Why shouldn't most greens be fairway level?

[TEPaul]

"The beauty and natural attractiveness of the picture has me asking myself why every green isn't just cut at fairway level, much like Garden City GC, where that feature (or really, lack thereof) adds so much intrigue, complexity, deception, and interest to the golf game.  Why do we feel somehow compelled to prop our greens up on a throne, or sink them down between mounds?
Is it visibility and attractiveness of presentation?"


MikeC:

These are good questions and some I've been asking myself for a number of years. But I think the question should be in the context not just of fairway level but of the level of original topography of the green site.

GCGC is an example of a number of greens that were originally placed right on old topographical contours with almost no change. But in a real way I think some of the greens of Myopia are even more interesting that way because some of them are on original topographical contours and Myopia's site is a lot more topagraphical than GCGC's.

I made a point of traveling to Myopia last year just to analyze this kind of thing and I've told Paul Cowley that he should do the same.

Other examples on other courses are the incredible 5th green of Merion, the 16th at PVGC and perhaps the 4th at PVGC.

You suggest that doing things otherwise might be some expression of human vanity. Maybe it is to some extent but I believe it's an evolution that has to do with many other things as well such as basic drainage, sheet drainage and agronomic considerations.

In other words, there are clearly all kinds of historic and evolutionary reasons this kind of thing changed so much over time and clearly also including the fact that it was a form of architectural or LA framing for the reasons of golf and golfers that has little to do with attempting to maintain a natural look in the way of natural topgographical assimilation.

Just last Wednesday I spent about half an hour walking all around the wonderful Redan at Piping Rock. The entire left front left half of that green looks remarkably unnatural and manufactured. I'm not talking about some minimal topographical increase or change here either, I'm talking about a veritcal increase off original topographical grade to the tune of maybe 12-15 feet or more.

And I not only discovered what the original ground level and topographical contours looked like but also where Macdonald/Raynor got the fill to build that remarkably manufactured left half or more of the Redan green.

Where and how the nearby cuts were made to generate the fill for the green actually look very natural and even having grown up at PRC I never noticed them before the other day. But how and where the fill from those cuts was placed to make that green surely don't look a thing like a natural topographical occurence.

[Jeff Doerr]

Mike,

These are not the best images, but Eastmoreland in Portland has some really great fairway level greens. It's an H. Chandler Egan design with a few holes that were redone. #1 and #6 are two of my favorite greens to putt on. The first is a short 4 ( about 315 from the back, but defends itself well with the natural slopes and subtle undulations in the green. #6 is a reachable 5 if you can hit over the redwoods at the corner. Again though, the green defends the hole well as it slopes strongly with the land and has a number of small interior bumps and breaks. My son is doing his best Jordan Wall with the jeans on the course last January.

#1


#6

[Mike_Cirba]

This is great discussion guys.   I'm swamped this morning but this is what I had hoped to learn and discuss.

[TEPaul]

MikeC:

Another reason most modern greens are manufactured and built up off of natural grade, particularly on flat ground as in the photo above, is that obviously a good slice of golfers think if they aren't the green and the course will look and be pretty boring.

You may not think that but I feel a whole lot of golfers would not agree with you.

[JESII]

Mike,

HVCC is a pretty good example...and on a tough piece of ground at that.

#'s 6 and 15 ar two of my favorite greens anywhere...and they just flow from the fairway...

[Jim_Kennedy]

Bill B,
I lifted those shots from this site's 'courses by..' feature, and yes, that is FI.

[Mike_Cirba]

MikeC:

Another reason most modern greens are manufactured and built up off of natural grade, particularly on flat ground as in the photo above, is that obviously a good slice of golfers think if they aren't the green and the course will look and be pretty boring.

You may not think that but I feel a whole lot of golfers would not agree with you.

Tom,

Could the move to flat, inland sites with lots of trees be the reason for that?

I've never seen a links fairway-level green that looks boring, but plenty of inland holes, particularly greens that are very shaded on flat land.  Talk about deception!  Sometimes you can't tell when you're on the green even when you're standing on it!  

[Brent Hutto]

I don't know if this has ever been covered here before, but perhaps a better way of asking the question is simply, what is the need for a "green complex"?

