Green Speeds: Then and Now

[Peter Pallotta]

Mike - I was half joking, but I have a feeling (never having played in your neck of the woods) that the climate and soils and grass types used there, especially at higher end clubs, produce greens that play a lot differently than the sort of bumpy, sort of shaggy, sort of patchy greens on offer at many of the modest publics I golf at, especially early in the season. I'm not complaining, mind you, just pointing out my view that the fast greens the pros play on are actually much easier to putt. Like Lee Trevino once said: before he came on tour he didn't consider himself a great putter, until he saw what for him were the pristine and true running greens the pros played on and thought to himself "how the hell does anyone ever MISS a putt on greens like these?".
Peter

[Brent Hutto]

Maybe we're all just tools of the corporate lust to sell stuff. But go anywhere in golf, anywhere except on this forum and say the following:

Golfers generally prefer courses with fast and smooth greens.

Nowhere will you get disagreement. That is so obviously true that it generally is taken for granted. I know we all like to say and defend counter intuitive things or puncture widely held assumptions. But seriously guys, you're pissing into the wind on this one. Faster greens are popular and greens are faster now than they were 30, 40, 50 years ago. Go find another supposed myth to bust because this dog won't hunt.

[Mike_Young]

Peter,
I was joking at your joking

But I agree with your thought process regarding putting.  The older slower grainy greens required a more complete player to win.  The ability to sense the speed with grain, against grain or across grain helped to elevate the skills of the shotmakers much more than today where imperfections have been eliminated.

[Mike_Young]

Maybe we're all just tools of the corporate lust to sell stuff. But go anywhere in golf, anywhere except on this forum and say the following:

Golfers generally prefer courses with fast and smooth greens.

Nowhere will you get disagreement. That is so obviously true that it generally is taken for granted. I know we all like to say and defend counter intuitive things or puncture widely held assumptions. But seriously guys, you're pissing into the wind on this one. Faster greens are popular and greens are faster now than they were 30, 40, 50 years ago. Go find another supposed myth to bust because this dog won't hunt.

Brent,
I agree with you BUT it needs to stop and go no further.  The only sport I have seen go backwards with equipment lately is college baseball.  Golf will not do that but they can say no more....

[BCowan]

No Mike,

you got it right first time in my book. It was industry driving the speed of greens as it is a way to create more turnover. Anybody who knows anything about advertising knows it is advertising that drives customer demand.

Jon

Jon,

   I disagree with you completely.  I have never seen a course in a magazine advertise ''We have fast greens''.   When you ask more than half the golfers after they play a course how it was.  The first reply is often how fast or slow the greens were.  Consumers drive the demand.  Advertising is a way to get your product or service to the consumer.  The problem is people don't understand for some reason that certain heavily contoured greens turn into Mickey Mouse at 11+ on the stimp. 

Question I have as it pertains to the Stimpmeter, was it originally designed as a tool to enable the keeper to get all greens rolling at the same pace?  A way to make each green consistent with rest?

[Steve Okula]

Every Tour pro I ever talked to say that faster greens require more skill than slow ones.

That advertising is to blame for faster greens is total nonsense. I have yet to see an advertisement that promotes a golf course for its green speeds. I have yet to see an advertisement for any turf management product that states it will yield faster speeds. There are too many variables for advertisers to stick their neck out in either respect.  

People like fast greens, get used to the idea. Accept reality, and the truth will make you free. It's like fast cars. When the greens at my club go over 11' on the stimp they are beyond the ability of the majority of members to putt them. It doesn't matter, they still want speed, if only to brag that they have it. We're located on the outskirts of Paris and some members drive out from the city in Ferraris. Now, there is absolutely no advantage to a Ferrari in Paris traffic, but that's beside the point. The point is that they have a fast car, whether it's useful or practical or not.

