[John Emerson]

I would enjoy ideas on how we might quantify / measure green speeds (maybe a poor word) based on mowing height + slopes. How could we make a difference by taking into account the gradients and interest ??

Taking height of cut into the equation isn’t really relevant. You can obtain the same speed with different heights of cut. If you manipulate surface firmness with other practices such as lowering moisture content, rolling, and sand topdressing then you achieve fast speeds at higher heights of cut.

[Mark_Fine]

Forrest,
I spent a good hour or more today reading some old literature on the evolution of greens.  I know we have talked about the basic concept of a putting surface countless times on this site before, but it really is fascinating how greens have evolved to become a prepared surface and undoubtedly what is now the most carefully maintained aspect of every golf course.  I don’t have an answer to your question but one thing I am sure of is that greens will continue to evolve going forward.  Whether the changes will be as radical as in the past, who knows, but they will go well beyond just green speeds.  I am looking forward to the discussion at the meeting.

[Rob Marshall]

My whole golfing life I have been guilty of whining about slow greens. Then I read one of Jeff’s post that said “putting slow greens is a skill”. What? Huh? Now I practice putting no matter what the green speed is. Slow them down and let them play the way they were designed to be played.

[Sean_A]

In my world, it is much more the case that greens are too slow to allow for the contours and slopes to impact play as they should. That still means they can run at 9-10 most of the time. It's getting better for sure, but there is still room for more speed. That said, I would prefer the speed to be the result of firmness rather than watering, feeding and cutting shorter heights.

When I was recently in the US I thought for the most part the speeds of greens were just about right. That said, there are countless places where false fronts have been altered and there is no documentation so folks forget and newer golfers have no idea. That said, sometimes raising false fronts works well in allowing the rest of the green to remain contoured/sloped. However, sometimes the unintended result is greens with a steeper grade to the putting surface and that effects the ground game. Once changes are made it can become a nightmare of side effects.

One course in the US gave me a serious moment of pause and if there was any place that didn't need to get carried away this was it. I just don't see how the problem can be reversed without greenkeepers and committee members losing face.

Maybe it's time to drop the idea of one speed for all 18 greens.

Ciao

[jeffwarne]

Maybe it's time to drop the idea of one speed for all 18 greens.

Ciao

Ding Ding Ding-we have a winner.
Players revere "challenging" courses, but faced with one...
 such as "inconsistent" sand (in a HAZARD),or steep interesting greens at a playable(closer to the design) speed on the more contoured ones
....... they don't actually want it.


Just add more length, flatten tiers so they can brag about an absolute stimp, and add more dramatic looking eye candy crushed quartz consistent bunkers.
So it looks tougher

[A.G._Crockett]

Unless I missed it, the conversion of greens from bent to the Bermuda hybrids hasn’t been mentioned.  I think that’s a big deal.


Personal opinion: Bermuda greens have to be rather fast to be any good, which is not true of bent. On slower Bermuda, the grain becomes pronounced, and not only putting but pitching and chipping as well become sort of “odd”.


The flip side of this is that Bermuda can also get too fast, which is where the loss of pin positions has come from in the last 20 years.  “Early adopters” that didn’t recontour when they converted from bent to Bermuda lost pin positions, and courses that did recontour lost some of the interest factor in their greens.

[jeffwarne]

Unless I missed it, the conversion of greens from bent to the Bermuda hybrids hasn’t been mentioned.  I think that’s a big deal.


Personal opinion: Bermuda greens have to be rather fast to be any good, which is not true of bent. On slower Bermuda, the grain becomes pronounced, and not only putting but pitching and chipping as well become sort of “odd”.


The flip side of this is that Bermuda can also get too fast, which is where the loss of pin positions has come from in the last 20 years.  “Early adopters” that didn’t recontour when they converted from bent to Bermuda lost pin positions, and courses that did recontour lost some of the interest factor in their greens.

While I agree with the premise of your post,
I'm curious if there IS a strain of bermuda(new or old) that can be maintained to putt slower, without the grain effect you refer to.(I asked that in another thread)
i.e. the grain effect you may be experiencing might be the effect of neglect causing the grainy surface, and curious if it can be slower yet not grainier via appropriate maintenance.(in most cases you wouldn't know because you don't see many slower greens at high end bermuda courses and eventually the slopes are reduced)


I know for a fact that bent can be slow and very true.


and yes Bermuda can get too fast on some interesting greens in winter.
As mentioned by Sean, I'd rather see that particular green be maintained slower than ruin the green's historical and interest significance so some green chairman and the fair, consistent police can claim victory

[Ira Fishman]

A potential note of dissent. We have been lucky enough to play a bunch of courses with interesting green contours both in the US and UK&I over the past few years, and I am hard pressed to think of a course where the speed was detrimentally mismatched to the contours. Ironically, our course might be the exception because to A.G.’s point, it is converted Bermuda and is quite dangerous downhill down grain.


