[Pete Lavallee]

I was fortunate enough to play a round in the Buda at Painswick with the son of the greenkeeper. He indicated that as an old quarry there was rock, sometimes less than 3 inches below the soil that hindered proper conditioning. He had some awesome guns from flymowing those steep slopes though!

[jeffwarne]

The conditioning of the course, especially in winter, can be quite poor.  I am not one to dwell so much on this, but its hard not to when playing in a mud bath.  

Sean,

I don't see why the winter condition should enter into the judgement of its quality. Play it in the summer as I am sure it was intended to be. If winter playing conditions have to be considered then what does that do to many of the US courses in the northern half or those in Canada?

Jon

+1
I heard PV sucks in the winter too

[Bill_McBride]

I'm afraid conditions at Painswick are going to be worse than usual for a while at least. Morons.

http://www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk/Course-vandals-sought/story-15096824-detail/story.html

Dick heads are everywhere.  We had a bit of this last year.

What do you suppose Simon Pearce (in the article) means by "spare hole?"   I suppose he could mean an additional par 3 to what used to be the 18th and is now the practice putting green.

[Jon Wiggett]

The conditioning of the course, especially in winter, can be quite poor.  I am not one to dwell so much on this, but its hard not to when playing in a mud bath.  

Sean,

I don't see why the winter condition should enter into the judgement of its quality. Play it in the summer as I am sure it was intended to be. If winter playing conditions have to be considered then what does that do to many of the US courses in the northern half or those in Canada?

Jon

Jon

Its a completely different matter if a course is closed due to weather.  So far s I am concerned, if the course is open and charging money, than there is a minimum standard which should be upheld.  In my experience, often times, Painswick doesn't meet that standard in the winter due to wet and sloppy conditions.  In England, golf is a year round game so courses should be playable year round.  What do you think the push back to  bents and fescues has been about this past decade?  In part its about providing a better year round playing experience.

Ciao

Ciao

Sorry Sean but I do not agree with you. Yes, you are right that a course should be in decent condition, price itself accordingly or close during the winter. Golf on inland course (other than the heathland one) is not a winter sport and up until the mid 1980's most inland courses were deserted through the winter months.

Jon

[Sean_A]

Jon

Quite a confusing post.  On the one hand you agree and on the same hand you disagree. 

I don't know where you play golf, but where I live, golf is most definitely a winter sport.  In any case, if its my money on the counter I decide whats important and to me, if a course is open it is important for it to be in decent condition.  If the course is not up to my (I believe a very high tolerance level except for inexplicable wet conditions) standards I mark it down.  For instance, I have no problem with Rye and Pennard in the summer and they get pretty beat up, but crucially, they are dry.  It is very few courses which get this treatment from me just as very few get the mark up for exceptional conditioning.  Unfortunately, and judged over many plays, Painswick can often not meet a decent standard for significant periods of the year. 

Ciao

[Jon Wiggett]

Sean,

I fail to see what is difficult to understand. I agree with you to a certain extent but believe your point of view fails to accept that in winter in the UK most inland courses will be wet. You can ski on glaciers in the summer but skiing is still a winter sport. Likewise, you can play golf in winter but golf is still a summer sport on MOST inland courses. I do not judge a skiing resort on its summer glacial skiing nor do I judge a golf course on its winter season. That was the simple point I was making.

Jon

[Sean_A]

Sean,

your point of view fails to accept that in winter in the UK most inland courses will be wet.

This is your take, but I think much more can be done with drainage to alleviate winter wetness.  Because many clubs fail to address the problem doesn't mean it is an acceptable state of affairs.  Some parkland courses on clay do drain better than others often times because the clubs realize a lot of golf is still played in the winter and that its far more enjoyable to do so while playing on greens and fairly dry fairways.  Besides that, good drainage makes for better turf - all year round.  I understand that many clubs will not make the investment to create better winter conditions and that is their choice...just as its my choice to complain about these very same clubs if I visit and experience the course on a day when the course should be closed.  I don't have unreasonable expectations - I do avoid courses I suspect will be unacceptable in the winter or after harsh weather periods.  Unfortunately, in the case of Painswick I was led to believe the course is very acceptable in the winter.  IMO, this is far from the case. 

In any case, I can't see why a course that plays well all year round shouldn't be considered a better conditioned course to one that plays sloppy 4 or 5 months a year.  Given the direct relationship between conditions and architecture, it also isn't unreasonable to suggest that better playing course year round has a very good chance to be a better course - period.  I also accept that many folks don't care how a course plays except for summer-time.  Given that summer is a very short season in England, sometimes less than two weeks - tee hee, and also given that a huge percentage of courses in England can't honestly be said to be in good nick (in absolute - not relative terms - and folks who travel know what I mean) anytime of the year, any quality difference in conditioning is highlighted even more.  It isn't by chance that nearly all the best courses in GB&I are played on courses which drain well. 

Ciao           

[Dónal Ó Ceallaigh]

I tend to agree with Jon, but I do appreciate (and mostly agree) the argument that Sean, Adrian, and Brian have made.

What about Sand Hills and Ballyneal? Conditioning isn't so good at both these courses in the winter.

