Report from Merion

[ChipOat]

I played Merion's East course yesterday.  Although I saw much more of the rough than the fairways, what little of the short grass that I did experience was in fine shape and there were no notable excess unfilled divots.  In my opinion, the bunkers are just the right degree of difficulty and the greens were in excellent condition - you would never know they had been punched rather recently.

Even with damp greens, they were VERY fast and being above the hole was very much not the preferred place from which to putt.

As advances in the science of agronomy make it possible to maintain greens that are ever faster and faster, this issue of Golden Era greens that are much much faster than they were designed to be is becoming more and more of a pet peeve.

[Peter Pallotta]

Chipoat - can you give me more of your views on this, i.e. at what point on the old great courses does using faster-than-intended green speeds to 'compensate' for modern club and ball technology get out of balance? Do you find that many of the old great courses you play are somehow out of balance in this sense?

Thanks
Peter 

[ChipOat]

Peter,

It's tough to quantify exactly for all situations but I'll give you 3 examples:

1) If the mostly gently stroked putt from3-15 feet in length is in danger of going off the green if it misses, then something's wrong.

2) If a putt down a slope is simply impossible to stop within 2-3 feet of the hole even if it is just barely trickling along as it starts down the slope, then something's wrong.

3) If a sidehill "rainbow" putt will be going so fast as it starts to break sideways that it is impossible to to stop it within 2-3 feet of the hole, then something's wrong.

I see it often on Bent Grass greens that were built pre-WWII; they weren't designed for today's Stimp readings, they were designed for pre-WWII green speeds.  But nobody wants to "restore" that part of the original design.

These days, clubs seem to want to have ultra-fast greens for the same reason that a male dog licks his testacles - i.e. because he can.

Clowns' noses and windmills.

[Chip Gaskins]

These days, clubs seem to want to have ultra-fast greens for the same reason that a male dog licks his testacles - i.e. because he can.

From one Chip to another...that's the best quote in a while.  And oh, I totally agree about how fast greens have become.  It was refreshing last weekend at great club in Colorado with 9-10 speeds where I wasn't worrying about putting my ball off a green.  The question is, how to get the speed genie back in the bottle?

[Jon Wiggett]

Chip,

I think one of the biggest problems is the post 1960's bent strains that many courses use are not very smooth if allowed to grow to high. Returning to more traditional grasses that putt okay at higher cutting heights creates the problem of wear and thus reduces the number of rounds the course will take. Kind of a 'catch 22 situation'.

[Ted Kramer]

Another reason why I thought Ballyneal was so great.
The greens were perfect in terms of speed and slope. . .
Lots of slope and moderate speed.


-Ted

[ChipOat]

Jon Wiggett;

Your post re: bent grass that needs to be kept short is worth a thread all by itself.  It is the type of insight into golf architecture that Ran had (and still has) in mind for GCA.

I will start the thread later if you don't beat me to it.  Thank you for the insight.

[Peter Pallotta]

Chipoat - thanks; you paint a pretty clear picture. I don't think I've ever played greens that fast. Maybe once or twice it was close, but those greens didn't have much contour. As with Joe H's thread/question, I can only ask questions; but I do know that, for me, these extra fast greens seem as 'artificial' as excessive and directional bunkering, and are probably 'unsustainable' in any practical sense as well -- and for those reasons alone they're worth questioning

Peter