[Peter Pallotta]

On that youtube treasure trove of Shell's Wonderful World of Golf there are additional short videos/interviews. One is with Lee Trevino from the 1989 Open at Troon, after the first round. He's talking about course conditions and he notes that it's very difficult to hit approach shots close to the pin or get them to stop on the green, i.e. they're running out a lot after landing. But he says this isn't because the greens are very firm and fast (he say's they're not), but instead because the *fairways* are so firm-hard and fast-dry. Because of those fairway conditions, Lee says, it's hard to impart enough spin on the ball: i.e. the club skids/bounces at impact off the hard turf and makes pinching the ball and imparting spin difficult. Interestingly, Lee says the only player he's seen in practice and during his round imparting enough spin and getting the ball to stop on the greens is Greg Norman -- and Greg of course went on to make it into the playoff that year. (Lee also says that it won't matter/change things it it rains a bit, since the course is on sand and the fairways drain and firm up again very quickly.) 
My question: is this a well known fact? Over the years, at a typical Open Championship, is that what I've been seeing -- the balls rolling a lot after landing on the greens not because the greens are slick but because the fairways are so firm?
And if so, does that also explain why most courses I play are not maintained that way, but in the very opposite way, i.e. quite soft and lush, so it's easier for average golfers to make decent contact?
 
Peter
       

[Erik J. Barzeski]

Because of those fairway conditions, Lee says, it's hard to impart enough spin on the ball: i.e. the club skids/bounces at impact off the hard turf and makes pinching the ball and imparting spin difficult.

That part makes no sense. The ball is not "pinched" against the grass, and a club that's skidding or bouncing into the ball at around impact isn't a club delivered by a good player like Lee.

Who knows what he was talking about. Do you have a link to the video and a specific time stamp?

[Peter Pallotta]

Here it is, Erik
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYTcLogrwV0&t=118s
At about 3:09
Two corrections: Lee doesn't say pinch, but he does say the club is bouncing off the turf; and, he says Norman is the only one to be able to 'back up' the balls on the green.
More generally, though, the notion of the fairway conditions making the greens play differently was what struck me.

[Jeff_Brauer]

It's conventional wisdom that average players like a bit of cushion under their ball.


I played with Fuzzy Zeller in a pro am once.  His shot landed on a concrete path and one of the ams absent mindedly went to pick up his ball so he could drop it.  Fuzzy ran up to stop him.  He preferred playing off the path for the clean contact the clean, hard surface would give him.


I agree that for a swing like mine, the club could bounce (my pro says when I swing, I move everything but my bowels.....) but I agree with Erik that someone as consistent as Lee would not have that problem too often.  The only thing I could think of would be if his flat swing gave him a little less room for error on those hard surfaces?

[Erik J. Barzeski]

Here it is, Erik

At about 3:09
Two corrections: Lee doesn't say pinch, but he does say the club is bouncing off the turf; and, he says Norman is the only one to be able to 'back up' the balls on the green.
More generally, though, the notion of the fairway conditions making the greens play differently was what struck me.

Thank you, Peter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYTcLogrwV0&t=3m8s (you can add minutes and seconds after t= in any YouTube URL to start the video there.)

I think he's just talking out of his rear about why the balls are spinning. Maybe in order to ensure crisp contact he's playing the ball back in his stance and generating a bit less spin and/or the ball is landing at a sharper angle due to a lower ball flight.

[Peter Pallotta]

Jeff -
I would've found it all just merely interesting (as I do anything Lee Trevino says), except for the fact that he singled out Greg Norman as the *only* player able to impart enough spin on the ball to get it to check up on the greens -- partly because that 'generalizes' the insight/observation (i.e. beyond Lee's own game/technique), and partly because before TW come along I'd never seen in their prime anyone as good as Norman was, so I found it telling that he was the one who could do it.
Again, that he says the reason for the challenge *on* the greens was *not* the greens themselves was what struck me most. I hadn't thought of that all the years of watching the Open.
P   


Thanks, Erik - as I say, i'd defer to both you and Jeff on this, but Lee doesn't seem to be talking just about his own struggles with spin (earlier in the video he does talk about his own challenge with hitting the ball high) ...he seems to be making a general point about that course that week, applicable to everyone but Norman.