Where do you draw the "time-line" on conditioning, when rating a course? Do you exclude the winter months. Should courses that stay closed for 3 months in the winter, be immune from losing 25% of their ranking points. I assume they are, otherwise BN and SH wouldn't be rated so highly.
  
If Painswick closed its door for 3 months, would you rate it higher than if it stayed open in winter? Is your answer is yes, then I disagree with you. All (or at least the majority) of courses in the UK & Irl reduce their greenfees from October to March. If Painswick chooses to stay open with a reduced fee, I don't see a problem. If it's boggy, I'd give it a miss, but I wouldn't judge it harshly.

BTW, conditioning was not a factor in TDs ratings, as the book was "primarily a book about golf architecture."

[Scott Warren]

Donal,

Pine Valley does not close during winter as a matter of course. Of course that doesn't change your point, which is a fair one, but for clarification, PV does not belong on the list of limited season courses.

[Sean_A]

Donal

To each is own.  I trust myself not to be overly harsh or praising of a course due to conditions unless I knew that course very well.  The thing is, I have never gotten to know a course very well where I thought conditioning was an issue.

All I can do is judge a course based on its climate and competition.  I think it is uhelpful to compare courses in England to that of Colorado or Nebraska in terms of how they play year round.  What I can say is, at least at my club, one of the reasons for encouraging fescues and bents to dominate is because these grasses will make it easier to create consistent conditions year round.  I would argue the same could be said of drainage.  Ultimately, both allow for a maintenance meld which gives the architecture every chance to shine.  On the flip side, if a course is going to be wet it may as well have architecture which suits this style of maintenance.   

Ciao

[Adrian_Stiff]

i can see Jons point of views too on this and I think Seans & Jons opinions are not really so far away. Factually speaking a lot of golfers do not play golf in the winter and Jon is quite right when he says you dont need to go back very far and hardly anyone played. Our mindset at our golf club is to get it right for the Summer thats when we think it counts, probably 90% of UK courses are very much 'in not such good condition in the Winter' and by and large theres not a lot a lot you can do about it, the climate dictates that the grass is very slow to recover. Naturally some courses suffer more and Seans view that courses below a certain threshold wont get his money is fair too. We try and do our best to produce nice Winter golf but sometimes the elements beat you and it can rarely be brilliant in the Winter, but there are obviously degrees of good and bad.
Painswick I am pretty sure is not a boggy bit of land, I dont think the plants that grow there would do well if it was boggy, inherently I think its dry land, its one of the very few English site where the Scots Pine will self seed. I think its wormcasts and as this land is on commonland you cant spray for weeds and worms on the fairways, so if they cant spray its going to be the way it is. Also Painswick is pretty poor so it probably cant afford those chemicals anyway.

[Dónal Ó Ceallaigh]

Donal,

Pine Valley does not close during winter as a matter of course. Of course that doesn't change your point, which is a fair one, but for clarification, PV does not belong on the list of limited season courses.

Scott:

My bad. I have removed the reference to PV from my previous post. Thanks for the clarification. 

BTW, conditioning was not a factor in TDs ratings, as the book was "primarily a book about golf architecture."

I would love a definitive explanation as to what is exactly meant by "golf architecture" - as the term is bandied about here quite a lot (naturally) and I think most folks would consider the grasses / turf employed to produce certain playing conditions as falling within this ambit.

Brian:

A very good question. I'm sure it has been discussed before. Time for a new thread?

I believe TD excluded conditioning from his book as he thought that good architecture should not be judged on temporary conditions such as drought / dampness that affect turf conditions. I don't think that temporary (e.g. few months) turf conditions should be taken into account when judging a course, but poorer long term turf conditions probably should. If a links course no longer plays like it should, condemnation is justified in my opinion.

When a hole that was designed to allow a certain running shot, no longer accommodates that same shot - solely due to a change in the turf/grass conditions - then I think the architecture has taken a turn for the worse.

Sean:

Yes, my example of BN and SH was a bit extreme, but also comparing a parkland course in East Anglia (I saw a programme once where it mentioned that the annual rainfall there is similar to Israel) to one in the north of Scotland is also a little unfair don't you think?

I know for example, that a parkland course in Donegal gets 300 days of rain/year. A course in Dublin gets half that amount, yet both stay open all year round. The drainage costs involved in transforming that Donegal course to the same condition as the Dublin club would be astronomical. Your ordinary golf club doesn't have that sort of cash lying around.

As Adrian has said, the courses stay open but many members don't bother to play in the winter. Perhaps many of the parkland course in the GB&I should close for a few months in winter. The problam is that Painswick, or any other modest club cannot close, even if they want to. While all the neighbouring clubs stay open, they are forced to do so. Only clubs such as the Old Head and the like can survive on a shortened year.

[Scott Warren]

As a regular visitor or member of a course, judging conditioning is fairly easy and reasonable.

But it's a fool's errand to play a course on a hit-and-run visit and give too much credence to conditioning in your appraisal of the place, because these things are always in flux and we don't always know the reasons for certain conditioning decisions.

If you are to hold conditioning up as a crucial factor, I think you need a level of knowledge about the course that most, if not all, visiting golfers will lack.

Given these things are liable to change day-to-day, week-to-week and especially year-to-year, I can understand someone writing a book not worrying much, if at all, about the particular course conditioning the one day that he played the course.

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