twitter, Facebook.. etc.  Tis the world in which we live. 

[Sean_A]

Whenever we have a discussion about sustainable golf, we always seem to talk about a lower level of course conditions. Does the use of sustainability always mean our courses will have a reduced level of conditioning?

Are there examples of courses adopting sustainability and suffering from reduced conditions?
Are there any examples of the opposite, courses adopting sustainable principles and increasing the level of conditioning?

Don

I am not sure if money is part of sustainability.  But I can see where decreasing the budget can lead to better conditions and I can also see where increasing the budget (more labour) can lead to better conditions.  Much of it depends on where a club is in the curve of f&f.  This is why I continuously get back to the question of padding the feed/water of a course so as to not ride the fence too much.  What percentage of fat do supers usually allow so as to avoid a crash and burn situation?  This is where extra labour comes in quite handy if a super wants to push the limits.  Again, none of this may have anything to do with sustainability per se except in "training" the turf not to expect much to survive.  

In any case, a primary goal of sustainability is creating an atmosphere of tolerance when there are blemishes here and there.  If a super is going to run lean one must expect low key problem areas that don't really effect play, but may not be terribly attractive.  I believe its a give and take situation which pays off in the long run.

Ciao  

[George Pazin]

One more comment on the long, long uphill battle to educate American golfers.  We hold the first significant amateur tournament of the year here in Idaho.  The tourney is always mid-March which means it’s a crap shoot on the weather.  Even so, we usually get 80 guys with handicaps of less than five.  This year the event happened to fall on St. Patrick’s Day.  I made an Irish themed poster to promote the event.  The copy had a few lines like “welcome to the old links,” fast and firm conditions making the course play as links-like as it ever will, “Irish up and embrace the conditions,” and so on.  Although the weather and course conditions were completely beyond our control and more or less the same as they are every year, a few of our members, very good players, were bitching:  “there goes Dave again, trying to turn this place into goat track.”  Not only do they not get my little newsletter blogs about “brown is beautiful” or whatever, they act like I’ve insulted their religion.
 
Oh yeah, it was cold, blew hard, rained sideways, sleeted, and generally had fine Irish weather for the occasion.  We sent out free shots of Jameson’s to warm the hardy lads.

Sounds like a great event to me.

I don't know that the following observation has any bearing on this thread, but I think it kinda does, in a roundabout way: Golfers don't really want to play a challenging course, condition-wise, they just want others to think it is.

Fast and soft seems tough to lesser golfers, but for better golfers, it is quite easy. Anything and firm is much better than anything and soft, imho. I love the bounce of the ball, but so many more seem to prefer drop and stop, as it eliminates a variable.

[Bill Brightly]

 

I don't know that the following observation has any bearing on this thread, but I think it kinda does, in a roundabout way: Golfers don't really want to play a challenging course, condition-wise, they just want others to think it is.

Fast and soft seems tough to lesser golfers, but for better golfers, it is quite easy. Anything and firm is much better than anything and soft, imho. I love the bounce of the ball, but so many more seem to prefer drop and stop, as it eliminates a variable.

Sean,

I think there is a HUGE difference between what really good US and UK players want in course set ups. My guess is that UK players have long ago learned to accept the randomness of bounces and lies. Good US players want none of that! They want the fast part, but not the firm part .

They will accept 8 inch rough, lightning fast (consistent) greens (as long as the ball spins and does not bounce,) ponds, streams, and deep bunkers (if well-groomed.) They don't really give a damn about approaches because they are flying everything to the pin, but if they do have to lay up, they are probably accustomed to flopping their 60 degree wedge off of hand-mowed (overwatered) approaches.

[Jon Wiggett]

 

I don't know that the following observation has any bearing on this thread, but I think it kinda does, in a roundabout way: Golfers don't really want to play a challenging course, condition-wise, they just want others to think it is.

Fast and soft seems tough to lesser golfers, but for better golfers, it is quite easy. Anything and firm is much better than anything and soft, imho. I love the bounce of the ball, but so many more seem to prefer drop and stop, as it eliminates a variable.

Sean,

I think there is a HUGE difference between what really good US and UK players want in course set ups. My guess is that UK players have long ago learned to accept the randomness of bounces and lies.

Bill,

that is what makes the game really interesting and fun