It's as if there is some need for some separate, disjointed, area of golf that somehow begs to be created within 40 yards of the hole location on all sides, that is to be an arena of creativity and variety and planned "response" to the golfer's stimuli, as if a ball approaching area "E", leaves recovery option C, D, or F as the next shot.

Every hole has a putting surface and every hole has an area surrounding that putting surface. For my part, what goes on within that 20, 30, 40 yard radius of the hole provides the majority of the fun and challenge in playing the game. If that is a "...separate, disjointed area..." then there's probably a lack of quality design (with rare exceptions like an island green, etc.) and at the very least it's a design that not everyone will care for.

But still, I think "green complex" is as good a short phrase as any for describing all the stuff that's close enough to the hole to require short-game shots. I don't think use of that phrase should imply only greens that are set apart from the rest of the hole in some way. I think the issues you are bringing up are the same as any element of golf-course design. I would not particularly like to play a course with flat, oval putting surfaces surrounded by flat, smooth ground leading out 30-40 yards to the "fairway". Some kind of contour, pitch or humpity-bumpity is needed to make it interesting.

Just as perching a green on a plateau does not automatically make it better or more interesting than a green at fairway grade, neither is a low-profile (or zero-profile) green necessarily more beautiful or desirable than one which rises somewhat abruptly. Ideally, a way can be found to utilize inherent features of the topography in a manner yielding variety, challenge and interest. If not, such may have to be manuactured (hopefully in a way that looks "natural"). But even on a flat, mostly featureless site I return to my original statement and say that one flat, zero-profile green after another would be a mighty poor experience. If you're going for zero-profile, there had better be some mighty compelling interest to the little details.

[Jim_Kennedy]

Mike,
Great combination: a stumble-free fairway-to-green  connection coupled w/deep, dastardly denizens of demise.  
Yes, it's him.

[TEPaul]

"Tom,
Could the move to flat, inland sites with lots of trees be the reason for that?"

MikeC:

That's one of the most interesting questions I've ever seen and one I certainly never thought of.

But perhaps that is true somehow. There's no question that a lot of trees around flattish greens or even original topography contours on a flattish piece of property will make the greens look a whole lot flatter and featureless than they would if there were no trees on the site like most of the linksland courses. It's obviously very much a visual juxtaposition kind of thing.

This is why I think, even if in retrospect, Bill Coore is so good visually and aesthetically. Years ago when I asked him what the hell he was looking at or for when we walked around one whole day without him saying more than a word or two, he started explaining what he called "top-lines" of everything that was visible on-site, off-site, everywhere, as those "top-lines" right next to us and then farther out and then farther out still and then even into the top of the first treeline and then the top of the last visbile treeline before it merged with the skyline and the sky.

He said, "I'm looking at how all those top-lines twist and turn with or against one another, particularly the landform "top-lines"."

And if that didn't blow my mind enough (since this was on the first day I ever met him), he then said: "And after I look at what we're looking at right now that way, I'll look for that same kind of thing from every single angle and vantage point on this property."

He's such a nice guy it was probably just his way of not only explaining what he was looking at and for but that there was so much to look at and for it was his way of saying "pardon me for not talking more."  

[Mike_Cirba]

Tom Paul,

I'm beginning to think that rolling open expanses (such as found on links or meadows) and perhaps coupled with sunken bunkers are the differentiator, even on flattish terrain.   For instance, I see nothing boring in any of these;













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[Jim_Kennedy]

Mike,
Do the trees surrounding this green make it look featureless?  

[Bradley Anderson]

When greens are kept closer to grade you have the opportunity to channel the surface drainage in several directions. Whereas the elevated greens channel 70% of the water out the front and center - they have to because when you get a green up in the air like that your forced to tilt it into the face of play.

So elevated greens are not always better draining that greens that are closer to grade. In my experience the more elevated a green is the more likey it is to have pockets of anerobic soils.

I put all of my greens on a grid and took extensive CO2 readings of the soils. The healthiest soils where on the practice putting green which is pretty much at ground level and tilted in no particular direction. Now why would that be? Why would a ground level green have the highest levels of oxygen? Because the surface drainage is sending water in seven different directions.

So from a purely agronomic view I would argue that the fairway level green may actually drain better than an elevated green. As incongruent as it may sound.

Flooding of course is another matter.