[Erik J. Barzeski]

Thanks, Erik - as I say, i'd defer to both you and Jeff on this, but Lee doesn't seem to be talking just about his own struggles with spin (earlier in the video he does talk about his own challenge with hitting the ball high) ...he seems to be making a general point about that course that week, applicable to everyone but Norman.

I get that, but I think it's just that the greens are firmer, and he's attributing it to the wrong thing.

[JMEvensky]

Was Norman playing a Tour Edition in 1989? That might be one of the reasons only GN could spin the ball.

[Peter Pallotta]

Good call there, JM - I've read that the Tour Edition spun like crazy, so maybe you're right. And maybe Erik is right too (above). But on the other hand - sure, Lee liked to talk, but he'd won two Opens by that point, so you'd think he knew/understood the difference between hard greens and more receptive ones, and could plausibly explain what was happening at impact from the fairway.
P

 

[Rob Marshall]

No one really knew what was happening until the Trackman came along. Clarified a lot of myth's. These guys don't have physics degrees. More about feels for the Lee's generation I would think.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Was Norman playing a Tour Edition in 1989? That might be one of the reasons only GN could spin the ball.

And, was Trevino still playing Faultless 2 piece rocks balls?

[David_Tepper]

Jeff B. -

I seem to recall reading somewhere that Johnny Miller won his British Open playing a 2-piece ball. He said that he could hit a 2-iron off the tee and the ball would roll forever on those firm fairways, so distance was not a problem.


DT

[Matt_Cohn]

This seems odd, because if I wanted to spin a wedge a lot, I'd want to have a very tight and firm lie. Actually a tight and soft lie would work too, because what happens after impact is irrelevant!

[Peter Pallotta]

Matt,
I don't understand it either -- neither in terms of the turf/maintenance nor in terms of the shotmaking demands.
But Lee is being interviewed by fellow pro Jim Colbert, so you'd think he wouldn't say something outlandish/nonsensical. 
But the notion -- the remote possibility -- that the choices/challenges around approach angles and shot selection could be enhanced not by green contours and green speeds but by the condition of the fairway turf is very interesting to me.
And when a six time major winner says that he's having trouble getting the ball to land and stop on the green because the fairway is so hard and dry, it got my attention.
P   

[Erik J. Barzeski]

And when a six time major winner says that he's having trouble getting the ball to land and stop on the green because the fairway is so hard and dry, it got my attention.

Being involved in instruction, it's much easier for me to dismiss something a Tour pro says he feels or thinks is real… 

[Peter Pallotta]

 
For me: being not a teacher, a tour pro, a very good golfer, a superintendent, or an architect, I find that the more unusual & unconventional a statement is the more it intrigues me! 
I mean, imagine if it's true that Lee is right and you're wrong? It could be a maintenance & design revolution!  

[Mike Hendren]

Trevino’s comments reflect his swing - he’s a digger. My guess is that he had to trap the ball on firm turf, making it impossible to impart spin.


My all time favorite ball striker.


Bogey

[jeffwarne]

No one really knew what was happening until the Trackman came along. Clarified a lot of myth's. These guys don't have physics degrees. More about feels for the Lee's generation I would think.

A head high bullet like Lee's wasn't going to hold a firm green(even if slow) and Norman's high speed,high launch, high spin shots were, especially when struck with a Tour Edition, which very often hurt Norman when approaching a back pin.
But in defense of Lee, a ball struck off a concrete or cement cartpath does not spin well so perhaps he was on to something for certain angles of attack....Very difficult for me to believe someone who learned golf in El Paso in the early 60's would struggle with firm turf...


