[Mark_Fine]

Jim Urbina stated on the Green Contour Softening thread a few days ago that:

“I always said no green is original, its the evolution of a golf course.”
I wonder if most of us really agree and understand what he meant by this statement?

We all know some greens are “purposely” changed,  like the 5th green at Pine Valley; the contours of that green are not original. They were changed by Tom Fazio.

Other contour changes are simply from maintenance such as from top dressing (although there is a lot of debate about whether top dressing truly changes contours).  But one change that part of a green’s natural evolution that is not debatable is that of sand tossed on the putting surface from greenside bunkers - this can and does dramatically cause change.  It also changes the aesthetics of the bunker as over time it will raise the height of the bunker and the visibility of portions of the green surface that the architect intended to be seen, and obviously it impacts hole locations near those edges that sometimes completely disappear because of the new severity of the evolved green slopes.  This issue is something we constantly face when doing renovation and restoration projects.  On my two most recent projects, we removed as much as 2 1/2 feet of sand build up on the green that came from the sand being tossed out of the bunkers.  The height of the bunkers had been raised even higher.  I am curious how others here address this issue especially when they are trying to restore/recapture original green contours?

Going back to what Jim said, all greens evolve from what was originally designed and this is a good example of how just through normal play.

[Rick Lane]

Is it obvious as you remove sand buildup like that where the “original” green was?   Can you tell by inserting a rod and looking at various levels of different soils?   I think it would be tremendous to know, on golden age greens, where the green “was” 90 years ago.......

[Thomas Dai]

Collapsing as-built/early-day sub-surface drainage lines?
Tree root envelopes expanding in size under greens?
Expanding shade profiles and softness/firmness/compaction?
Compaction from continuous entry/exit player foot traffic?
Outside edge mowing pattern?
Storm effects and wind blown material build-up?
Etc etc

Atb

[Mark_Fine]

Rick,
Yes you can.  Taking and looking at soil profiles can tell you a whole host of things such as how topdressing has changed the profile over time, whether the soil was poorly or properly mixed during construction, where a heavy clay layer begins, ….. We use soil probes to find old bunkers and to determine original sizes of greens, and as stated to determine the amount of build up of sand tossed on to a green surface from a nearby bunker.  I am working on a project right now where a large mound exists next to a green where I want to restore a bunker that I was pretty confident was originally there and sure enough when we removed the mound we found the sand from that bunker.  We dug up and found the entire outline of the bunker.  I recall the story of the famous Taft bunker at Myopia Hunt Club.  When trying to restore that bunker they kept digging and digging trying to find the actual bottom.  They finally gave up and said this is deep enough!   

Thomas,
All good points that lead to a green's evolution!

[Tom_Doak]

 one change that part of a green’s natural evolution that is not debatable is that of sand tossed on the putting surface from greenside bunkers - this can and does dramatically cause change.  It also changes the aesthetics of the bunker as over time it will raise the height of the bunker and the visibility of portions of the green surface that the architect intended to be seen, and obviously it impacts hole locations near those edges that sometimes completely disappear because of the new severity of the evolved green slopes.  This issue is something we constantly face when doing renovation and restoration projects.

I agree this is a huge factor at some courses and for some bunker locations . . . but it also seems negligible on a lot of greenside bunkers to me, if the course isn't super busy.  Do you agree?


I had dinner at Interlochen Golf Course near Traverse City last summer, and there was a tiny bunker in front of a green by the clubhouse with a three-foot mound behind it . . . I think that was all from play, because none of the other bunkers looked anything like it.  But, none of the other bunkers had seen that amount of play.


My last work at Royal Melbourne was working on the sand buildup to either side of the 5th green . . . it was six or eight inches high and we had to taper back 10-12 feet into the green to eliminate it.  They had the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology survey the greens thirty years ago, and that's the standard for what they try to go back to, even though of course it's probably not what was originally there.

[Mark_Fine]

Tom,
Yes I agree and it sounds like we both feel it is not only how busy the golf course is but how busy each bunker is if you know what I mean    We could actually tell which green side bunkers got the most action by how different the amount of sand buildup was.  It varied sometimes dramatically from bunker to bunker.  I wonder if anyone has ever studied that? The analytics of sand buildup would be very interesting.  Don't most say 60% of approach shots are missed short and right and I think that might be true.  Obviously there are many factors that influence misses. 


We had to do the same thing about going well into most every one of the greens and lifting the sod and tapering the slope to match the newly adjusted contour.  The differences on many of the greens is just amazing.  We had one hole, the par three 4th at Bethlehem, that the entire left half of the green was no longer visible from the main tees and much of that part of the green had become barely pinnacle.  After altering and lowering that bunker back down (over 2 feet of sand build up on that one) and tapering well into the green to eliminate the extra sand, the hole looks and plays totally different.  Again, this particular project was a mix of restoring some of the original Gordon features as well as making new renovations.   

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