Soft approaches with firm greens are an awful combination.

[Thomas Dai]

Soft approaches with firm greens are an awful combination.
Thoughts?
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[Ally Mcintosh]

I agree

[Rob Marshall]

Seems to be the case at a lot of Florida courses. Hate it.

[MCirba]

The worst.

[Adam Lawrence]

So obviously true it's hardly worth discussing... 

[Peter Sayegh]

Tough to find courses with "firm greens" where soft approaches are NOT the norm.

Welcome to Myrtle Beach.

Not a fan.

[Kalen Braley]

While I agree with the hypothesis...

I've long felt its a viable option to test professionals and keep scores at bay vs disfiguring courses with extra tee boxes, long rough, and ungodly green speeds.

[Matt Schoolfield]

I guess I'm interested in learning from the architects here is what can be done.

Growing up in Austin, many of the courses (I'm specifically thinking about Jimmy Clay here), had slightly raised greens. I'm presuming the slightly raised greens were to help with drainage and the water table. However, this would often lead to the run-up to the green to be literally soggy, while the green surface was firm.

Is there any way to directionally drain the green so that the opening in the front is more firm? Would raised bit of fairway before green help? What can be done to reduces this soggy-firm dichotomy that basically forces players into the aerial game?

[Tim_Weiman]

Soft approaches with firm greens are an awful combination.
Thoughts?
Atb

I agree. That is bad.

[Daryl David]

Can sandcapping the surrounds help solve things?  Or is it just too expensive?

[Pete Lavallee]

I know many high end courses here in the US have dual Greenside sprinklers; I wonder which uses more water?

[Sean_A]

Soft approaches with firm greens are an awful combination.
Thoughts?
Atb

Ut oh, trouble in paradise?

Ciao

[Steve Wilson]

Try airport runways and chocolate pudding, a combination found on low end public courses where clay is the base. The fairways can play like a links, and the greens stop the ball much like a drouge chute on a dragster. Playing on these courses, can loweryour handicap by several strokes as you gain distance, and then are able to stop the ball on a dime.  Anecdotal evidence from a friend, of course.

[Ken Moum]

While it's obvious that you are correct, I'm more interested in understanding why it happens.


On my first winter trips to AZ in the 80s, I played Mesa CC where my parents had recently joined, and they had dormant Bermuda fairways with overseeded greens.  The course was built ~1950 and features mostly back-to-front green slopes.


So you had really firm and fast fairways with very firm overseeded greens.  In between the runoff from the greens made the approaches ridiculously soft.  Land 15 yards short and you were probably over the green, land on the green, same.  Land 5 yards short, stop dead.


These days, with overseeded fairways, the problem is less noticeable, but back-to-front slopes are always going to make it hard to keep the approaches firm.

[archie_struthers]

 


Matt S asks a wonderful question and it's spot on. Great design makes drainage the highest priority for multiple reasons.


A really talented GCA takes this into account , particularly on holes that beg for the run up!

[John Emerson]

The issue is that layering sand on top of clay soil creates a perched water table. Essentially guaranteeing that water will be held in the top couple inches making them soft. The industry has an obsession with sand capping things when this goes against so much of what 100+ years of soil science and oodles of turfgrass research data has shown. Instead of addressing or amending the soil so that is drains deeper we instead create a hyperbolic "bowl" for water to sit with sand topdressing. I like to think that folks are taking notice of courses that have switched from sand to organic products such as compost. We will get there as an industry but it will take time break bad habits.

[archie_struthers]

 


more good stuff... thanks John

[Matt Schoolfield]

Yea, thanks John. That makes a ton of sense.

[cary lichtenstein]

That's Florida golf, you just have to learn how to play down here.

[Thomas Dai]

The issue is that layering sand on top of clay soil creates a perched water table. Essentially guaranteeing that water will be held in the top couple inches making them soft. The industry has an obsession with sand capping things when this goes against so much of what 100+ years of soil science and oodles of turfgrass research data has shown. Instead of addressing or amending the soil so that is drains deeper we instead create a hyperbolic "bowl" for water to sit with sand topdressing. I like to think that folks are taking notice of courses that have switched from sand to organic products such as compost. We will get there as an industry but it will take time break bad habits.

Not so much a sandcapping issue but in the U.K. but the greater use of irrigated approaches, lush and soft but with lovely green stripes (sic) especially if cut with a hand mower, are becoming more frequent. Even some links and heathlands are indulging in this practice.
And the skill both technique and mental of landing a ball short of a green and attempting to bounce, roll and trickle it onto the putting surface is becoming less and less achievable. Very sad. Knowing how best and where to land a shot short of a green and use the ground to your advantage used to be a skill. Another aspect of the great puzzle that is golf seemingly set to disappear.
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[SL_Solow]

I have seen systems such as XGD used to help solve problems such as this.

[Ally Mcintosh]

The issue is that layering sand on top of clay soil creates a perched water table. Essentially guaranteeing that water will be held in the top couple inches making them soft. The industry has an obsession with sand capping things when this goes against so much of what 100+ years of soil science and oodles of turfgrass research data has shown. Instead of addressing or amending the soil so that is drains deeper we instead create a hyperbolic "bowl" for water to sit with sand topdressing. I like to think that folks are taking notice of courses that have switched from sand to organic products such as compost. We will get there as an industry but it will take time break bad habits.

Not so much a sandcapping issue but in the U.K. but the greater use of irrigated approaches, lush and soft but with lovely green stripes (sic) especially if cut with a hand mower, are becoming more frequent. Even some links and heathlands are indulging in this practice.
And the skill both technique and mental of landing a ball short of a green and attempting to bounce, roll and trickle it onto the putting surface is becoming less and less achievable. Very sad. Knowing how best and where to land a shot short of a green and use the ground to your advantage used to be a skill. Another aspect of the great puzzle that is golf seemingly set to disappear.
Atb

David, even on UK courses (where sand capping is rare), most greens are designed back to front with the majority of water draining through the approach. Spreading water flow is one of the reasons that good green design should drain in two or three directions, particularly on heavy soil sites. Managing irrigation becomes harder when you have an uneven spread of surface drainage.

[Thomas Dai]

Guess my wording isn't all it could be. It's not the way that water drains from the greens, it's the water that's being sprinkled directly onto the approaches thats the issue.
Whereas greens may well be contoured, drained, maintained etc in a way which aids the ability to cope with irrigation and excess water approaches usually aren't. So over time irrigated approaches become soft and thatchy and withhold shots rather than allowing shots to release forward as they once did before they were irrigated.
Visually attractive, photogenic green, lush stripes, might looks cool to some but then requires expensive approach area drainage/maintenance and up goes the cost of golf even more.
atb

[Thomas Dai]

A recent piece by the USGA Green Section on the subject -


https://www.usga.org/content/usga/home-page/course-care/green-section-record/61/issue-14/how-to-produce-firm-approaches.html#


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