[Josh Stevens]

Is there an objective measure for fairway speed and/or firmness?

Summer down here and my home track is currently going through phase where wintergreen Bermuda fairways have been mowed down to the nub.  Hard as a rock and very quick.  Makes for interesting golf as balls bounce and run into all sorts of trouble, but not sure if there is a benchmark with which to compare.

[Matt Day]

Josh
The Clegg hammer maybe something of interest? I think the AFL uses this for playing surface testing

http://www.turf-tec.com/Clegg.html

[jeffwarne]

Is there an objective measure for fairway speed and/or firmness?

Summer down here and my home track is currently going through phase where wintergreen Bermuda fairways have been mowed down to the nub.  Hard as a rock and very quick.  Makes for interesting golf as balls bounce and run into all sorts of trouble, but not sure if there is a benchmark with which to compare.

Get a good ruler and measure that thing between your legs, cause that's what the stimp has become, especially for one who would want to stimp fairways.

They have a "Thumpmeter" which the USGA used to measure our green's firmness before the Mid-am. Such a devive would be best used on one of their heads

[Philip Hensley]

Get a good ruler and measure that thing between your legs, cause that's what the stimp has become, especially for one who would want to stimp fairways.

Looks like I'm stimping at a 2.5, and I measured from back under my ProV1s.

[jeffwarne]

Get a good ruler and measure that thing between your legs, cause that's what the stimp has become, especially for one who would want to stimp fairways.

Looks like I'm stimping at a 2.5, and I measured from the back.

Good to hear my post didn't get you too excited
Play it forward?

[Philip Hensley]

Get a good ruler and measure that thing between your legs, cause that's what the stimp has become, especially for one who would want to stimp fairways.

Looks like I'm stimping at a 2.5, and I measured from the back.

Good to hear my post didn't get you too excited
Play it forward?

2.5 IS excited. F&F

[John Connolly]

Is there an objective measure for fairway speed and/or firmness?

Summer down here and my home track is currently going through phase where wintergreen Bermuda fairways have been mowed down to the nub.  Hard as a rock and very quick.  Makes for interesting golf as balls bounce and run into all sorts of trouble, but not sure if there is a benchmark with which to compare.

Get a good ruler and measure that thing between your legs, cause that's what the stimp has become, especially for one who would want to stimp fairways.

They have a "Thumpmeter" which the USGA used to measure our green's firmness before the Mid-am. Such a devive would be best used on one of their heads

I'm not sure I agree that it's a bad thing. I can see value in having an objective assessment of whether attempts at getting fairways (and greens) firm and fast are working. It's one thing for members to send off verbal volleys as to how soft or how hard the fairways are and have the super respond to those opinions. It's quite another to have data to reflect what players are actually experiencing. Math beats the "well, I think" every single time.

[jeffwarne]

John,
We'll have to just agree to disagree.
There's definite logic in your post though.
I think quantifying it has been a bad thing for greens and would be equally bad for fairways.
Quantifying a green speed leads to an arms race of absolute speed and puts the emphasis on (perceived ) maintenance at the expense of creative and interesting design, and often leads to destruction of previously good design.

Super fast(from height of cut-not talking about firm) fairways have already begun to take the joy out of and need for chipping, and make it nearly impossible to keep a ball on a tilted or sloped fairway.

[John Connolly]

Jeff,

Fair enough - the speed race had its negative impact on design by nullifying bold green contouring. And it would follow that a similar threat exists for fairways. But why blame the messenger? Even had the stimpmeter not been invented, wouldn't the enchantment with speed on putting surfaces continued nonetheless? I haven't seen data that indicate green speeds were only increasing after Mr Stimpson's creation of 1935. In fact, the reason he invented it was to prove the Oakmont greens had become too fast - whatever that may mean. My point is, desire for speedier greens may have (probably?) preceded the omnipresent and en vogue stimpmeter readings. Not necessarily the other way around. Necessity is the mother of invention after all.

Measuring, quantifying, understanding is all part of the human affliction, er, um condition.

[Jon Wiggett]

I guess when they start stimping the tees it will be time to quit Back in the real world.....

[Anthony_Nysse]

I guess when they start stimping the tees it will be time to quit Back in the real world.....

A few years back, when our tees were Tifeagle, we would stimp for kicks and giggles. You'd be surprised what a groom, mow and sand can do on a tee mowed at .185" in early spring. There was once even a few cups cut on the tee surfaces. Maintenance nightmare. Glad we took he tifeagle out.

[Josh Stevens]

But it is fair to say that while green speeds have increased, fairways speeds have decreased.  Perhaps as a result of a combination of wishing things to look green and an attempt to combat distance.

Aside from making courses longer, this also has the impact of reducing the propensity of balls to roll off fairway contours down into flat spots.  This has two impacts, perhaps it reduces the propensity for balls to collect in certain areas and so create problems with divots, but also increases the propensity for balls to sit on slopes and thus present more interesting lies.

Does this impact on design?  Would people be prepared to develop more interesting fairway contours as a result of slower fairways?

