Pasatiempo #11--A Last Look before It's (Almost) Gone

[Peter_Herreid]

Since I started a non-arch. thread earlier today, in an attempt to add a bit of levity, it is only appropriate to start one that's more targeted...

Here is a picture from Monday morning of the 11th green at Pasatiempo.  



I am unabashed in my love of Pasa, and I have always loved this green, but it is a love/hate relationship.  I have had some of my most spectacular failures and successes on this particular green.  As long as I live, I will never forget the putt I made about 12 years ago from the very back of this green to a hole hanging on the front left--a once in a lifetime shot that beats any pounded drive I might ever make...

This green will shortly go under the knife, and while I am unsure as to whether it will be a "dermabrasion" or a "facelift" (in terms I can understand!), I wonder whether it will instill the same level of fear/respect/anticipation for me that it does now...

I will eagerly await the results, but at least until now, putting on this green often felt like the closest I would get to Augusta-like putting conditions...

The conditions on Monday--nearly fully recovered from the injections/aerifications, and the greens only a very bit bumpy, and plenty fast...

The results for me on Monday--I was on the front right of the green (4.30 on the clock looking up at the green, or 1.00 on the clock in this picture) and rolled the putt on what I thought was a good line right-left almost through the fringe.  The putt came up 2 feet short, tantalizingly started almost imperceptibly sliding to the left, and then began its gentle, but inexorable, roll back down to the very front of the green, resting on the front fringe...

Two more putts to get in, but in some ways, a fitting final good-bye to one of my favorite greens.

I can't wait to get back!

Peter

[THuckaby2]

Peter:

Many thanks for the pic.  You think YOU[/i] have a love/hate relationship with this green?  Good lord, we've discussed it ad infinitem in here and in other forums over the years, and it's because of this very green that I coined the term "infinite putting".  [side note - expect Goodale to take credit for that if he reads this]  

I've wailed about it too many times.  My issue is that at the speeds they generally keep Pasa's greens, gravity won't allow the ball to stay by any pin position other than on the front shelf, as you saw.  Get them up to the top summer-time speed and it's really silly... with the pin you had, every single putt would either go in or roll back to the front.  Thus the entire rest of the green either gives absurd infinite putting, or is unused, far too much of the year.  Sadly it's the latter most often.

But you know what?  I will be VERY sad to see it go, although I trust Mr. Doak to give us a nice replacement.  How much more simple would it be to play greens - including if not especially this one - that stimp at say 9 or less, allowing for all pin placements to be used - than to reconstruct greens?

To me this is the green speed arms race gone mad.

Oh well....

TH

[Mike_Cirba]

Playing with the inestimable Mr. Huntley, I somehow managed to par this hole after lacing a three-iron to the very front, and then managing to get down in two putts to a back left hole location.

I wouldn't want to try it again.  

I'm not sure I would ever feel as proud of that once the green is made fairer.

[THuckaby2]

Mike:  

That was a glorious day....

Just remember, it had rained a lot prior to that round, and it was March.

Picture dry greens in July.

The only way you would have two-putted is if you made the second 50 footer.

Thus the problem.  And it's also why I always tell people they're LUCKY if they get relatively slow greens at Pasa.

 

[PThomas]

I wonder why they do that...challenging is one thing, unfair/goofy golf is another

[THuckaby2]

Paul:

Well that's the $128K question (adjusted for inflation) now isn't it?

MacKenzie designed those greens certainly NOT with today's speeds in mind.  Absurd infinite putting simply can't be what he had in mind.  But people do love fast greens... and this is a high-end semi-private club...

It just can't be seen as a good thing when the greens get dumbed down to allow for speed, can it?

Oh well.. like I say, the re-do is in good hands.  It just sucks they feel they have to do a re-do at all.

TH

[PThomas]

yes, if anyone gets it I think it would be Tom...

I wonder if this is worth a possible thread:  "best sets of greens".....i.e., ones that have some good contours but are NOT maintained  at ridiculously high speeds...I do not mean courses with really fast greens that have very little or no slope

[Tom_Doak]

Peter:

The green would have been finished already, had the wet spring weather not delayed the start of construction.  We'll get to it later this summer after Jim Urbina is finished at Sebonack.

I would like to point out just one pertinent fact about that green that we are redoing ... what you've been playing on for the past 20 or 30 years is NOT the original contour.  The front edge of the green was built up considerably (by a foot or more) many years ago to try to stop putts from rolling off the front.  In the process, bouncing a long iron or fairway wood onto the green became impossible, and the chip from the front [which most people face] became very daunting.

That's why I suggested rebuilding the green, and trying to fix the slope by lowering the back end.  Otherwise I would have just kept telling them to slow down the green speeds (even though they would have kept ignoring me)!

[Rick Shefchik]

I have a friend who has been one of the best competitve golfers in the state for many years. His club is re-doing their greens to take some of the contour out, in order that the superintendent can cut the greens lower. He is all for it.

He says his game doesn't travel as well as it should when he has to practice on the slower speeds that make the greens playable at his course. He wants his club's greens to be the same speed as the courses he plays in statewide competition.

I understand his concern, though I emphatically disagree with the solution it leads to. But my guess is that this is the motivation that will eventually level the contours of older greens across America.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Rick,

It's an awful trend toward the standardization of greens in America.

Mike Rewinski, the Superintendent at Westhampton, posted a thread, "The Need for Speed" many years ago on this site.
It alluded to the negative impact of flattening greens in the name of tolerance for super speeds.

At golf course after golf course, including my club in NJ, the character and challenge of the greens is being standardized, sanitized, to make everyone happy at speeds the greens were never designed for, instead of maintaining the greens at an optimal speed relative to their contours and slopes.

One of the great features of the greens at Hidden Creek is their contours and slopes.  I shudder to think, ten or twenty years from now, of a membership wanting to flatten them.

These clubs are destroying their greatest assets, the features that distinquish them from other clubs.

The natural progression for this trend is greens as flat and as boring as a table top.

[ed_getka]

That is interesting to hear that the front of the 11th green was built up to keep putts from rolling off the green. I always thought it was an odd pitch over that hump in front, but just thought it was to keep people from taking the safe 2nd shot out in the fairway in front of the green and trying to get up and down for par. I look forward to seeing the new version.
  BTW, it seems Pasa has finally slowed the greens a touch in the past couple of years, so they are not quite so over the top. Or am I just dreaming?

[PThomas]

what idiocy this is......

maybe after I'm in the great big golf course in the sky golfers will realize what a mistake it was taking out all the contours and will be hiring the next generation of Doaks to put them back in

[T_MacWood]

The stimpmeter strikes again. It's a damn shame.

[Neil Regan]

vewy sad.

[THuckaby2]

Ed - you must have just been there in winter, after rain, or
on an odd day.  While those are the BEST days for putting
on the wonderful contours of Pasa's greens, I can assure you
that they are most definitely not slowing them down at all
other times.  For NCGA course rating, we are to rate
at mid-summer speeds... and when we did that last time, we were instructed to put them in the fastest category.

Tom D. - thanks for the info re the buildup in the green.
 That is a weird "lip" in it now... but was quirky
and OK by me... gosh this just sounds like more
dumbing down of the golf hole.  Again, I trust you're
gonna do the best that anyone could with this... but
couldn't you just try ONE MORE TIME to get them to
slow down the speed, making all of this unnecessary?

 

TH

ps - IT'S PEE-WEE!

[PThomas]

I think the rabbit should be the official animal of GCA