Courses with only one height of turf other than greens

[Rob Marshall]

I went to the CME Championship at Tiburon today. I've previously played the course 3 or 4 times. There are two heights of turf on the entire course. Greens and everything else. I started thinking about other courses I've played like that and the only other one I could remember was Streamsong Blue. Why do this? Are there advantages?

[Matt_Cohn]

I feel like there are a lot of these now. In the Bay Area, Baylands. Menlo is close but does have literally about 1% rough.

[Chris Hughes]

That is very interesting, never heard of it before.


However, in the past when I've heard folks complain that "the bunkers are inconsistent" my reaction is "well do you also want the grass cut the exact same length everywhere too"??


After they stare blankly for a few moments I explain that assessing different conditions/lies is all part of "playing" golf, including in the bunkers.

[Kyle Harris]

Plenty of advantage. Less different kinds of equipment and less subsequent management and overhead.

[Rob Marshall]

That is very interesting, never heard of it before.


However, in the past when I've heard folks complain that "the bunkers are inconsistent" my reaction is "well do you also want the grass cut the exact same length everywhere too"??


After they stare blankly for a few moments I explain that assessing different conditions/lies is all part of "playing" golf, including in the bunkers.

In saw Korda and another player chip from just off the green when most of the players were putting from similar spots. It was very tight and I didn’t see any plays with putter that turned out poorly.

[Tim Gavrich]

It seems to be a relatively prominent feature of Greg Norman's work over the years. The first course I ever played that used the two-cut scheme was The Reserve in Pawleys Island, S.C., originally a Norman design. Norman's course up the beach at Barefoot Resort is also primarily like that, too. Norman's now-NLE Great White course at Doral, same thing: fairway cut and green cut, with crushed coquina shell "rough." It's an appealing look that probably doesn't work everywhere, but at places like The Reserve or Tiburon that are routed through pines, there's an interesting crispness to it.

[Adam Lawrence]

I think it's a great thing. Eliminating maintained rough, so you have fairway cut right up to unmaintained native seems to me possibly the best way to make courses look more natural. Just as fairway striping is wholly unnatural and therefore stands out like a sore thumb, so do lots of different heights of cut. You either have straight lines between the different heights, or you have the terrible wavy edges. Neither exist in nature.  I want to see as little evidence of the hand of man as possible on a golf course. The fewer heights of cut there are, the less you see the hand of man.

[Thomas Dai]

Sounds damn good to me!
Sections, not all, just sections, of some links and/or hilltop courses particularly animal grazed ones, can be a bit like it.
Was it the original intent at ANGC?


Atb

[jeffwarne]

Well yes and no..

Depends on the height of that cut.
Many modern courses have jumped the shark, placing higher value on agronomy skill over golf skill.
Putter from everywhere devalues creativity and skill with various chipping/pitching weapons


Now if the HOC of sheep grazing, where there's still some turf and it's still firm, it's perfect because generally all options are on the table as a player of reasonable ability can put club on ball(unlike the modern high ends where few IF any players can consistently get predictable contact to make anything but putter or hybrid/fway wood an actual realistic, viable option}


But I do understand from a maintenance perspective that it makes sense-as I said, my quibble is HOC and firmness.

[Dónal Ó Ceallaigh]

I would like to see green collars and aprons cut to the same height as the fairway, which would mean elimination of collars and aprons. I think green aprons look terrible, add nothing useful to the game and in many cases are over watered.


There's nothing more frustrating than an approach shot landing on the apron and sticking there. I also think fairways are cut too low these days. I always thought is was nice playing off fairways - on parkland courses - that were cut with gang-mowers.

[Charlie Goerges]

Well yes and no..

Depends on the height of that cut.
Many modern courses have jumped the shark, placing higher value on agronomy skill over golf skill.
Putter from everywhere devalues creativity and skill with various chipping/pitching weapons


Now if the HOC of sheep grazing, where there's still some turf and it's still firm, it's perfect because generally all options are on the table as a player of reasonable ability can put club on ball(unlike the modern high ends where few IF any players can consistently get predictable contact to make anything but putter or hybrid/fway wood an actual realistic, viable option}


But I do understand from a maintenance perspective that it makes sense-as I said, my quibble is HOC and firmness.

1000% agree!


I'm not interested if the single cut is ridiculously tight. Fairway lies are often already to tight for players like my dad who is less skilled and getting older. He needs some cushion under the ball to get it up in the air (and I prefer some).

[Jesse Kodadek]

Rock Creek Cattle Company is like this, and only occasionally has a small strip of rough before fairways transition to native areas. As explained in the description on this site, there was a good reason for this, as Tom Doak is quoted:


"We’ve built a lot of wide fairways but these are something else. The impetus here was all the rocks in the ground.  We wanted to make a wide enough playable area so that people wouldn’t be taking drops [legal or illegal?] to avoid hitting a rock on their second shot … and once we tore up the ground to sift through it, it made more sense to make it all fairway than to have a belt of rough between the fairway and the native roughs."

