Tom Simpson on Fairway to Rough transitions

[Tony Ristola]

I frequently use this quote of Tom Simpson when I explain to classic courses what kind of fairway to rough transitions I am looking for:

"There should never be a line of demarcation which divides the fairway from the rough. It can serve no possible purpose; it is inartistic and reflects no credit  on the work of the staff. The eye ought to be unable to detect where the fairway ends and the rough begins, even if the fairway consists of grass and the rough of heather. It is quite simple to obtain this result, although it may take a little more time"

Tom unfortunately never expands on how "it is quite simple to obtain this result", and even though I have discussed it with many greenkeepers I have not found the simple way of achieving this result.

Any bright ideas in this forum?

Animals. Goats/sheep. Look at where they have been penned and you see clumps of grass within their mowing work.

Otherwise I think you need really sandy soil for this so the rough is thin and need be mown infrequently.

[Sean_A]

The only way I have seen which really masks transitions lines is for rough areas to appear randomly and taking advantage of varying textures. 






Of course, this is merely an appearance issue.  I think it is quite important, but also understand that the places this sort of thing will be best illustrated is at down home clubs where it really isn't as much a practiced matter as much as a practical matter. Nearly every big name club fails miserably at this sort of thing.

Ciao 

[Tim Gallant]

Bumping this thread!


I have been thinking more and more of the mowing lines at my home course and wanted to see if there were any cited examples (with photos if possible) of courses who are doing this right! I'll try to post a few photos of good and bad examples in the coming days!

[Tom_Doak]

One of my superintendent friends looked at my pictures of courses in the UK, and when I asked him how we could blur the mowing lines like they did, he responded:  "dull mower blades".  Sure enough, in the UK some of the texture creeps out of the deep rough into the mowed areas because of just that ... bents and reeds that don't cut well with reel mowers.


Mr. Sims suggested another method:  spilling some of the rough seed mixture into the mowed areas.


In America, though, for every one golfer who appreciates this there are five maintenance guys trying to spray out the weeds!

[Mark_Fine]

I love the idea but good luck on this with bent grass fairways and blue/rye grass rough.  If you play some public muni course with one type of grass and one type of mower it is pretty easy to do 

[Thomas Dai]

How much would have been formal 'mowing' and how much was munching by sheep, cattle, goats, horses etc in Simpsons day?
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