F&F actually helps long duffed shots get near/on the green but they also create tight lies making it near impossible to clip a wedge (or bump a 7i) consistently.
That may be how firm and fast typically gets manifested in this day and age, but it isn't a requirement of firm and fast. It is possible to raise the height of cut, dry out the turf and give us firmer, faster, bouncier conditions while leaving a good cushion under the ball. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be fashionable at the moment.
A cushion under the ball-what a concept-definitely not fashionable at the moment.
Billions are spent(mostly) in this country at high end clubs to produce firm and fast.
they always get the FAST, and only occasionally the firm.
And the golf suffers as chipping and pitching go away for all but the best wedge players, due to the impossibility of pitching with no cushion, compounded by the often wet conditions to keep the scalped/rolled turf alive.
Yet, at the mostly country courses I played for a month in New Zealand they got FIRM every-single-day, despite the constant negativity I heard from the tree police about how over treed their courses were.
The secret was as George points out, they weren't going overboard with the attempts at FAST, with a reasonable HOC on the fairways and greens allowing healthy, bouncy firm turf-usually with one greenkeeper on $9-20 course.
Oh and here's the ironic part-they don't have to "renovate' their greens every few years out of the sheer genius of maintaining them at a height that works with the original slopes/tilts.
Not that they could anyway...
I pretty much throw up in my mouth whenever I hear an "expert" tell me about a course with with well contoured tilt/slop(not tiers) being renovated to accommodate "modern speeds" like they are an unavoidable disease like hoof in mouth...
as if the problem was the greens..