[Matt_Cohn]

Hazeltine's superintendent posted this on Twitter; I'm sure many of you have seen it. Should I/we care that this golf course has at least 12 different heights of cut (10 shown here, plus at least two cuts of rough)? I'm trying to submit this without comment as much as possible.


https://twitter.com/ct_turf, if you want to follow him (Chris Tritabaugh).

[Don Mahaffey]

I don't see 12 HOC, I see many different areas, but many share the same HOC
Also I think it is a bit nit picky because different mowers can require different bench settings to obtain the same effective cut
For instance, the greens clean up cut is .05 higher than the grns cut but that could be because they use a mower with a less aggressive front roller, or without groomers.
The collars, app and tees are all very close together and could be because there are different grasses or mowers.   I doubt the golf course is going to look like it has that many different HOC in the short grass.   

[Matthew Mollica]

Thanks Don. I appreciate the reply, as do others I'm sure.


Is there something to be said for uniformity of HOC across tees, fringes, fairway and green to next tee transitions?


Matthew

[Anthony_Nysse]

I do know that Chris (HN Supt) likes to use a segmented roller on greens cleanups. He is also a master at getting bentgrass to out compete poa, so all the surfaces are nearly 100% pure bentgrass.

Fairways are being mowed with Toro's 3550 light weight fairway mowers, approaches and collars with Toro's 1600 walk mower. Flex units on greens. Its not uncommon to have approaches mowed lower than fairways.

Toro equipment is utilized throughout the course for several reasons, but Toro makes it's home in Minnesota.

[Scott Warren]

Don and Anthony,

Thanks for your posts.

This is where GCA.com comes to the fore. I saw the tweet and thought "this guy is fucking insane!" But in fact there is, perhaps unsurprisingly, more to it than meets the eye.

Thanks again.

[Anthony_Nysse]

Don and Anthony,

Thanks for your posts.

This is where GCA.com comes to the fore. I saw the tweet and thought "this guy is fucking insane!" But in fact there is, perhaps unsurprisingly, more to it than meets the eye.

Thanks again.

The unfortunately part is that this isn't sustainable or recommended for 99.9% of courses, yet this is what the public sees. It's not cheap to have all the needed equipment and maintaom turf at various heights.

[Jason Topp]

Chris is a great guy who at least used to be a poster here.  He really understands the thinking of this group. 

He hosted a group of us at Northland around five years ago and really transformed the place - opening up incredible views of Lake Superior and making the place extremely firm and fast - actually too firm and fast for the membership.  Like many who went the Greenway route, he ultimately had to cut back a bit to prevent a revolt.

We have had an incredible amount of rain since August 1st (and were dumped on over the weekend) but this week appears to be lovely - highs in the upper 60's/lower 70's and lows in the 40's-50's.  There is a chance of rain Tuesday.  I assume that will be enough dry weather to make Hazeltine as interesting a course as it can be. 

[Don Mahaffey]

Don and Anthony,

Thanks for your posts.

This is where GCA.com comes to the fore. I saw the tweet and thought "this guy is fucking insane!" But in fact there is, perhaps unsurprisingly, more to it than meets the eye.

Thanks again.

The unfortunately part is that this isn't sustainable or recommended for 99.9% of courses, yet this is what the public sees. It's not cheap to have all the needed equipment and maintaom turf at various heights.

It has been awhile but I have volunteered at courses hosing Tour events. I never saw much of anything that was sustainable at even the high end clubs hosting the events. The amount of work that goes into these special events and the time spent trying to make everything just as close to perfect as possible is amazing.  It is way over the top in many respects, but what is expected.

As for Chris T, GCS at HN, he is one of the best IMO. Don't be swayed by this HOC deal. he is a true agronomist who knows how to use non chemical practices to achieve results. My son Ryan works for my golf construction company now, but when he was in college and searching for internships I encouraged him to work for successful Superintendents who are a little out of the mainstream, and he worked for two excellent professionals who had a big impact on his development. Brian Chapin at Paramount CC, and Chris Tritabaugh at Hazeltine. I hope Chris gets some ink this week for some of his unique practices at HN.

[Thomas Dai]

Reviewing the differences in many of the figures above makes me wonder whether players, even players at elite Ryder Cup level, can tell the difference in a ball sitting on some of these categories of cut in comparison with another category, especially when other factors are taken into consideration like dew and dampness, wind blowing over the grass etc, even player/caddy eyesight.


I know "these guys are good" but are they really that good?


And another thing, how accurate are the measurements and tolerances on the machinery and will the whole area of grass cut at a certain level grow at exactly the same rate during the play on the day?


Atb

[Ryan Coles]

Don and Anthony,

Thanks for your posts.

This is where GCA.com comes to the fore. I saw the tweet and thought "this guy is fucking insane!" But in fact there is, perhaps unsurprisingly, more to it than meets the eye.

Thanks again.

The unfortunately part is that this isn't sustainable or recommended for 99.9% of courses, yet this is what the public sees. It's not cheap to have all the needed equipment and maintaom turf at various heights.

May be difficult to relate to UK budgets but which is the one bit of primary machinery / hoc you would do without:

Greens
Fairways
Tees and approaches
First cut
Semi / everything else

Obvious one would be the semi/everything else but would that not be a false economy to use say a toro sidewinder first cut hoc due to time it would take and secondly that you can't do both at once?

Machinery is one of the least understood aspects of golf, especially Club Managers and Committees.

Short grass = more £
A great mechanic = much less £

[Ryan Coles]

Reviewing the differences in many of the figures above makes me wonder whether players, even players at elite Ryder Cup level, can tell the difference in a ball sitting on some of these categories of cut in comparison with another category, especially when other factors are taken into consideration like dew and dampness, wind blowing over the grass etc, even player/caddy eyesight.


I know "these guys are good" but are they really that good?


And another thing, how accurate are the measurements and tolerances on the machinery and will the whole area of grass cut at a certain level grow at exactly the same rate during the play on the day?


Atb

Various tools to measure hoc and actual hoc.

Re: growth, at hazeltine they will have timed all applications of feed and pgr's to give as less as possible during the day. With only four matches on the course, in any case it's easy to keep things as intended. They probably have 100 staff on site.

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