Could it be the case that courses are getting “tricked up” for competitions but are fine for everyday play?


In any event, Ran probably could influence the situation by sending a letter out that appropriate green speeds will be a factor in the next set of National and State rankings:-).


Ira

[Ben Hollerbach]

Has the impact of the stimpmeter on modern green speeds become overblown? For players to demand faster and faster greens they would have to believe they know what their courses current green speed is and what their ideal speed plays like. But I've come across very few courses that post a stimpmeter reading of their greens with any regularity and I would believe that the majority of players would not be able to correctly predict the speed of their own greens if asked.

So where are they getting their information to believe their greens are slow? If a membership is demanding faster greens, why don't Supers take a page from the club manufactures playbook and simply lie to their consumers. While club companies might sell an 11 degree driver with 9.5 stamped on the bottom, why don't courses post speeds of 11 while cutting their greens to run 8 or 9?

[Carl Rogers]

Have ANGC's greens been ruined by ultra high green speeds?

[A.G._Crockett]

Has the impact of the stimpmeter on modern green speeds become overblown? For players to demand faster and faster greens they would have to believe they know what their courses current green speed is and what their ideal speed plays like. But I've come across very few courses that post a stimpmeter reading of their greens with any regularity and I would believe that the majority of players would not be able to correctly predict the speed of their own greens if asked.

So where are they getting their information to believe their greens are slow? If a membership is demanding faster greens, why don't Supers take a page from the club manufactures playbook and simply lie to their consumers. While club companies might sell an 11 degree driver with 9.5 stamped on the bottom, why don't courses post speeds of 11 while cutting their greens to run 8 or 9?

Putting aside the fact that a super who consistently lies to the membership would need to have his resume ready to look for his next job…


To the contrary, this summer the super at my club told the membership in mid-July that he was going to have to slow our bent grass greens down for awhile because of heat stress, which he did for about six weeks. I didn’t hear a single serious complaint; typically, more information is better than less. 


While I agree with you that few golfers could accurately guess what their greens are rolling on a Stimp, I think that’s beside the point. Lots of golfers play enough golf and enough different courses to know the difference between fast and slow green speeds, and you can’t successfully tell them otherwise. And putting on slow greens is almost universally disliked; there’s no way around that.


Which circles back to the original question.

[Tim Martin]

Has the impact of the stimpmeter on modern green speeds become overblown? For players to demand faster and faster greens they would have to believe they know what their courses current green speed is and what their ideal speed plays like. But I've come across very few courses that post a stimpmeter reading of their greens with any regularity and I would believe that the majority of players would not be able to correctly predict the speed of their own greens if asked.

So where are they getting their information to believe their greens are slow? If a membership is demanding faster greens, why don't Supers take a page from the club manufactures playbook and simply lie to their consumers. While club companies might sell an 11 degree driver with 9.5 stamped on the bottom, why don't courses post speeds of 11 while cutting their greens to run 8 or 9?

Putting aside the fact that a super who consistently lies to the membership would need to have his resume ready to look for his next job…

A.G.-I guess you haven't heard of "Truthful Hyperbole".

[Ben Hollerbach]

While I agree with you that few golfers could accurately guess what their greens are rolling on a Stimp, I think that’s beside the point. Lots of golfers play enough golf and enough different courses to know the difference between fast and slow green speeds, and you can’t successfully tell them otherwise. And putting on slow greens is almost universally disliked; there’s no way around that.

There is a clear distinction between someone being able to tell that one courses greens appear faster than another courses and knowing that a particular courses set of greens is rolling 11.5 on any given day. Which is where my original question comes from. Putting on any green that is dramatically different from the expected norm is disliked because it asked the player to adjust from what was expected.

A similar expectation is also in play in a players mind when they compare the speeds of greens on 2 courses. Players often  normalized their experiences on multiple courses in a way that could be incongruent with each other. Were the greens the same type of grass? Were the rounds played at the same time of day, under similar temperature and weather conditions? Were the rounds played during the same time of the year? Is the soil and topography of the courses similar, how about the severity of the green contours? The list goes on and on, and the average retail golfer is not knowledgeable enough about agronomy and design to understand the implication of all factors on perceived green speed.

