No Maintained Rough

[Adam Lawrence]

Just been talking about courses without maintained rough. Winter Park in Orlando, recently rebuilt by Keith Rhebb and Riley Johns, is rough-free entirely; it's in a suburb and is mowed short wall to wall. Other courses, like NGLA or Royal Melbourne, seem to be almost without maintained rough, being essentially fairway cut and native grasses (with perhaps a tiny bit in between, but not much). I've been trying to persuade a couple of courses on the Surrey/Berkshire heath to embrace the idea of no maintained rough, with a goal of just having fairway cut and heather (or tall fescue in places where the heather isn't strong enough).


How many other courses have this style of presentation?

[BCowan]

Diamond springs (DeVries), outskirts of Holland, MI

[Tom_Doak]

Just been talking about courses without maintained rough. Winter Park in Orlando, recently rebuilt by Keith Rhebb and Riley Johns, is rough-free entirely; it's in a suburb and is mowed short wall to wall. Other courses, like NGLA or Royal Melbourne, seem to be almost without maintained rough, being essentially fairway cut and native grasses (with perhaps a tiny bit in between, but not much). I've been trying to persuade a couple of courses on the Surrey/Berkshire heath to embrace the idea of no maintained rough, with a goal of just having fairway cut and heather (or tall fescue in places where the heather isn't strong enough).


How many other courses have this style of presentation?

We've built several courses in the last dozen years have no rough.  I think Sebonack was the first we built that way, although Ballyneal and Stone Eagle are pretty close to no rough.  Streamsong, The Loop, and Tara Iti are other prominent examples.  You've just got to have good, playable "native" areas or sand to make the concept work.

[Thomas Dai]

Ah, like going back in time to long ago when there was 'fairway' and there was 'rough' and the best way to proceed was along the 'fair....way' avoiding the 'rough'.
Atb

[Mike_Young]

I have several where one height of cut is used for fairway all the way to the native grasses and tees are mowed at same height as an extension of the fairway...

[Ian Andrew]

Cape Breton Highlands was like this until 1999 when rough lines were introduced by another architect. They remained to address the complexity of cutting turf shorter than they did in the past.

[Peter Pallotta]

In a form is function sort of way, and proving that sometimes style is also substance and that aesthetics and playability can go hand in hand, to me there is no single more important or relevant aspect of the renaissance in gca than this, i.e. no maintained rough. The meaning of it, in terms of the game of golf, can't be over-stated I don't think. When the art-craft is at its best, what naturalism makes manifest is the essential spirit and ethos of the game.   
Peter

[JESII]

Agreed! But...how do you get there from the traditional (post-sprinkler installation) standard of 35 yard wide fairways, then rough of some sort, then trees/fescue/waste etc...?

[K Rafkin]

The push for no rough should be taken on a case by case basis rather than a general movement.  If the native areas aren't very playable and the course is playing firm you could very well make the course less playable.  In your case the native areas are fescue and heather, which, in my experience, are both far less playable than the sandy native areas you'll see at places like Pinehurst and Streamsong.  At a place like Wolf Point where the transition goes directly from fairway cut to difficult to play native grasses this concept works, but only because of the extreme width.  If these courses that your pushing for these changes don't have either super wide fairways or a playable native area you might very well succeed in make the course both less playable and more difficult.  If your plan is to now to maintain the heather and fescue in order to make it more playable, then I would fail to see the point in eliminating the maintained rough.  I do in fact love the no rough concept, but it isn't for every course.

[Peter Pallotta]

That's the question alright, and of course I don't know the answer, Jim. If the architect uses the same type of grass, the good news is that the fairways can move out, but the bad news is that the fairways can move in. If he doesn't use the same grass, then it becomes a done deal; wide stripes of thick rough will be a given until the end of time. 
Tough racket this renaissance...

[jeffwarne]

While I do like the idea of one height, esp tees,...the ball will roll of farther on todays shorter faster cut(into native) and amateurs are generally much better off a little cushion of second cut or primary rough-esp around the greens-so it won't be universally popular as they're blading it short or long into native areas.

[Matthew Mollica]

Royal Queensland is a great example of this concept working really well from visual and playable perspectives. It is mown wall to wall.

[Ally Mcintosh]

I think Jeff and Kevin hit the nail on the head. A course needs to have extreme width if firm and fast to ensure most balls don't run straight in to the native. That first 15m of native needs to be highly maintained if the concept is to work at all which kind of makes a mockery of the term "no maintained rough".


I hate semi-rough on links courses more than anyone - it looks far too "parkland". But it's a necessary evil sometimes.

[Jon Wiggett]

Ally,


I had this problem the first year I opened. Despite the fairways being mostly 60 to 80 yards wide players could not get past running straight from the fairway into the deep stuff. I narrowed the fairway by 20 yards and cut this strip a semi after which the complaints stopped despite the playing corridor being identical. I think it would work however if the rough is quite thin.


Jon

[Mike Sweeney]

How many other courses have this style of presentation?

Here is an old thread on Streamsong - http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,54441.0.html