Building a Green

[JC Jones]

Recently, Joe Hancock was very kind to explain how greens are built and that even the most "minimalist" of greens are completely manufactured because the proper soil has to be in place to grow grass and basically any existing contours that are retained are on a macro scale.

What about Sand Hills, Ballyneal and Pac Dunes.  Were those greens built in the modern method of ripping up the dirt and laying down a layer of the proper soil to grow grass?  Or, was some seed thrown down and the contours were there before the course??

[Michael Dugger]

option #2

they shaped the existing material

[Emil Weber]

Same with Barnbougle and SAB?

[Brian Phillips]

SAB looked like natural greens, yes.

[Emil Weber]

And, yes Brian I have to agree... SAB is beter than NSW

[Jim_Kennedy]

JC,
Try this:   http://www.sandhillsgolfshop.com/About_SHGC.html

[George Freeman]

JC,
Try this:   http://www.sandhillsgolfshop.com/About_SHGC.html

From the link above:

"Fairways, greens, and tees were developed in 1994, using the following procedure:

1. Mowing existing vegetation to ground level.
2. Tilling all areas to a depth of 6"
3. Doing minor finish on grading the greens.
4. Applying seed, fertilizer, and water.

The greens are seeded with Providence 1019 bentgrass and fairways with a blend of four fine-blade fescues; most greens were seeded in May 1995. Greens and tees are covered during the winter to minimize wind desiccation and hay is placed in sand bunkers for protection from wind erosion."

[JC Jones]

JC,
Try this:   http://www.sandhillsgolfshop.com/About_SHGC.html

From the link above:

"Fairways, greens, and tees were developed in 1994, using the following procedure:

1. Mowing existing vegetation to ground level.
2. Tilling all areas to a depth of 6"
3. Doing minor finish on grading the greens.
4. Applying seed, fertilizer, and water.

The greens are seeded with Providence 1019 bentgrass and fairways with a blend of four fine-blade fescues; most greens were seeded in May 1995. Greens and tees are covered during the winter to minimize wind desiccation and hay is placed in sand bunkers for protection from wind erosion."

Sounds like a similar process to what Joe was talking about.  So this means the micro contours are man made and the macro were "there."  If I understand it correctly.

[Jim_Kennedy]

JC,
I can't say that I know how SH was built, someone on here surely does, but I think that if you look at the photos that accompany the write up in the "Courses By Country" section you can get some idea of where the 3,000 cu. yards of fill was moved around. It sure looks like some shaping was done to everything in the lower two-thirds of this photo, but that's just my impression.

[George Pazin]

JC,
I can't say that I know how SH was built, someone on here surely does, but I think that if you look at the photos that accompany the write up in the "Courses By Country" section you can get some idea of where the 3,000 cu. yards of fill was moved around. It sure looks like some shaping was done to everything in the lower two-thirds of this photo, but that's just my impression.

What makes you say that, Jim? (Honest question, not a dig)

It looks to me like there is plenty of contour in the background as well, and I'd think if the grass were a similar length, it would show that.

[Jim_Kennedy]

George,
The way the top line of the bunker abruptly ends at the green, for one.

[JC Jones]

I tell you what though Jim, the macro contours sure do blend with the surrounding terrain.  What a gorgeous picture.

[Jim_Kennedy]

JC,
They sure do.

[Tom_Doak]

We've built native-soil greens at Pacific Dunes, Barnbougle, St. Andrews Beach, and Ballyneal. 

The greens mix at High Pointe, Black Forest and The Renaissance Club was also taken from the site, but on those courses we had to process it to screen out stones or root material, so we built a "well" for a USGA green and put the material in.

But on the first four courses I named, the greens mix for most or all of the holes was just shaped in place.

I had the pleasure of walking Sand Hills before any earth was moved, and Jim Urbina and I counted twelve or thirteen holes where it looked like they didn't have to move ANY earth at all, they could just use the natural contour as it was.  However, they probably did move a little here and there on most of those holes -- I've found that even when a green site looks perfect on the ground, when you put a transit on it you find that some portion has a bit more slope than you'd like.  St. Andrews Beach probably has the most natural contours of any greens we have built, but on every one of them there was a little tweak we had to make somewhere ... still, it was so modest that Eric Iverson managed to finish 11 greens in the first two weeks we were on site.

[Kye Goalby]

JC,
I can't say that I know how SH was built, someone on here surely does, but I think that if you look at the photos that accompany the write up in the "Courses By Country" section you can get some idea of where the 3,000 cu. yards of fill was moved around. It sure looks like some shaping was done to everything in the lower two-thirds of this photo, but that's just my impression.

What makes you say that, Jim? (Honest question, not a dig)

It looks to me like there is plenty of contour in the background as well, and I'd think if the grass were a similar length, it would show that.

George,
The way the top line of the bunker abruptly ends at the green, for one.

Jim,

 I am by no means sure, but I think what you may be seeing is build up of wind blown sand from the bunker along the bunker edge.  There are a lot of areas around bunkers at Sand hills where this process can be observed. I am guessing some others here have noticed the effect of the wind and sand migration around the bunkers  when playing there.

[Jim_Kennedy]

Kye,
What I was refferrring to in that photo wasn't the build up, but the way the bunker and green joined together. The top line suggests that the bunker would have protruded into the green more if the green wasn't shaped or the bunker wasn't created that way.

In this photo it seems that the bunker in front was shaped, as well as some shaping to the bunkers in the hillside, even if they pre-existed the green,


....and I think the same can be said in this area,


.....and it's believeable that this green was the result of a little surgery to the pre-existing terrain.


But again, nothing I'm saying has the knowledge of what really happened there to back it up. It's only my impression of what comes through from the photos, and also from the available online aerial views, where the placement of certain bunkers leads me to believe that it's a fantastic mixture of man-made, or man-enhanced naturally occurring hazards, along with completely untouched hazards. 

[Gary_Mahanay]

The greens mix at High Pointe, Black Forest and The Renaissance Club was also taken from the site, but on those courses we had to process it to screen out stones or root material, so we built a "well" for a USGA green and put the material in
[/quote]


Tom,

Do you mean that you went ahead and built a USGA spec green after you screened the material for the rootzone?  Could you just have built the whole green pad and surrounds with this screened material instead of shaping out a "well" and trenching the drainage?


Gary

[JC Jones]

Jim,

Not to turn this into a Sand Hills thread or anything (which I guess I can do b/c its my thread), but with respect to the green in the last picture you showed, is it atypical for the course?  Most of the pictures I see have the green built into the dunes with almost a stadium feel to them but the last one is more like a table top built on top of the dunes.

Is it just that the pictures I've seen are limited, or is the last one different from most?