[Mike_Young]

No where have I said people don't like fast greens.  At my course we do all we can to create green speed and remove grain and comb greens etc.  We have even begun to lightly comb in circles in order to eliminate grain.  I agree with what you say there Steve but if we could maintain greens at 8 it would cost less and the average public course could make a profit. 
As for tour pros....I heard it both ways...I think the main thing they like is consistency.....JMO

[Jim_Kennedy]

Mike,
Do you think that more than 1 in 4 golf courses in the US stimp over 8/9?

[Mike_Young]

Mike,
Do you think that more than 1 in 4 golf courses in the US stimp over 8/9?

Jim,
I don't know.  I do know the ultradwarfs have made it where the $40 public courses in our area are over that number.   And we have had older guys tell us they like the greens when they are slower which can create an issue when they really get fast. 

[BCowan]

Mike,

   That is refreshing to hear some of your patrons like the greens slower.  How much does reducing grain add to your green fees if you had to guess? 

[Jud_T]

Wait, Desert Forest was rolling at 13?!!!

[Mike_Young]

Ben,
Plenty of old guys like slower but smooth greens....I don't know exactly how much brushing and vertigrooming cost but it does increase labor...

[Joe Hancock]

I don't believe the quest to make all the greens on a given course identical in speed, grain, etc. has made the game of golf better. It does, however, reward the player with the best mechanics. I hold the same opinion when it comes to bunkers. Maybe there should be an article titled "Bunkers: Then and Now". While we're at it, fairways, roughs, etc. because each element of the course has to compliment the other in terms of playability. Discussed here many a time, the poster child for this concept would be the fact that better players prefer bunkers to rough.

Joe

[Brent Hutto]

Yeah, we don't want a golf course that rewards the ability to make good swings and putting strokes.

[cary lichtenstein]

When the green speads were in the 6's, Billy Casper and Gary Player was who we emulated. They knew how to pop the ball and that was the only effective way to putt.  Later, we all transitioned to a smooth stroke.

[Joe Hancock]

Yeah, we don't want a golf course that rewards the ability to make good swings and putting strokes.

Sarcasm aside, I do believe that the ability to read grain(as Mike Young mentioned already) or the ability to figure out different sand conditions was a part of the game that mattered. It wasn't all about the stroke.

Joe

[BCowan]

Joe,

   I hear what you and Mike are saying.  I don't think its fair to compare green maint to bunker maint.  One is a hazard and the other is the object of the game.  I'm all for way less bunker maint., but think limiting grain is ideal.  I'm for speeds that match the contours, extreme firmness, and little grain as possible. Again, I'm just a northerner with less experience, but feel one should be rewarded on the green.   

[Jon Wiggett]

Ben,

most advancements in grasses for the green is pushed at been able to tolerate lower HOC. Much of the machinery advancement in green mowing has been to push lower HOC. Lower height of cut is much more expensive to maintain ergo the industry sells more product.

Steve,

if players really did like fast putting surfaces why do they dislike fast downhill putts? Ask players what putt they would prefer to have for most it is a straight uphill putt or said another way the slowest option. None talk about wanting that fast, downhill 10 footer to save par yet if players wanted faster putting surfaces that should be their preferred putt. This is another example of the reality not matching the perception. Golfers say they want fast putting surfaces but when faced with a choice they take the slowest possible option. Most consumer are like sheep following what ever message is pumped their way.


Pros like fast greens because they are easier to putt on especially when flat.

Jon

[Steve Okula]

Avoiding fast, downhill putts is where the skill comes in. Approach shots need to be placed below the hole, which, by the way, is nothing new, learnig golf over forty years ago I was taught it was advisable to keep the ball below the hole.

If slower greens are more challenging to putt on for the pros, then why do major events like the U.S. Open and the U.S.P.G.A.  prepare notoriously quick greens when they're trying to protect par?

[Jon Wiggett]

Steve,

you do not really address my point which is what do players prefer playing, fast or slow putting surfaces? Even your post kind of says better to play the slower putt.

