The Return of the Craftsman Bungalow and the Death of Large Greens

[Forrest Richardson]

Modern practices ..... and the formal, complicated Rules of Golf. The "green" used to be the whole of the course. Now it is a defined patch of turf, expensively maintained and defined. That is not a complaint, but a reality.

[Mike Hendren]

Forrest,  your point really resonates in the context of my first impression of the first par three on the back nine of Doak's course at Dismal River.  A beautiful hole. As we climbed back out of the small valley fronting the green I was astonished at what I saw - or at least thought I saw - a massive fairway apron seamlessly transitioning to an extremely shallow crescent shaped depression of a putting green at the back of the grassed area - perhaps 2000 sf total.    I thought it was one of the most innovative green complexes I'd ever seen until I finally figured out that what I thought was fairway was all green and what I thought was the green was simply a green-within-a-green.  I felt a tinge of disappointment, thinking that I was stupid for having thought Tom or anyone else would have designed such a green. 

Hopefully Tom will weigh in.  I'm sure I was the only chump on the tour to have this impression.

Bogey

[Carl Nichols]

How much cheaper is it to maintain tight/firm fairway/fringe around a green than to maintain the green itself?  If we moved toward smaller greens and more fairway/fringe around the greens, would a lot of money be saved? 

[Forrest Richardson]

Regarding cost, the construction and maintenance of the actual green is far more expensive than tightly mown fairway. I suppose there are exceptions, perhaps for locales that have "nearly green-like" aprons and fairway areas with bentgrass and/or near-to-USGA construction under aprons and approches. But, even so, the actual green will be more costly to keep consistent.

This brings up the Geo. C. Thomas concept of "Arbitrary Values" — his concept to change the stroke value of putts to 1/2 of any other shot, reasoning that less time would be taken, and greens could be constructed far smaller.

I think the notion of smaller greens with greater detail and conditioning on surrounding areas (in essence, "green-like" areas that are not actually a part of the green) is interesting. We are currently working on a par-3 course and, up to now, I have been convinced that large greens are right for the project. I may re-think that.

P.S.  At Las Palomas in Mexico we have just one variety of grass: SeaDwarf Paspalum. And, it is all on 100% pure sand. Occasionally I play with the course, enlarging and changing green shapes and sizes. However, even here the superintendent notes that maintaining the green proper takes more labor and cost.

[Tom_Doak]

Regarding cost, the construction and maintenance of the actual green is far more expensive than tightly mown fairway. I suppose there are exceptions, perhaps for locales that have "nearly green-like" aprons and fairway areas with bentgrass and/or near-to-USGA construction under aprons and approches. But, even so, the actual green will be more costly to keep consistent.

P.S.  At Las Palomas in Mexico we have just one variety of grass: SeaDwarf Paspalum. And, it is all on 100% pure sand. Occasionally I play with the course, enlarging and changing green shapes and sizes. However, even here the superintendent notes that maintaining the green proper takes more labor and cost.

Forrest:  I have built about 10-12 courses with native soil greens where adjusting the size of the green makes no difference construction-wise.  Those at Barnbougle and Pacific Dunes and Old Macdonald and Ballyneal are all fine fescue, so the mowing lines can also be altered at will, just like on paspalum (only bouncier!).  The down side is that the superintendent can adjust them to his own way of thinking just as easily.

[Carl Nichols]

Regarding cost, the construction and maintenance of the actual green is far more expensive than tightly mown fairway. I suppose there are exceptions, perhaps for locales that have "nearly green-like" aprons and fairway areas with bentgrass and/or near-to-USGA construction under aprons and approches. But, even so, the actual green will be more costly to keep consistent.

P.S.  At Las Palomas in Mexico we have just one variety of grass: SeaDwarf Paspalum. And, it is all on 100% pure sand. Occasionally I play with the course, enlarging and changing green shapes and sizes. However, even here the superintendent notes that maintaining the green proper takes more labor and cost.

Forrest:  I have built about 10-12 courses with native soil greens where adjusting the size of the green makes no difference construction-wise.  Those at Barnbougle and Pacific Dunes and Old Macdonald and Ballyneal are all fine fescue, so the mowing lines can also be altered at will, just like on paspalum (only bouncier!).  The down side is that the superintendent can adjust them to his own way of thinking just as easily.

How about maintenance-wise?  How much more per year does a 6,000 square foot green cost to maintain versus a 3,000 square foot green with 3,000 extra square feet of appropriately maintained fairway?   

[Forrest Richardson]

Yes, Tom. Same experience on native sand at Las Palomas. The only extra cost we had (construction) were the dual irrigation heads (with more perimeter, we had more heads around greens) and the cost for pre-fertilizers based on the larger green areas. With only one variety of turf — dawrf Paspalum — we made the greens very large, about 7,500 sf average.

Rick Gillespie, the superintendent, says that he would like the greens smaller (and he has done so in areas with my blessing) because it simply costs him more labor to mow and verticut the large greens ... a 6,200 sf average would be nearly 20% less in terms of greens maintenance for him as opposed to the 7,500 sf average now. But, I continue to defend the larger sizes and "give in" only occasionally.   

How much less with tightly mown areas as opposed to green surfaces? It will depend on the turf type, climate and a host of other factors. As a rule I have heard that greens maintenance and care represents about 20-30% of a golf maintenance budget. So, if $750,000 per year (not including water cost)...greens may account for nearly $200,000 in labor and cost. If 20 greens at 5,000 sf each (100,000 sf total in greens), then the greens maintenance cost is roughly $2 per sf per year. (Please note that this is a real generic estimate.)

You would have to add cost for non-greens areas, but I do feel you could lessen the budget by, perhaps, $1.50 for every sf you removed from a green surface...not including any work to trim and fit the irrigation heads or other work.

So, if you took 100,000 sf of greens down by 20% to 80,000 sf...you MIGHT save $30,000 per year. MIGHT. One would need to look at the specific situation, including cost of labor, climate, etc.  Also, you would need to weigh the potential awful look of a great green as it was designed...and imagine it smaller. Could look like a royal mistake or just sloppy maintenance.

Honey...I shrunk the greens...

[RDecker]

As a superintendent maintaining 100+ year old push up greens that average 3,000 sq.ft. I can tell that I have a love/hate relationship with these surfaces.  I love that we can mow them quickly, aerate them quickly and fertilize and spray them quickly,  the size also means they are cheaper to maintain however along about the middle of July when I'm running out of clean cupping areas and the edges are starting to thin out alittle from clean up cuts and rolling wear and tear the idea of a 5,000+ green doesn't sound so bad.