Firm and Fast - HELP!!! My club needs words of wisdom from GCA understanding....

[Bruce Bearer]

why this is a good thing for all. Our club is in Southern California, a few miles off the coast.  We have Kikuyu fairways and they are flooded with water to keep the "lush and green" to keep the older members happy with fairways that look like Muirfield Village or some other course they've seen on TV.

The other reason many members tell our superintendent to keep the fairways green and soft is to "protect the course from long hitters".  The course from the tips is +/- 6,500 yards (as it has been since opening in 1924) and they believe the lack of roll in the fairways keeps the course "competitive". 

I would appreciate some ideas, words of wisdom, quotes from the past, etc. that I can package up and forward to the powers that be to educate them so they are well informed before making the decision to keep flooding the Kikuyu with water and fertilizer to make it green and soft.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

[Carl Johnson]

Bruce,

My opinion, for what it's worth.  I prefer firm and fast.  That's what my course strives for, although our clay soil is not really best suited for those conditions.  The "powers that be" at our club, which do not include me, got onto that idea somehow and have made it work as best as possible under the soil circumstances.

I am not going to answer the precise question you asked.  I don't know an answer.

I think there is no magic bullet.  "Soft and slow" is still golf, and many prefer it that way, for the reasons you note.  I talk with many members of our club that wish we'd go "soft and slow" (with a lot more trees, too, like in the "old days" - except that in the really old days there were virtually no trees, or watered fairways, for that matter).

Accept that the process will be arduous.  Take it easy and build support slowly, quietly, carefully, and then, wham, "take over the board".  In all likelihood this will be a many-years process. If you are able to convince today's power-crowd to go firm and fast, please let us know.  You will have performed a miracle.

An obvious alternative is to find a club with a course maintained according to your liking.  Also, obvious, you've thought of this alreadly, and it is not a practical solution.

[David_Tepper]

Bruce -

You might want to contact the USGA office and ask if there is someone on their staff who can provide you with information and articles to support your cause. It seems to me there have been a number of articles in the golf press over the past year or twot about the virtues of "firm & fast." Some of the articles originated from the USGA.

Here is an example of an f&f article from the USGA:

http://www.usga.org/news/2010/June/Firm-And-Fast,-At-Last!/

Well, I can't get the link to work. But if you cut & paste the entire link (including the last forward slash), it should connect you to the article.

P.S. I am not sure you can ever really get kikuyu to play firm & fast. You might want to talk to the superintendent at Riviera to see how they manage their kikuyu.

P.P.S. Here is a 30-minute USGA presentation on f&f: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4p35ye6IGE
 
DT
 

[Rory Connaughton]

The set up at Olympic demonstrates how firm and fast can make a course far more difficult for long hitters.  Think about tour events where its wet and slow (in fact think of last year's Open at Congressional). Big hitters have a big advantage on slow courses because they don't run through fairways whereas shorter hitters are still hitting long irons and hybrids.

[Kirk Moon]

The set up at Olympic demonstrates how firm and fast can make a course far more difficult for long hitters.  Think about tour events where its wet and slow (in fact think of last year's Open at Congressional). Big hitters have a big advantage on slow courses because they don't run through fairways whereas shorter hitters are still hitting long irons and hybrids.

The situation at Olympic might not apply elsewhere.  The main reason fast and firm makes things hard on long hitters at Olympic is that the off camber cant of many of the fairways pushes balls hit long and hard to the outside of the doglegs and typically into the trees.  To avoid this, long hitters have to either have the ability to hit strong draws and fades at will (and with great accuracy) or they have to play a shorter club, which eliminates their distance advantage.  If the players at the US Open were any indication, going short is the smarter (and safter) option.  Bubba decided that he was going to pound Olympic into submission.  As you know, things didn't work out too well for him.  : )

[Mark Bourgeois]

Kirk,

Yes but no. Gravity is one of two bedeviling enemies the good golfer faces. (The other is wind.)

If I were king and wanted to make a 6,500-yard course difficult for top golfers but not disfigure it, I'd shine that thing up, max out on short grass in the green surrounds and make sure no bunker was "protected" by rough. If I wanted to make it really hard I'd change every par 5 to a par 4 on the scorecard.