In my experience, players have an expectation that "slower" greens roll less true, so their dislike of them is derived more from that aspect than the speed. But that is not universally true. I have appreciated that after Mike Riley redid Rivermont outside of Atlanta, Chris Cupit was unapologetic that the greens would not be kept at lighting fast speeds, as the contours in the greens would not make high speeds sustainable. 5 minutes on the putting green and you might be annoyed by having to adjust to slower than "anticipated" greens, but by the 2nd or 3rd hole, that notion of slow is thrown out the window. Chris and his team have done a great job of matching the contouring on the greens and the grass height to create a great balance in putting speed.

[Ben Hollerbach]

Have ANGC's greens been ruined by ultra high green speeds?

From everyone I know who has played Augusta not during Masters week, the greens the rest of the season are kept noticeably slower than tournament speed.

[A.G._Crockett]

While I agree with you that few golfers could accurately guess what their greens are rolling on a Stimp, I think that’s beside the point. Lots of golfers play enough golf and enough different courses to know the difference between fast and slow green speeds, and you can’t successfully tell them otherwise. And putting on slow greens is almost universally disliked; there’s no way around that.

There is a clear distinction between someone being able to tell that one courses greens appear faster than another courses and knowing that a particular courses set of greens is rolling 11.5 on any given day. Which is where my original question comes from. Putting on any green that is dramatically different from the expected norm is disliked because it asked the player to adjust from what was expected.

A similar expectation is also in play in a players mind when they compare the speeds of greens on 2 courses. Players often  normalized their experiences on multiple courses in a way that could be incongruent with each other. Were the greens the same type of grass? Were the rounds played at the same time of day, under similar temperature and weather conditions? Were the rounds played during the same time of the year? Is the soil and topography of the courses similar, how about the severity of the green contours? The list goes on and on, and the average retail golfer is not knowledgeable enough about agronomy and design to understand the implication of all factors on perceived green speed.

In my experience, players have an expectation that "slower" greens roll less true, so their dislike of them is derived more from that aspect than the speed. But that is not universally true. I have appreciated that after Mike Riley redid Rivermont outside of Atlanta, Chris Cupit was unapologetic that the greens would not be kept at lighting fast speeds, as the contours in the greens would not make high speeds sustainable. 5 minutes on the putting green and you might be annoyed by having to adjust to slower than "anticipated" greens, but by the 2nd or 3rd hole, that notion of slow is thrown out the window. Chris and his team have done a great job of matching the contouring on the greens and the grass height to create a great balance in putting speed.

Ben,
I don’t think I could accurately count how many times I’ve played Rivermont, and I have yet to think of the practice green as in any way slow; quite the opposite.


While I agree with you that Chris and his Super do a beautiful job of matching speed to contour, nobody (and I mean NOBODY!) has ever considered even a straight, flat putt at Rivermont to be slow.  Slow is Chastain Park, or the zoysia greens at Crooked Creek; certainly NOT Rivermont!

[Ben Hollerbach]

While I agree with you that Chris and his Super do a beautiful job of matching speed to contour, nobody (and I mean NOBODY!) has ever considered even a straight, flat putt at Rivermont to be slow.  Slow is Chastain Park, or the zoysia greens at Crooked Creek; certainly NOT Rivermont!

Yeaaaaah, I never said the greens at Rivermont were slow and it would seem you have not been to Chastain Park in quite a while.

Which, incidentally very nicely proves the point I made previously. Incongruently normalizing one experience vs. another to draw a comparison that may not be wholly accurate.

[Erik J. Barzeski]

If a membership is demanding faster greens, why don't Supers take a page from the club manufactures playbook and simply lie to their consumers.

[A.G._Crockett]

While I agree with you that Chris and his Super do a beautiful job of matching speed to contour, nobody (and I mean NOBODY!) has ever considered even a straight, flat putt at Rivermont to be slow.  Slow is Chastain Park, or the zoysia greens at Crooked Creek; certainly NOT Rivermont!

Yeaaaaah, I never said the greens at Rivermont were slow and it would seem you have not been to Chastain Park in quite a while.

Which, incidentally very nicely proves the point I made previously. Incongruently normalizing one experience vs. another to draw a comparison that may not be wholly accurate.

I played Chastain Park in June of this year. (As it happens, I played Rivermont the same week.)


The greens at Chastain are vastly better since they were converted to Bermuda years ago, but they are SLOW; Chastain gets 50,000 rounds a year, and that dictates green speeds as much or more than grass type or contour.


To be clear, I don’t disagree with you at all about the need to match green speeds to the grass and contours, and Rivermont does that as well as any place I’ve played. Mike Riley put in some VERY cool contours there when he redid a very good Joe Lee course.  But “slower than anticipated”?  Hardly.


