[John Chilver-Stainer]

As rightly said, great conditions cost money.


If the difference between low tech and hi tech greens can be quantified in terms of money and environmental impact,
and the difference in cost of bunkers being raked daily or only twice a week,
and even the differing costs of playing-corridor widths.


Then present the comparisons for debate at the AGM.


Maybe, just maybe, the democratic common sense will prevail.   (or maybe not )

[Mark Pearce]

But what are "great conditions"?  For me, when it comes to greens, great conditions mean:


the ball rolls true
the greens are firm
they roll at a reasonable pace for their contour


None of that means they have to be super fast.  And that's what really costs money.

[Adrian_Stiff]

Thomas - You could on those terms make the case that the design does not matter. You hit the ball as least times into the hole to play the game. In some respects it is how some top pro's play, they are so focused on their game plan and hitting to a number they don't see what 'we' see and neither do they care in the slightest, like accountants in big firms it is just about numbers. Ask them the next day what was xxxx like and they say 'yeah i think it was ok'. What they do notice though is hitting shots into links courses with lots of contour and the ball stopping dead or running 30 yards, a lot think TOC is shit.


Probably why I was not good enough at golf because I did not concentrate enough on the next shot and was more interested in what was over there or what was coming up.

[Thomas Dai]

Good point Adrian, certainly given how often the folks we watch on TV play preferred lies, even sometimes receiving a preferred lie in the first cut of smooth, sorry rough, and also sometimes not just a 6-inch move but a club-length ..... and then they hits darts into soft greens.
Not always the case though, especially back in the day when golfers were a hardier bunch and golf was viewed in photos and films in black and white from low level angles.
And with a few exceptions greens, the key element surely (?) don't look particularly glamorous in photos whereas the surrounds and rest of the course usually do especially if there's some blue water or yellow sand to catch the eye and the photos and films are taken from on-high in (enhanced?) colour.
atb

[Niall C]

But what are "great conditions"?  For me, when it comes to greens, great conditions mean:


the ball rolls true
the greens are firm
they roll at a reasonable pace for their contour


None of that means they have to be super fast.  And that's what really costs money.

Mark

Speaking in a UK context here, but I suspect your definition would be the one the average golfer over here would use to define "fast greens and fantastic conditions". I've got to think the average green speed over here is a lot less than say the US.

Niall

[Richard Fisher]

Niall's got to be right about average green speeds (and that sense feeds into the weird US TV discussion about 'slow' greens at RSG for the Open). And of course some of the fastest summer greens in the UK can emerge at relatively unkempt venues with minimal irrigation: when I was a kid growing up in Bath by far the quickest greens in the locality during July and August were those at the local Approach Courses behind the Royal Crescent, unwatered and hammered into submission by the training shoes of innumerable English-language-learning students.

[Jim Sherma]

Thomas - you hit the nail on the head. Players will forgive almost anything (at least in the short run) except for lousy greens. You need to be able to roll the ball.


Greens that roll well, i.e. smoothly and consistently, are fine across a range of speeds. But there is a lower end where they just become too slow for most people to think they are still ok. This of course is relative to what is "normal" in your area. In the area I play in, Central PA, the average private club daily green is probably somewhere in the 9-10.5 or maybe 8-10 range. When greens get to the point where you feel like you need to really hit the ball to get it to the hole people start to complain. That might be somewhere around 7 or so. My stimp numbers are possibly overstated, but not by much.


I've never heard people complain about greens being too fast unless there are bad pins being used. Bad pins in my definition are when you can't get the ball to stop when your putting from below the hole. If you're above the hole that's on you and not the course. There are cases where there is simply no where to leave the ball below the hole and these can be an issue as well.


I'd always opt for slightly slower and firmer but the sweet spot is probably the fastest you can get while having the greens firm to the point that they don't show any marks from walking on them and will still receive a good short iron shot.     

Taking some slightly extreme positions as discussion points -
On the tee you can place the ball on a tee peg so the conditioning of the teeing ground shouldn’t matter.
On the fairway you can play preferred lies so conditioning shouldn’t matter.
Off the fairway you’re in the rough. The word ‘rough’ ought to indicate that the conditioning shouldn’t matter.
In a bunker, well it’s a hazard, so it should be properly hazardous and the conditioning shouldn’t matter.
On the green. Ah, well on the green, on the putting surface, you roll the ball along the ground so the smoothness, the trueness of the balls roll, should matter. Smoothness, trueness of roll, is not the same as speed though so conditioning for the sake of speed shouldn’t matter.
Blue touch paper lit!:)
Atb

[Thomas Dai]

