Why did square greens disappear ? Have any been built lately ?

[paul cowley]

pat , agreed and when you put squared on a pad with movement you get interest that can be , but not quite, 'squared'.......its funny but ,unless its flat or viewed from above, squared is not that recognizable on the ground plane...

[Michael Moore]

Mr. Mucci -

What is NLE?

I think that abbreviations should be kept to a minimum on this board, and I think that they should not be used at all in the first post of a thread.

There are some square greens at Abenaki Club in Biddeford, ME. I think they at cool and displeasing at the same time.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Michael Moore,

NLE represents a widely used term with respect to golf courses that:
No Longer Exist.

[Mike Hendren]

Could it be the transition from the ground game to the aerial  game?  What shape is a dart board?  What shape is a bulls-eye.  Today's game is a target game.  Has anyone ever seen a square dart board?  A square bulls-eye?  

Mike

[Mike_Cirba]

The first square green I ever saw was at a ramshackle, farmland nine-holer in NE PA called Red Maples on the 4th hole.  Since the course was designed by the owner of the property, I assume he did it on a lark, and not as a throwback to early courses.

However, I have seen others built in modern times.

Bobby Weed built one on the second hole of his Glen Mills course, and the 3rd, 4th, 15th and 16th greens at Friars Head are all very rectangular in nature, if not perfectly squared off.

[nels]

Pat,
I will only speak for one green, but it's history may shed some light on the subject.  
Meadow Club in Marin Co. CA. is Alister MacKenzie's first course in America. It opened in 1927. In his description he makes note of the greens being large like St. Andrews.
Meadow Club has a number of 1927 photographs of the #9 green and even an excellent quality 32 mm movie from opening day.  The green was large, aprox 9,000 sq. ft., slightly rectangular - longer from front to back than left to right, with very slightly rounded corners.  The green is situated on a slight up-slope which makes it look square from the fairway.  The green was reduced in size and rounded out for economic reasons during the early thirties (Great Depression), and early forties (WW II).  Early fifties saw a Green Committee "frame the green" with a left side bunker placed on a mound that kicked balls toward the putting surface.
On most of Meadow Club's holes, the tee shots while looking intimidating, have fairly generous landing areas.  MacKenzie achieved difficulty with his greens and surrounds, rewarding one who placed the drive in the right position in the fairway.  
The #9 hole was then (435 yards), and now (465 yards) a long par 4.  The difficulty was with the drive.  A ridge narrows the fairway at 220 - 240 yards.  It had two bunkers on it and another slightly shorter on the right side.  Today the bunkers and ridge require a 290 carry and the right bunker is at 245.  Then. as now. MacKenzie gave both a substantial risk-reward for one who cleared the bunkers, or else required a safe, but 200 yard second shot.  
I believe that the easier the tee shot the harder MacKenzie made the green.  On #9 he designed a large square green (certainly a square green has more putting surface than a round one with the same width) with helpful surrounds, because the first part of the hole was so difficult.
Mike DeVries beautifully restored the hole to the original in 2003, lengthening it some 18 yards on the tee to keep the ridge and bunkers in modern perspective.
So, at least one green has been restored to square, and at least one club and architect not reluctant to think that the greats of the past has some reasons beyond convention for what they did.  Last note:  The restored hole has received rave reviews.
Nels  

[Forrest Richardson]

Let's just keep in mind that a square green is still a rectangular green, and also a rhombus shaped green, and still yet a quadragram-ed green. But not all rhombus shaped greens are square, nor rectangular, nor also quadragram-ed. Square greens are also parallelagrams, but certainly not all parallelagram shaped greens are square. Some can be rhombus shaped, still others can be square. An equilellagram shaped green will either be a square one or a rhombus, unless it is a hexagram or a pentagram or any other equal-sided shape with fewer or more than four sides, in which it will not have four sides and therefore will not be a rectangle, square, rhombus or quadragram.

[Forrest Richardson]

Consider this fact:

All greens (most anyway) are mowed around the edges with a collar or at least an outside pass by mowing equipment.

A circular green, 75-ft. in diameter, has an area of 4418 sq. ft and requires 236-linear feet of outside perimeter mowing.

A square green with the same width — 75-ft. — has a surface area of 5625 sq. ft. and requires 300-linear feet of outside perimeter mowing.

If a circular green is built to match the square footage of the square green above, it will be 84-ft. in diameter and require 264-linear feet of outside perimeter mowing.

Circular greens are more efficient in terms of permieter mowing compared to square greens. In the example above, one green would require about 2.5 miles of extra greens permieter mowing per year. If all greens on an 18-hole course were square instead of circular — as an example only — there would be 45-miles of extra perimeter mowing for the same amount of overall square footage of greens.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Forrest Richardson,

The bias   in the exercise is the assumption that the greens have equal diameters and are perfect circles and squares.

I wonder if you could do the math on a circular green with a 75 foot diameter and a rectangular green 75 feet by 37.5 feet.
Would that produce a green with 2,812.5 square feet and a perimeter of 225 feet, far less then the circular green ?
Is the above also a fact ??  

[Forrest Richardson]

You math is spot on, even at this hour. Of course, a 2800 sq. ft. green is quite small. My smallest — ever — was 2200 s.f. and the joke is that it is mowed with an electric shaver.

[Michael Moore]

Mr. Mucci -

Oops, sorry - if I had known that NLE was a widely used abbreviation, I would not have wasted your time. Your bold typeface and capital letters were useful in helping me remember this widely used term. Thanks.

[ForkaB]

I noticed in recently viewing an aerial of Kingsbarns that the first green is a perfect rectangle (nearly a square).  From the aerial it looks flat as a pancake, and you can imagine my surprise on viewing it up close and personal to find that it is actually highly contoured.  Yet another example of a master architect successfully camouflaging his artifices from those with only an Icarian view......

[Patrick_Mucci]

Michael Moore,

I was trying to be helpful.

The next time you ask a question, I'll ignore it.

[mike_malone]

 Mike Cirba pointed out #2 at Glen Mills.How about #10 at that course.?It is not square,but trapiziodal,with a ridge that rubs through the middle from front to back.It may be the neatest green i have seen.It also plays significantly downhill.

[Mike_Cirba]

mayday;

Yes, 10 is a good one and is indicative of the type of classic features that Bobby Weed consciously put into the Glen Mills course.  The Biarritz green (#15?) on a par five is a nice touch that works in multiple ways, as well.

Have you played Mountain Branch in Maryland?  An architect by the name of Jeff Matthai has done some similar things on a course he co-designed with Davis Sezna and Olin Belsinger.  On of the coolest things they did was create a green on the back nine that is completely squared off, and is dominated by a 3 foot hump about 60% of the way into the center of the green, making for all sorts of strategic interest.

Completely simple, yet functionally complex.

[mike_malone]

 I just played Glen Mills on Friday.I JUST enjoy THAT COURSE.I think it is because there is so much strategy on many holes.I am not sure i know how to rate courses,but i do know what i enjoy.Why is it that i do not like Pine Hill and Tattersall but do like Glen Mills,Twisted Dune,etc?
    Mike--you fell the same--what is it?