Who designs the best greens of the modern architects?

[Mike_Young]

I'm going Mike Nuzzo, Rob Collins,  and Mike Riley.

Sam,
Heartless.  You hurt my feelings so badly I can't even eat a doughnut...

[Jim Hoak]

I would echo C/C.  Creative but still playable.  Never a silly contoured green that I know of.  Leave those for putt-putt.

[Joe Hancock]

Jim,

Those comments are interesting. I would love to hear your examples of greens that are contoured silly, or only fit for putt putt. I'm serious in wondering, because I find my preferences to be potentially opposite...as long as those silly, or "putt putt" contours give me real options while approaching, chipping or putting. If I have a chip shot, for example, that gives me the opportunity to aim 90 degrees offline and still get it close, I'm going there....just for fun. My score rarely matters when I play, but if I'm in a match, I'll play more conservative, and usually not for the betterment of my score. It just isn't natural for me.

Joe

[Mark_Fine]

Joe,
This list of silly "putt putt" greens out there is endless!  No names need to be mentioned.  A few here and there are fine during a round but a steady stream of them and it gets goofy.  I realize it is a way to "defend par" but it gets old fast. 

[Sam Morrow]

I'm going Mike Nuzzo, Rob Collins,  and Mike Riley.

Sam,
Heartless.  You hurt my feelings so badly I can't even eat a doughnut...

Sorry I'm only interested in members of a certain organization.

[Joe Hancock]

Mark,

Can you expound a bit as to why you think that way? Why does it "get old'? For instance, I find the typical, flat-ish, "fair" greens bore me to tears, likely because I'm not trying for a score, I'm looking for an adventurous route to the hole. Contours as a defense, rather than an option, don't seem typical when people describe wild greens. Can you cite an example please? I have built plenty of greens, many of my own design, and I hope to better understand whether my own preferences are too far out there, or if comments like yours and Jim Hoaks' are a case of the pendulum being on the other side of plumb from mine, so to speak....

Joe

[Jim Hoak]

Joe, I agree with Mark's thoughts.  I prefer not to knock any specific courses, but I do find many modern courses have "silly" greens.  And some modern architects use them too often.
Obviously, greens should have some contours; truly flat greens on 18 holes would be boring.  But I prefer limited contours--things like a spine running from the front of the green to the back should be used more.  A spine running across the green, creating two tiers, is fine, but not on too many of the 18  holes.  A Biarritz green is great--on no more than one of the holes--similar thought for some of the other classic type greens.
What I would consider "silly" is when there are too many conflicting things done with contours on almost all the greens--contours going every which way, slopes out of control, humps in the middle of the green for no natural purpose, etc.  I  just like to see control and discretion on the part of the designer.
Personally, I like the greens, for example, at Pebble Beach--small, well-protected, simple slopes, but never unreasonable.  They look like they are just a part of the land--not manufactured by someone.

[Mark_Fine]

Good comments Jim!

Joe,
We all love for example, The Himalayas Putting Course at St. Andrews, but I sure wouldn’t want a steady diet of those kind of greens on my golf course.  Nor are they necessary to make greens challenging and interesting.  And please, don’t use the word “fair”!  It has nothing to do with “fair” and actually that word should be banned from any description of golf architecture but let’s not digress.  Watch the tournament this weekend at Riviera CC and tell me if George Thomas’ greens are “boring”.  The other thing you might do is go watch golfers putt (at any course or on any greens) and then tell me if you still think you need wild and crazy to make greens challenging and interesting for the far majority of golfers.  

Maybe you are a great putter and as such you feel the need to make your greens super challenging?  I like to think I am a pretty good putter myself as a 2 or 3 handicapper, but what I can tell you is that greens don’t need to be over the top to be exceptional as well as challenging and interesting day in and day out for most golfers.  Love Cove's are a perfect example.

Mark

[Joe Hancock]

Jim and Mark,

Thanks for clarifying your thoughts and preferences. Mine may be different, but at least I can better understand others' positions on what is, generally, regarded as good design, or not.

Mark,

If you've read many of my posts, you should realize that "super challenging" is about as far as the east is from the west when it comes to my preferences pertaining to golf design. I tend to think about things like accessible routes, fun and adventure.