Another aspect worth mentioning is equipment and how course conditioning and maintenance practices have interacted with it.
Firstly, height of cut on the greens and putter loft. Circa 3 decades ago the standard putter loft was around 5*/6*. These days it’s more like 3*/4*. And whereas a putter with more loft can be used with either longer grass or shorter grass putting surfaces a putter with less loft isn’t so good when the the putting surface grass is longer.
Secondly, irons. Tighter lies, hardpan etc conditions, which used to be more common than these days, are perhaps more suitable for the narrow soled irons that were the norm for most players 3+ decades ago than for the wider soled cavity backs used by many these days which are likely more suitable to lusher more manicured conditions.
And yes I know the above are generalisations and there will be exceptions depending on the players individual skill level (and level of modesty!) etc etc.
Atb

[Tim Gavrich]

Agree with Jeff that pretty much everything is marginally faster over the past 20 years. However it's the quality of the second tier privates and public courses that have really seen significant improvements. I've played more public courses in the past few months than I have for quite a while and it is striking how good many of their greens are these days, both in terms of speed and smoothness. There used to be a significant step up in surface quality going from publics to getting onto one of the nicer private clubs. These days the privates are likely a little smoother and running and a little faster, but it's not nearly the gulf that it used to be. A lot of it is likely a function of simply getting more play.

I've noticed this too in my travels. When I spent a couple days in Spokane two years ago, the conditions of the three Spokane County courses I played (sub-$50 green fees) were better than I ever remember seeing at the suburban second-tier club I grew up playing in Connecticut.


We GCA junkies should be rooting hard for parity across the range of courses when it comes to conditions. Once all golf courses are in awesome shape, conditioning will be less of a differentiating factor to golfers, and things like design will continue to stand out more.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Only slightly joking but the solution is for supers to lie like hell, i.e., tell members/golfers they are 11, when they are really just 9.5, as if any could know the difference.  Since there may be a few who challenge them, they may need to adjust their stimp meters so a demo will yield the "correct" numbers.  Or, if the golfers really aren't that familiar with the method, just measure downhill slopes to get a better result.

Trust me, it is done a lot, but perhaps could be done a lot more.

As to drought tolerant grasses, I have no idea what is being researched, but generally have found the current drought tolerant grasses to be a bit wider bladed than others.  If the first line of defense is choosing grasses by drought tolerance over playing quality, then there may be a lesser quality.  Although, those turf researchers will probably come up with something that plays well enough for about 98% of us.

[Bruce Hospes]

Only slightly joking but the solution is for supers to lie like hell, i.e., tell members/golfers they are 11, when they are really just 9.5, as if any could know the difference.  Since there may be a few who challenge them, they may need to adjust their stimp meters so a demo will yield the "correct" numbers.  Or, if the golfers really aren't that familiar with the method, just measure downhill slopes to get a better result.

Trust me, it is done a lot, but perhaps could be done a lot more.

As to drought tolerant grasses, I have no idea what is being researched, but generally have found the current drought tolerant grasses to be a bit wider bladed than others.  If the first line of defense is choosing grasses by drought tolerance over playing quality, then there may be a lesser quality.  Although, those turf researchers will probably come up with something that plays well enough for about 98% of us.

So you want Supers to lie to the people that pay their salaries.....


Wow

[Kyle Harris]

Only slightly joking but the solution is for supers to lie like hell, i.e., tell members/golfers they are 11, when they are really just 9.5, as if any could know the difference.  Since there may be a few who challenge them, they may need to adjust their stimp meters so a demo will yield the "correct" numbers.  Or, if the golfers really aren't that familiar with the method, just measure downhill slopes to get a better result.

Trust me, it is done a lot, but perhaps could be done a lot more.

As to drought tolerant grasses, I have no idea what is being researched, but generally have found the current drought tolerant grasses to be a bit wider bladed than others.  If the first line of defense is choosing grasses by drought tolerance over playing quality, then there may be a lesser quality.  Although, those turf researchers will probably come up with something that plays well enough for about 98% of us.

So you want Supers to lie to the people that pay their salaries.....


Wow

Wait.

Are you THE Bruce Hospes?

[Bruce Hospes]

Only slightly joking but the solution is for supers to lie like hell, i.e., tell members/golfers they are 11, when they are really just 9.5, as if any could know the difference.  Since there may be a few who challenge them, they may need to adjust their stimp meters so a demo will yield the "correct" numbers.  Or, if the golfers really aren't that familiar with the method, just measure downhill slopes to get a better result.

Trust me, it is done a lot, but perhaps could be done a lot more.

As to drought tolerant grasses, I have no idea what is being researched, but generally have found the current drought tolerant grasses to be a bit wider bladed than others.  If the first line of defense is choosing grasses by drought tolerance over playing quality, then there may be a lesser quality.  Although, those turf researchers will probably come up with something that plays well enough for about 98% of us.

So you want Supers to lie to the people that pay their salaries.....


Wow

Wait.

Are you THE Bruce Hospes?

Not sure what that means..

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