Your point of why do they have quicker putting surfaces in the majors? Because it looks more exciting not because it is harder. If it was harder that that they wanted why do they flatten greens to counter the speed thus making them easier?

Jon

[BCrosby]

When the green speads were in the 6's, Billy Casper and Gary Player was who we emulated. They knew how to pop the ball and that was the only effective way to putt.  Later, we all transitioned to a smooth stroke.

Cary - I talked to Billy Casper about that a decade or so ago. He said almost everyone was a wrist putter until the early 60's because you had to hit the ball so hard on older, slower greens. He retained his wristy stroke over his career, but he said he felt like a dinosaur towards the end. He said shoulder putting didn't become popular until kids learned the game on faster greens in the 60's. All of which makes sense.

I don't have the exact quote, but Bobby Jones said something to the effect that the fairways on courses in the 1950's rolled at about the same speed that greens did during 1920's when he played competitively.

Few people appreciate how dramatically green speeds have been ramped-up in our lifetime. It should be perceived as much more troubling than it is. 

Bob     

[Brent Hutto]

Bob,

Why should a 30-year-old golfer today be more troubled by having grown up on smooth, fast greens than Jack Nicklaus was by growing up on smoother, faster greens than Bobby Jones played on?

Would anyone, even this here Treehouse gang, really want to go back to basically chipping instead of putting (as we know it today) on the greens? I think playing wooden-shafted clubs from tee to green would be less of a change than putting on 3/16" Common Bermuda greens and I have zero interest in playing hickories.

Heck, for that matter Bobby Jones probably had to know how to play a Stymie shot but I don't feel I'm missing out on something because that doesn't exist any longer.

I'm still having difficulty seeing why something that seems a clear an obvious improvement "should be perceived" as a bad thing. I'm glad my car doesn't have vinyl seats, no shoulder straps and burn leaded gasoline like cars did in the 60's. I'm also glad that $25/round public courses today have putting greens of a quality that only a handful of high-end private club members could experience in the 60's.

[JMEvensky]

Steve,

you do not really address my point which is what do players prefer playing, fast or slow putting surfaces? Even your post kind of says better to play the slower putt.

Your point of why do they have quicker putting surfaces in the majors? Because it looks more exciting not because it is harder. If it was harder that that they wanted why do they flatten greens to counter the speed thus making them easier?

Jon

I don't think most members like PUTTING fast greens--they just like HAVING them.

As others have said,it's more of a club competitiveness thing. Maybe things would improve if all of an area's Green Chairmen got together and reached green speed detente.

[Sean_A]

Brent

I disagree that faster greens are a clear improvement.  I grew up on a Ross and never thought the greens needed to be quicker 35 years ago....it was tough to 2 putt on the sloping greens.  What is clear is that slope and contour have been reduced to accomodate faster green speeds and higher maintenance costs.  At least two greens at my childhood course were altered because even then the speeds were too much for the slopes and I think they routinely ran at 9ish in the summer.  I am befuddled that folks can't understand that more speed means reduced slope and contour....and this of course means less variety in greens and that can't be good.  For a lot of classic greens 9 or 10 is about the limit.  Of course there are many courses with flatter greens (many of which were built with faster greens in mind so the problem has been invasive for my entire lifetime) which can handle higher speeds, but again I ask, why are flatter greens at 11 or 12 clearly better than more slopey greens at 9 or 10?  

I always wanted to know what the added costs are for ramping up greens from 9 to 10, 10 to 11 adn 10 to 12.  

Ciao  

[BCrosby]

Brent says:

"Why should a 30-year-old golfer today be more troubled by having grown up on smooth, fast greens than Jack Nicklaus was by growing up on smoother, faster greens than Bobby Jones played on?"

Because at some point - and whatever that point is, we are now past it - green speeds adversely impact course architecture. More specifically, greens that roll above a certain speed necessarily limit an architect's design options.

Bob