Thanks again for the responses,

Joe

[Peter Pallotta]

It's so hard to talk about meaningfully, it seems to me. Who knows the nature and the number of choices/options player X (call him 'Joe') can visualize and execute on/around a green that player Y (call him 'Peter') can't. Expanding the discussion to include fairway widths and angles into greens seems crucial, but I don't think it is. Instead, it's mainly a means by which those heavily contoured greens that one happens to like (in and of themselves) can be 'defended' in terms of their supposed relationship to the available/likely approach shots.  I don't play anywhere near the number of golf courses the rest of you do, but I've never encountered a single 'silly' green.  What I have experienced instead is very often finding that I'm player Y, and simply can't visualize/choose/execute the means through which I'm most likely to get the ball in the hole in the fewest possible strokes.

Peter

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

I think that Mr Doaks green at the Rennaisance club are my favorite set og greens built in the past 20 years.
Subtle by his standards and because of that certainly more playable from a scorecard perspective. As much fun as the greens at Ballyneal are, I would not want to play them in a medal round.

[Tom_Doak]

I think that Mr Doaks green at the Rennaisance club are my favorite set og greens built in the past 20 years.
Subtle by his standards and because of that certainly more playable from a scorecard perspective. As much fun as the greens at Ballyneal are, I would not want to play them in a medal round.

Ballyneal doesn't have medal rounds!

[Mike Nuzzo]

Thank you Tom for your comments about Long Cove.

Regarding Mr. Dye and not directed to anyone.
I've been to Casa de Campo, The Golf Club, Sawgrass, Kiawah & Whistling Straights.
I am having a hard time remembering the original putting surfaces.
Which greens stand out?
Were the greens at The Golf Club redone?

The ones that stand out most were at Teeth of the dog, but I remember those as slightly artificial / man made.


Mark & Jim what are your thoughts of the greens at The Old Course and Pine Valley?
How do those compare to the silly ones?

Cheers

[Don Mahaffey]

Mark,
How many times have the greens at Riviera been resurfaced/rebuilt since George Thomas built them?

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

I think that Mr Doaks green at the Rennaisance club are my favorite set og greens built in the past 20 years.
Subtle by his standards and because of that certainly more playable from a scorecard perspective. As much fun as the greens at Ballyneal are, I would not want to play them in a medal round.

Ballyneal doesn't have medal rounds!

I understand that Tom, but my remarks are still valid,one can always say what if😉
I appreciate that the greens were built with FUN being Ruperts primary focus and as such success but that doesn't make the fact that their severity of fun😳makes them too challenging for a medal round n'est pas?

[Tom_Doak]

I understand that Tom, but my remarks are still valid,one can always say what if😉
I appreciate that the greens were built with FUN being Ruperts primary focus and as such success but that doesn't make the fact that their severity of fun😳makes them too challenging for a medal round n'est pas?

Michael:

There are guys I wouldn't bother engaging on this subject, but I am happy to engage you.  I don't understand your perspective so I hope you can enlighten me.

Is the purpose of a medal competition to (a) beat the other competitors, or (b) shoot a number you're happy with?

The greens at Ballyneal are indeed severe.  However, when we say "severe" what we mean is that they PUNISH improper positioning, which is another way of saying they REWARD correct positioning "too much".  If you know the greens and the hole locations, there are always places to be and places NOT TO BE, and the more you avoid the latter the better you'll fare in the competition.

What part of that do I have wrong?

[Mark_Fine]

Mike,
I LOVE the greens at both The Old Course and Pine Valley.  I also love the greens at North Berwick (some of them are as wild as could be) but NOT all of them.  The same goes for Pine Valley.  The second at PV is probably the most wild of the 18 but outside of that one, none of them are silly (severe yes) but not silly.  The Old Course is The Old Course and it is unique to itself. As much as I love the greens there, I wouldn't advocate trying to build greens like that on every golf course.

Don,
Good question about Riviera and I don't know the answer.  The 6th hole of course has the wildest green with the bunker in the center but that is really three greens in one.  If you are on the wrong side of that bunker you are essentially on the wrong green (in a hazardous area) and you have to deal with it.  Some times you can still putt and use the contour to get the ball somewhere close to the hole.  Again, I would not call any of those greens silly.  However, if every green at Riviera offered the challenge of #6 (be it a bunker or a huge mound in the middle) I would definitely call them silly!

I have played some sets of greens where almost every one has a shelf, or a buried elephant, or a huge swale, and frankly it gets old.  The game is hard enough and when it is nearly impossible to two putt (or sometimes even three putt), it gets old.  