[Jon Wiggett]

Josh,

fairways are being maintained at lower HOC than ever and often over maintained. If they are slower I suspect this can only be to over watering. In the end who cares how slow or fast the fairway is it is its firmness or lack of it that would concern me.

Anthony, 

[Adam Lawrence]

I have a pretty clear memory of the BBC reporting that the fairways were running faster than the greens during the 2005 St Andrews Open.

[Andrew Hardy]

The fact that this topic is even on here is downright wrong. I can assure you not one golf course was ever built with "fairway speed" in mind. Completely ridiculous.

[Josh Stevens]

So with that amazingly asinine generalisation, you have never found yourself with a ball hanging up on a slope on the fairway offering a tricky lie, rather than  running down into a dell and offering a simple lie.

You have never stood on the tee of a hard running links and wondered what that the hell that  funny bunker was doing way out there that no one could possibly get into, without recognising that when your tee shot lands it will run 80m and so actually that funny little bunker is actually in play. 

You have never stood on the tee and thought that anything remotely off line is going to run into the shit, rather than just plopping where it lands.

You need to get out more.

[Andrew Hardy]

So with that amazingly asinine generalisation, you have never found yourself with a ball hanging up on a slope on the fairway offering a tricky lie, rather than  running down into a dell and offering a simple lie.

You have never stood on the tee of a hard running links and wondered what that the hell that  funny bunker was doing way out there that no one could possibly get into, without recognising that when your tee shot lands it will run 80m and so actually that funny little bunker is actually in play. 

You have never stood on the tee and thought that anything remotely off line is going to run into the shit, rather than just plopping where it lands.

You need to get out more.

Asinine? What ever happened to the rub of the green? The get out more is funny, thank you.

[Josh Stevens]

Sorry, that was rude and abrupt Andrew. I've had a glass or two. I apologise

I agree that on 90% of courses any of us will ever play, fairway speed is irrelevant.  But on 10% it is very relevant.  Fast firm turf makes the fairways narrower, brings the hazards nearer and makes the slopes more of an impact on where the ball ends up.

If you have ever played Rye in the summer you will know what this is like.  Adam was correct I think or at least so it was reported that the fairways at TOC were harder and faster than the greens.  Probably not true, but certainly sufficiently close to make it a conversation worth having.

Imagine if your regular US or Australian park land course had fairways that hard. You might as well issue every group with a chainsaw.

[Andrew Hardy]

It was the 2005 Open where fairways ran 11.5. Stimpmeters on fairways can be equal to using them on greens. Greens built in the early 1900's aren't meant to run at today's expected speeds. Fairways are the same in my opinion. I work on a very heavily forested property with a lot of roll and contour on fairways. Though we manage water for firmer conditions, I agree that narrow fairways and tree lined holes are not conducive to "fast" fairways. So that we can agree on. I'm looking at stimping fairways from a time perspective for staff. I know I don't have time for it, and am unsure what that number does to the average player.

[Josh Stevens]

If memory serves, I recall listening to a "State of the game" podcast a few years back after the Open at Muirfield. Shackelford related a story where he was standing behind the tee listening to Mickelson and his caddy debating whether it was a 5 iron or 6 iron in order to pull up short of a bunker 270 yards out.

At the Scottish open I think  last year at Royal Aberdeen, Rory drove the green on a 470 yard par four.

Extreme examples perhaps, but I can only imagine fairway speed played a reasonably large part on how those holes  were designed and played.

[jeffwarne]

If memory serves, I recall listening to a "State of the game" podcast a few years back after the Open at Muirfield. Shackelford related a story where he was standing behind the tee listening to Mickelson and his caddy debating whether it was a 5 iron or 6 iron in order to pull up short of a bunker 270 yards out.

At the Scottish open I think  last year at Royal Aberdeen, Rory drove the green on a 470 yard par four.

Extreme examples perhaps, but I can only imagine fairway speed played a reasonably large part on how those holes  were designed and played.

I don't think anyone is disputing that a long bounce out/roll is fun.
We just don't want to see quantifying the speed-leading to super low height of cut and yes ROLLING fairways(it's already done) become commonplace to keep to meet the competitive demands from nearby courses of a fairway stimp meter, which would eventually wreak the same design havoc upon our fairways that it has on our greens.

If your course turns off the water and the stimp goes up great.
Many places achieve higher stimps with incredibly unsustainable inputs which are needed to keep bent grass alive at a ridiculous tight height of cut.

As Sean states on the other thread, let's maintain within a reasonable budget for healthy turf and enjoy the periods where the turf is firm and running, rather than becoming a slave to a device that dictates we take unreasonable, extreme measures to meet a mythical quantifable speed objective when conditions may not be conducive to that.

[Josh Stevens]

But not all courses have the ability to find that happy medium

Rye is the classic case. They do not have a retic system for the fairways and so in the summer, the fairways just get crazy as a natural cycle.  As a result the nature of the course changes.  Wide strategic fairways can suddenly cease to be so when they are fast as the risk of aiming for the edges is too great if you cant control how far the ball will roll. And so you just aim down the guts.  fairway speed can turn a course 180 degrees.

[Joe Hancock]

Just what we need. More data to feed the human need to manipulate the conditions.

Joe

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