[Kevin_Reilly]

I can't remember a time (since 2015) that I had a shot from non-fairway height grass at Orinda - and not because I am Calvin Peete!  Single level turf everywhere.  Thank you Josh Smith.

[Rob Marshall]

“Putter from everywhere devalues creativity and skill with various chipping/pitching weapons”

Which is why I don’t like tight run off areas on too many holes. At my course in NY everyone just uses a putter. Was practicing today hitting three balls to the same pin using a different club for each ball.

[Tom_Doak]

There are a lot of modern courses where nearly everything is cut at fairway height until you get to the native.  I can't identify where that started, exactly; for sure by the time we did Streamsong it was fairly common.


It's partly a matter of location.  It works where you have fescue or Bermuda fairways, because it's not much more expensive to maintain those at fairway height than as rough . . . it doesn't work as well in an area where you'd want bent grass fairways with all of their requirements, which is why Diamond Springs is bluegrass instead of bent.


It's also a matter of location because in some places you don't identify the native as "rough" but in grassier areas you do . . . for instance, St. Patrick's roughs are all "native" fescues but you see that as two heights of cut, whereas the native at Streamsong or Tara Iti is just open sand.

[Joe Hancock]

Topography matters a lot in this matter.

[Forrest Richardson]

Yes, Baylands was designed that way. And Mr. Lawrence will recall The Links at Las Palomas in MX has been that way since 2007 when it opened with 100% SeaDwarf Paspalum, including greens.

[Anthony_Nysse]

It's partly a matter of location.  It works where you have fescue or Bermuda fairways, because it's not much more expensive to maintain those at fairway height than as rough . . .

  Maybe this is site specific, but having 2-3 times more fairway height bermudagrass is most certainly "not much more expensive to maintain" than rough.


  These extra areas require the same fertility, (think a $15-$20k fertilizer application x 2 or 3) cultural practices, same spray packages. These are areas mowed 3-4x week vs 1-2x. These areas get aerified 2-3x a year. Think about topdressing 30-35 acres of fairways vs 70-80 acres (or more) of shortcut. (Extra $50k in sand?)


  They also require twice as many fairway units. Most golf courses have 3-4 units @ $100k each. Now you need 7-8 or more. This also means 7-8+ people are needed to complete mowing 3-4x a week vs 1-2 rough units 1x a week.  There is also a maintenance piece were sharpening a rotary blade 1x a month (rough) vs having to check an extra 20 reels 3x a week.


Certainly, here in FL, having 2-3x more shortgrass than the "normal" course is not cheaper by any means. Please understand, this isn't a knock on the look-its tremendous, but it's not a cost that is just swept under the rug.

[Tom_Doak]

  Maybe this is site specific, but having 2-3 times more fairway height bermudagrass is most certainly "not much more expensive to maintain" than rough.

  These extra areas require the same fertility, (think a $15-$20k fertilizer application x 2 or 3) cultural practices, same spray packages. These are areas mowed 3-4x week vs 1-2x. These areas get aerified 2-3x a year. Think about topdressing 30-35 acres of fairways vs 70-80 acres (or more) of shortcut. (Extra $50k in sand?)

  They also require twice as many fairway units. Most golf courses have 3-4 units @ $100k each. Now you need 7-8 or more. This also means 7-8+ people are needed to complete mowing 3-4x a week vs 1-2 rough units 1x a week.  There is also a maintenance piece were sharpening a rotary blade 1x a month (rough) vs having to check an extra 20 reels 3x a week.

Certainly, here in FL, having 2-3x more shortgrass than the "normal" course is not cheaper by any means. Please understand, this isn't a knock on the look-its tremendous, but it's not a cost that is just swept under the rug.

Hi Tony:


Thank you for quantifying this; I appreciate the correction.


I have kept asking the superintendents of my courses and of the places where I consult(ed) how much difference to the budget it made to add fairway acreage, and they have mostly insisted that it didn't add much at all . . . the superintendents at Chicago Golf Club insisted they spent about the same maintaining the bluegrass rough as the bent grass fairways, which I found hard to believe.


So, I guess, either they don't want me making design decisions based on $$$, or they don't mind their budgets increasing.

[Mike_Young]

The Fields in LaGrange ,Ga is one HOC...

[Ben Malach]

.

[Ira Fishman]

Mike, maybe when your mowing.


sometimes there are 3-4 HOC's depending on how close the guys are watching that gang unit.


Love y'all hope everyone is good down there.

I assume that this was supposed to be clever. It strikes me as quite disrespectful.

[Ben Malach]

..

[Mike_Young]

Mike, maybe when your mowing.


sometimes there are 3-4 HOC's depending on how close the guys are watching that gang unit.


Love y'all hope everyone is good down there.

I assume that this was supposed to be clever. It strikes me as quite disrespectful.

Ben,
Got new rollers on the gang mowers... all mowing well now.
Ira,
All good.  Ben has worked down there some and was just jabbing.  Hope you doing well. 

[Matthew Rose]

Pretty common in Australia - everything that is maintained is generally short grass, while rough is often just left to do whatever.