Look at the greens at Sand Hills, I love most of them as well.  They are definitely severe (and some are wild) but I wouldn't describe them as silly.  

Wasn't it Dove Mountain where even half the pros were three putting three or four times every round.  I think most of us here know when greens are over the top and border on silly!

[Jim Hoak]

I agree with Mark again.  I love the greens at The Old Course and Pine Valley.  Some of them are difficult, and that's ok.  It's just when there is "too much going on" on the greens--and they are all 18 nearly that way, that I label what is being done as silly.  Save that sort of thing for practice greens--or miniature golf.

[Mark_Fine]

Like with most things associated with golf architecture, there are few rights and wrongs.  We all have our opinions and that is what they are - opinions. 

I think greens like those at Merion are outstanding (wish they didn't change two of them just for the U.S. Open) but they needed five pin positions on every green     Some of the greens at Merion are simple but complex at the same time.  Flynn was actually pretty darn good at that.  As I said at the start, I happen to think Pete Dye is pretty darn good at that as well and Long Cove is one great example!

[Tim Leahy]

I always loved the way RT Jones Sr rewarded placement on his greens.

[Josh Bills]

I appreciate the more undulating greens.  Of the moderns I enjoy C/C and Doak. 

However, though limited in courses played, I enjoyed Jim Engh's Awarii Dunes greens like this as they made me figure out not only where the flag was, but which way is the best approach to get the ball close, high with spin, punch into the hill, run it up, so many options:



I enjoy PB Dye's greens at Urbana CC, that are also very undulating, like this great green at the par 5, 4th hole.  Same questions from the fairway, what's the best way to find the hole location on any given day.



I appreciate Tom Doak's greens especially the 11th at Dismal Red, where I had to aim for the slope on the side of the green to get from the back to the front pin location.  I also enjoyed watching Lou Duran use the mound behind the pin on 4th hole versus trying to hit a precision shot into the slope and stop it on the top tier. 

A little bit of luck and dropping a bomb on a green like these is more fun than any flat boring green.  Analyzing and figuring the best type of approach shot not only makes the approach matter more it keeps one more engaged in the round.  I appreciate the same quirkiness in the ODGs too.  There are unfortunately many, such as Mr. DeVries, etc. that I have not had the fortune of playing, yet, but those greens at Kingsley look like fun to me as well. 

[Mike Nuzzo]

Mark
Were an advocate for softening the 2nd green at Pine Valley because it was too silly?

Please give an example where the greens in total were overdone and are more silly than they should be.
I have having a hard time understanding your descriptions.

Cheers

[Mark_Fine]

Mike,
I would NOT be an advocate of softening the 2nd green at Pine Valley (if that is what you are asking).  But just think what Pine Valley would be like if all 18 greens were as wild as that one 😳

I prefer not to mention any more specific courses (I already mentioned one in Dove Canyon).  Be clear, I personally love to play challenging undulating greens.  For example I recently played both the Red and Blue Courses at Streamsong and loved both of them.  What I don't like is repetitiveness, dramatic undulation for the sake of undulation, green contouring that is disconnected from the surrounds, ...and so on. 

Let me try one more example; As a whole, I love the greens at Somerset Hills but if all 18 of them were like #5, I would think the greens were just silly and overly contrived.  A few like #5 are fine but if they all looked like that it would be too much quirkiness for me.  

There are courses out there with too much quirkiness.  Just my opinion.  

But back to the original point of the post, I happen to think Pete Dye (having personally seen dozens and dozens of his courses) builds truly outstanding greens on a consistent basis.  

[jeffwarne]

Is Long Cove riding carts only?

No, sir. At least when I was there, nearly 45% was walking. Lots of push carts.

When I worked there in the late 80's it was 100% riding, cart paths only.(centipede roughs couldn't handle traffic)
In fact one of the big breaks of my career came when a member lamented there were no caddies available for him to walk.
i caddied for him and his wife, began teaching them, and unbeknownst to me he was a very influential(and vocal) person in golf.

Anthony is correct that there is now a pretty large walking culture there.
Wonderful set of greens that were extremely challenging even in the days of running 8.

[Mike Nuzzo]

Mark
The 2nd green was softened at Pine Valley.
My response to your original point was that the Dye green surfaces I've seen have not been outstanding - even on his best courses.
It sounds like you are also describing conditions/green speeds as a factor to making a green silly.
Cheers