Designing for the Ground

[Ken Fry]

I played Royal Melbourne about a year ago.  With the President's Cup fast approaching, I've been thinking often about my incredible day there.  For someone that likes firm and fast conditions, playing in the Australian Sandbelt was an eye opening dream.

My question involves the design process.  Architects will design accordingly if they know they'll be on a windy site.  Hazard placement, playing corridor width, contouring of greens will all be affected by potential wind.  Elevation certainly plays a part in distances.   Ground game is affected by the firmness of the conditions but there are many places firm and fast conditions can rarely be presented.

A highly regarded course like Loch Lomand comes to mind as constantly soft and wet.

Do architects adjust a design knowing the course will play soft and slow?  If so, what would be examples?


Ken
 

[Tom_Doak]

Ken:


I design nearly every course on the idea that it will be firm and fast and windy.


Why?  Well, in one of the first letters I got from Ben Crenshaw, he told me that if you designed a course with enough latitude to play in a severe wind, you would also be giving the average player a chance to get around.


Most people's dads can't hit the ball high anymore, and they are hitting 4-wood approaches into a lot of greens.  Same for their moms.  A 4-wood doesn't stop where it lands:  it's equivalent to a Tour pro hitting an iron shot on a firm course with a tailwind.




One thing architects learn pretty fast is that we don't control how our courses will be maintained.  But if you design for a fast surface, and the surface is slow, that doesn't really stop anyone from playing their own game.  If you err to the other side, it's a mess.

[Ken Fry]

Thanks Tom.

I know this presents an odd point of view.  Popular belief is every site will be maintained and presented the way the architect foresees.  Have we gotten to the point between capping and drainage there's no such thing as a "soft" site?

My initial thought was given a soft, heavy environment, how to introduce quirk, challenge and strategy if the point of view was the ball moving only from point A to point B without concern of rollout to Point C.

Within your portfolio, was there much change of thought between a site like Streamsong vs. Quail Crossing or even Lost Dunes, which played soft through the green in it's early years?

Ken

[Tom_Doak]

Within your portfolio, was there much change of thought between a site like Streamsong vs. Quail Crossing or even Lost Dunes, which played soft through the green in it's early years?

Well, those three have some of the wilder greens in my portfolio (also Stonewall North, which was also built on heavy soils). 


Clearly, contoured greens have been one of my main vehicles to deliver quirk, especially when the site is not so sandy.  A contour out in front of the green has less effect; the contour has to be right up in the green to matter on the approach.


Stonewall North also utilizes stone walls to provide quirk; Quail Crossing had its old mine workings, though we had to use them sparingly because they were difficult to maintain.

[Marty Bonnar]

I played Royal Melbourne about a year ago.  With the President's Cup fast approaching, I've been thinking often about my incredible day there.  For someone that likes firm and fast conditions, playing in the Australian Sandbelt was an eye opening dream.

My question involves the design process.  Architects will design accordingly if they know they'll be on a windy site.  Hazard placement, playing corridor width, contouring of greens will all be affected by potential wind.  Elevation certainly plays a part in distances.   Ground game is affected by the firmness of the conditions but there are many places firm and fast conditions can rarely be presented.

A highly regarded course like Loch Lomand comes to mind as constantly soft and wet.

Do architects adjust a design knowing the course will play soft and slow?  If so, what would be examples?


Ken

Adam Lawrence has just been at Loch Lomond. They’re just finishing sand-capping (what looks like) the entire golf course. Should be revolutionary!
F.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Ken,


I would say sand capping is not so common at to be at any point in most design process thoughts.  I think Tom D has stated he tried sand capping the approaches and chipping areas, including herringbone tile and now doesn't think it works?  Sorry if I misremember that.


That said, in my experience, sand capping sometimes just transfers your problem down 4 to 6 inches.  It certainly requires drainage in the clay layer to work.


I would also say that the perception of wet conditions due to overwatering is outdated by about 20 years.  Most of the courses I know conserve irrigation, because of cost, or as per best practices in some cases to avoid further regulations, i.e., lower water use limits.

[Peter Pallotta]

Jeff - re your last point: you must be right, of course, but I hadn't ever thought about or realized that before.
And that in turn caused me to realize the likely reason why the Stanley Thompson-designed municipal course I played several times this past summer was a lot firmer underfoot and much less soft & slow than every other course in my usual 'rota (all built between the mid 60s and about the early 2000s).
It probably wasn't (as I'd assumed) because the super there had a different philosophy than his counterparts and watered that course much less than the others watered theirs; but instead, it might be because on the Thompson course there isn't a single level lie that I can remember: rarely anything too dramatic, but if you are in the fairway the slope is almost always a little-to-more-than-a-little slanted to the right or left, and/or uphill or downhill.
On the other courses I tend to play (except for one of them) it is the opposite. Anything but a level lie in the fairway is rare.
Is this the likely/main reason for the softer & slower & mushier conditions at those courses?
Or is it that the soils are (possibly) different at the Thompson course and better for drainage relative to the others?
P

[Tom_Doak]

I would say sand capping is not so common at to be at any point in most design process thoughts.  I think Tom D has stated he tried sand capping the approaches and chipping areas, including herringbone tile and now doesn't think it works?  Sorry if I misremember that.

Jeff:


We did sand cap the approaches at The Rawls Course - not the fairways - and they struggled for years afterward to keep them healthy.  During grow-in, they could never get enough water to them and they were always drying out; maybe it was a question of the irrigation system not being tailored to where we had sand-capped.  Eric Iverson was just down there, I'll have to ask him if they are good now, or still a problem.