You used the phrase “slower than anticipated” to describe the practice green at Rivermont.  Literally, you are the first person I’ve ever heard refer to ANY green at Rivermont that way. I could put your ball in a place on any green with any pin at Rivermont and you wouldn’t be able to stop the ball near the hole, and I don’t care how good a putter you are. Period.


Find a better example.

[Tim Gavrich]

Has someone developed an industry-standard equation that tracks the point at which a given area fails to be pinnable? It seems (to this former English major) like a relatively straightforward input/output situation: if the tilt of a given area is X degrees, then at Y Stimpmeter reading, a ball will roll freely, so if you want to pin that area, the green must stimp at Y - 1 or Y - 0.5.


This relationship between contour and turf speed cuts both ways. When I played Shadow Ridge CC in Omaha, Nebraska a couple of months ago, there were contours on the exterior of some greens that were clearly meant to gather balls backwards. Except these contours were maintained at fairway height, and that height was not short enough for the ball to roll backward as intended, so shots played with that strategy in mind were foiled by the then-current conditioning. I'm not trying to single Shadow Ridge out here, but it's just the latest example where I've noticed this phenomenon in recent years.

At this point, anyway, it seems that green speeds outrunning contour is a problem limited to high-end private clubs and some top resorts. It hasn't filtered down to the courses that 80-90% of golfers play, thankfully.

[Kyle Harris]

Yes.

[Ben Hollerbach]

You used the phrase “slower than anticipated” to describe the practice green at Rivermont.  Literally, you are the first person I’ve ever heard refer to ANY green at Rivermont that way. I could put your ball in a place on any green with any pin at Rivermont and you wouldn’t be able to stop the ball near the hole, and I don’t care how good a putter you are. Period.

Find a better example.

The first time I ever played Rivermont with Mac Plumart I recall that this was how he introduced the greens to me and my experiences have echoed that since. The cut of the green isn't exceptionally low, but the contouring made them appear to play much faster. I believe Chris ones saying the greens were designed to play no faster than a 10. Which as a max, would not be considered fast for modern greens. 

Your challenge has a lot more to do with the contouring on the greens than the height of the grass cut. The same challenge could be proposed to you on quite a number of greens at Chastain Park. Over the last year. I've watched people hit fairly good putts only for them to roll off the 6th, 8th, 10th, 12th, 13th, 16th, and 18th greens. I myself had a putt from behind the hole to a back left pin on 13 barely trickle past the cup and proceed to roll another 60 feet to the front of the green. So are the greens fast, or do the greens have enough contour to provide an equalizing challenge when not cut as short?

But this is the point, and why Rivermont is such a good example. If a player is coming from another Atlanta course like Berkeley Hills, where their greens are kept in the 11.5-12 range, Rivermont running at a 10 or less would at first glance appear to be much slower. But Berkeley Hills has much flatter greens than Rivermont, so from a playability standpoint the two sets of greens would perform similarly. If Rivermont's greens were taken to 12, they may become unplayable. If Berkeley Hills greens were slowed down to below 10, they may become to benign to present a sizeable challenge.

My use of Rivermont has been very complementary. What Mike and Chris decided to do with the green was in opposition of the modern trend of flatter and faster, and they should be commended for it. I would much rather see more courses go this direction than the opposite.  Why you've taken offense to my commentary and can't stand even the hint of the words Rivermont greens and slow existing in the same sentence is beyond me.

[Ben Hollerbach]

Has someone developed an industry-standard equation that tracks the point at which a given area fails to be pinnable? It seems (to this former English major) like a relatively straightforward input/output situation: if the tilt of a given area is X degrees, then at Y Stimpmeter reading, a ball will roll freely, so if you want to pin that area, the green must stimp at Y - 1 or Y - 0.5.

East Lake Yardage Book
From the PGA Tour standpoint, generally any area on the greens heat map that is colored green-to-blue is considered pinnable. With an expectation towards the pins only existing in the middle of those areas.

[jeffwarne]

One day, when a stimp reading never mentioned, we will have arrived.
I'm guessing Rivermont's greens, like Southampton's are fantastic, and no quantifiable number is needed...or wanted.
I'd guess both Ben and AG would agree. that Rivermont's greens are perfectly paced...period.

[Erik J. Barzeski]

Has someone developed an industry-standard equation that tracks the point at which a given area fails to be pinnable?

Like Kyle said… yes. Specifics depend on your definition of "pinnable." Are you talking about roll-off, or just a 3-footer that breaks 8" as being "unpinnable"?

[Forrest Richardson]

How could we come up with a metric to "measure" greens with respect to:


(i) roll speed on flat areas
(ii) the effect of slope on that roll
(ii) the resulting area of cup-able square feet when the above are considered

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