As far as PreTrackman, plenty of people knew what was happening, maybe not exactly in some cases,but many poor teachers from that era perpetuated myths that perhap Trackman disproved in their case.
The PGA's ball flight laws were wrong, but MANY teachers knew that they were wrong and understaood then what have become the "modern" ball flight laws. The best players figured it out, even if they stated it differently and many announcers were still calling every shot that went left "over the top"(of the swing plane) for years after the majority of top instructors knew the clubface was the error and in fact that many/most of those pull hooks were hit from UNDER the plane. In 1989 I saw an article by Jim McLean in Golf Illustrated describing this "Swing Left to Swing Right"  and it was how I came to be hired by him as I had made a demo tape of a putter being closed and swinging right of target and starting left and my initial conclusion was that at least at lower speeds, the ball flight laws were wrong, and high speed video shown to me by Carl Welty proved to me that the same was true at any speed.(as I already suspected and was already teaching)






Good teachers were also teaching persimmon players to hit slightly up on their drivers,(we always taught players to try to leave the tee in the ground on a driver) and in fact it is the characteristics of modern drivers (low spin,adjustability and shafts) that allow higher speed players to hit slightly down on their drivers for control, at the expense of distance, but they are already long enough.
Do that with a wooden driver and you'd be too short to compete.

[Rob Marshall]

Great stuff Jeff. Thanks for posting.

[Peter Pallotta]

Great stuff Jeff. Thanks for posting.

Yes, a pleasure to read.
And it reminded me of how much folks knew 'in the past' but didn't articulate the way we've come to believe demonstrates/proves that they knew.
A total aside: one of the SWWoG is from The Hauge: Nelson vs DeWitt. George and Gene reference the architecture, specifically the many blind tee shots there, over and over again. And yet they never add anything more to that: they don't call those blind shots good or bad or old fashioned or unfair etc. Their basic/underlying assessment is: this is a great golf course, and this particular great golf course has a lot of blind tee shots.
And I thought: ah, how much more insightful their 'simple' approach is than our modern (and supposedly more so sophisticated and nuanced) commentary would be -- with announcers filling in the history and debating the merits and fairness of blind shots and comparing it with other courses and asking the players if they liked it etc etc.
To our modern ears all of that sounds more knowledgeable; but what's more truly understanding of the art&craft of gca than George and Gene simply saying that blind tee shots are -- here, at this course -- a prominent feature? 


PS - on Lee's statement: maybe it would've been better to ask any of you who have played the Scottish links courses when the fairways were particularly dry and firm if you found that it was more difficult to impart spin/get the ball to land and stop on the greens?

[Pete Lavallee]

I was at the 1989 Open at Troon, my wife and I spent May-October in the UK. They experienced a heat wave with almost no rain; conditions were well beyond normal for firmness. We watched all players on Sunday from the back of the tee at the Postage Stamp and Norman by far had the highest ball flight. His pull into the left side bunker led to his only bogey of the day, after birdieing the first 6 holes. If he could have flighted his 8 iron as low as Edwardo Romero he may well have avoided the playoff!

[Niall C]

The mention of Trevino and Troon gives me an excuse to retell the story about my friend who met and had a chat with a contemporary of Trevino’s and who was his playing partner for the first two rounds at a Troon Open (not sure if it was this particular Open).

According to Trevino’s playing partner, on several occasions Trevino used his driver off the deck but instead of hitting it flush he deliberately thinned it to the extent of almost topping it. Apparently he did it to great effect, however on one occasion when the ball stopped 10 feet from the hole someone in the crowd laughed assuming it was a fluke. The look Trevino gave the poor unfortunate soon convinced him otherwise.

Niall

[JESII]

I think his answer said a lot more about his career (versus expectations) compared to Norman's career (versus expectations) than about the maintenance of Troon specifically.


I'm sure he looked at every mid-iron with drool dribbling out of his mouth because he knew he could hit 5 or 6 different shots inside 20 feet. Whereas Norman would have seen many fewer options...even as a premier ball striker. He just never seemed to master the slow pitch.

[mike_beene]

Not long ago waived a twosome in a cart through: Lee Trevino in the flesh. Looks healthy and happy.

[Tom Allen]

Love to hear the stories about Lee, but also I wanted to point out, like everyone else, that his theory doesn't hold water (much like the fairways over there).  Otherwise, you'd never get any spin with a wedge, off the tee, on a par three, because there is no pinching at all going on there.  We have definitely learned a lot since then!

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