We did sand cap fairways and green surrounds at Memorial Park, with 9-10 inches of material, and some subsurface drainage as well.  It's hard to know where to stop when you commit to sand capping that much, but obviously we couldn't do it over the roots of all the existing trees, so we pretty much stopped a couple of paces outside the fairway edge, or sometimes took it to the cart path.  We felt this was necessary because the site was so flat generally [though we did improve the surface drainage a lot], and because they are having the tournament and wanted to leave nothing to chance.

[Tom_Doak]

on the Thompson course there isn't a single level lie that I can remember: rarely anything too dramatic, but if you are in the fairway the slope is almost always a little-to-more-than-a-little slanted to the right or left, and/or uphill or downhill.
 
On the other courses I tend to play (except for one of them) it is the opposite. Anything but a level lie in the fairway is rare.
 
Is this the likely/main reason for the softer & slower & mushier conditions at those courses?

Absolutely.  Surface drainage of more than 2-3% will solve most of your drainage problems, and you'll only need to consider subsurface drainage where water collects, or where you want to stop a long swale from draining across a fairway.  Fairways that are flatter than that are a problem, even on sandy soils.


Note that 2% of tilt is about the point where the average person will notice it's there . . . less than that everything appears flat, but probably isn't dead flat.  Even tees are usually built with 1% of tilt so the water won't just sit on them in a downpour.

[Peter Pallotta]

Tom - thanks, that's interesting because (at least implicitly) it means that:
a) the cants/slopes on the Thompson course are much more than 2-3% if they are as noticeable/noteworthy to me as they in fact are, and
b) that at the other courses the fairways aren't in fact 'flat' -- given that they were designed & built by professionals, who would know to add that 2-3% tilt for drainage. I just never 'saw' or felt that tilt.
This in turns means that I'm not very good at judging degrees of slope, but also that maybe the 'building code' should change, ie those builders of the slow & mushy courses must've stuck very close to the code minimums of 2-3%...and it honestly doesn't seem nearly enough to me.
You'll have to take my word for it: the difference in dryness and firmness between the Thompson course and the others -- separated only by 15 miles as the crow flies, and so experiencing the exact same weather/rain -- is dramatic, I mean, really dramatic.

[Ken Fry]

I would also say that the perception of wet conditions due to overwatering is outdated by about 20 years.  Most of the courses I know conserve irrigation, because of cost, or as per best practices in some cases to avoid further regulations, i.e., lower water use limits.

Jeff,

Agree with this completely.  My thought was not a man made issue but one of a natural site issue.

We have a nice country club in town built in 1916.  It's a great old course with a rich history.  11 of the 18 holes sit on the lower level of the property beside a lake not far above the natural water table.  Many days the last few years, there will be no roll on much of the course off the greens.  Strategy is very different when there's no roll.  It got me thinking how the approach to designing around those challenges would be like.

I like Tom's description he designs every course assuming firm, fast and windy.  That makes sense.  When you plan to play Jarts but end of playing croquet, players may not like the experience.

Ken

[Jeff Schley]

on the Thompson course there isn't a single level lie that I can remember: rarely anything too dramatic, but if you are in the fairway the slope is almost always a little-to-more-than-a-little slanted to the right or left, and/or uphill or downhill.
 
On the other courses I tend to play (except for one of them) it is the opposite. Anything but a level lie in the fairway is rare.
 
Is this the likely/main reason for the softer & slower & mushier conditions at those courses?

Absolutely.  Surface drainage of more than 2-3% will solve most of your drainage problems, and you'll only need to consider subsurface drainage where water collects, or where you want to stop a long swale from draining across a fairway.  Fairways that are flatter than that are a problem, even on sandy soils.


Note that 2% of tilt is about the point where the average person will notice it's there . . . less than that everything appears flat, but probably isn't dead flat.  Even tees are usually built with 1% of tilt so the water won't just sit on them in a downpour.

Very nice insight to share with all and slope for drainage.
Also isn't sand capping pretty expensive?  Is it mandatory in some areas or discretionary?

[Thomas Dai]

We did sand cap fairways and green surrounds at Memorial Park, with 9-10 inches of material, and some subsurface drainage as well.  It's hard to know where to stop when you commit to sand capping that much, but obviously we couldn't do it over the roots of all the existing trees, so we pretty much stopped a couple of paces outside the fairway edge, or sometimes took it to the cart path.  We felt this was necessary because the site was so flat generally [though we did improve the surface drainage a lot], and because they are having the tournament and wanted to leave nothing to chance.

This kind of work must be quite a logistical exercise in terms of things like distance to sand source, number of truck journeys, delivery timings, traffic etc etc.
Atb

[Robin_Hiseman]

We did sand cap fairways and green surrounds at Memorial Park, with 9-10 inches of material, and some subsurface drainage as well.  It's hard to know where to stop when you commit to sand capping that much, but obviously we couldn't do it over the roots of all the existing trees, so we pretty much stopped a couple of paces outside the fairway edge, or sometimes took it to the cart path.  We felt this was necessary because the site was so flat generally [though we did improve the surface drainage a lot], and because they are having the tournament and wanted to leave nothing to chance.

This kind of work must be quite a logistical exercise in terms of things like distance to sand source, number of truck journeys, delivery timings, traffic etc etc.
Atb

Thomas


You're quite right. From a sustainability angle, sand capping is a nightmare. We costed it for JCB, but I abandoned it when we realised it was going to cost a fortune and involve thousands of truck movements along narrow country roads. We chose instead to go with intensive sand banding, which reduced the imported sand volume massively and saved £1.5 million. Yes, it's probably a bit damper at the surface than it would otherwise be, but we had to consider the bigger environmental picture, beyond the golf course boundary.

[Thomas Dai]

Thanks Robin. Insights like this are one of the best things about this DB.
Atb