As far as wisdom, I would pay attention to David Eger's comments on gravity in his GCA.com interview -- here is the key passage:

16.How has your skill as a player helped you set up a course for the U.S. Open or a PGA Tour event?

There is a tendency for people who don’t play extremely well to over estimate the abilities of the TOUR players. TOUR players are very, very good but two things they have a difficult time overcoming are strong winds and gravity. By playing extremely well I mean hitting all types of shots comparable to the players in question. Someone possessing a single digit handicap who averages hitting 230 yard drives and takes 24 putts per round cannot identify with today’s TOUR player anymore than can a ten or 15 handicapper. Clearly playing comparable to them and playing the courses several times helped me understand the shot requirements. I never purposely set up any course, hole or shot that I was unable to play successfully myself. It amazed me during the 1991 Tour Championship that players would continually aim for flagsticks, ignoring the contour of greens, trying to get their ball close to the hole. Being a little off at the US Open or the big TOUR events (TPC, Memorial or Tour Championship) usually resulted in a missed green and a difficult recovery. I researched the architect’s design philosophy and blended it into the set up. Hole locations were never determined without considerable time putting when the greens were their fastest from all angles to make certain they were fair. Putts would usually be straighter than believed and easier than was the approach shot. I didn’t mind so much that a shot 20 feet from the hole was considered good. Frequently the 20 foot putt was easier to hole that way. I was forever trying to open up fairways so players would use drivers more.

For some reason the interview no longer appears in the master list, so here's the link:
http://www.golfclubatlas.com/feature-interview/david-eger/

Good luck.

[Jud_T]

Because it's a hell of a lot more fun, provides for more creative shotmaking options, is often less expensive, not to mention the way the game was meant to be played.  If that doesn't get 'em, pull out the trump card:  It gives us old farts more distance!

[James Bennett]

Bruce Bearer

I presume you have summer drought and winter rain.  How well does your course hold up in winter time, playability wise?  Do you have winter drainage issues?  If so, have you/your fellow members considered that your summer over-irrigation is contributing to your winter drainage issues?

I guess if you are belessed with sand, you won't have these issues.  But if you have clay, I expect you do.

James B

[Dan Herrmann]

I'm not a pro, but I'm pretty sure a drier golf course is MUCH less likely to be hit with disease. 

Turfgrass health improves in such conditions.  I can tell you that at my course in PA, cutting down sprinkler H20 usage by a factor of 3 with yearly aeration has made an amazing difference.    It may not matter to your club, but our course utilization has increased quite a bit - people are now anxious to bring guests out.

[Bruce Bearer]

Thank you all for your comments and suggested reading.  Very helpful stuff! 

Anyone out there who has success stories as mentioned by Dan Herrmann at his club in PA, please pass them along.  I think it's these examples showing how other clubs have decided to reduce water, etc. are what the "soft and slow" gang need to hear about.

Thanks!

[Brad Klein]

You mean that 90-minutes I spent with you at the LA Starbucks/Farmers Market was wasted?

[Mark Bourgeois]

Bruce, one story in the Dan Herrmann mold is Scott Ramsay's efforts at Yale, which have been nothing short of transformational. The course has suffered from the paradoxical problems of chronic drainage issues and chronic water supply issues.

Scott put the course on a "water diet." Results? Besides winning national superintendent of the year a few years back, here's his latest missive from just over a month ago:

Firm and fast(and fun)

It's been a fun season to date, for the most part the weather has been very good for golf. It has has provided for firm, fast and fun conditions, which isn't typical of spring golf at the YGC.

By firm I mean the course is playing as it was intended to be played, a stout challenge for the competitive golfers while still presenting an appropriate challenge for the rest of us recreational players. Secondly the course has also been atypically fast. Rounds have been averaging in the 4 1/2 hour range and we can do better.

Last month during the Yale Men's College Spring Tournament, the stroke average for the entire field for the weekend was a score of 80, a firm test of golf. The next day we had nearly 200 rounds of golf and the average round was around 4-41/2 hours. Fairly fast for the firm test of golf that is the YGC. The setup of the golf course is critical to the enjoyment and challenge that we have come to expect here, to use a skiers phrase...we have a black diamond course. The brilliance of this design is that we can present the same golf course to multiple skill levels and still get around in a reasonable amount of time. I know we can still do better.

Some of the elements of our version of firm, fast (and fun) are to add more fairway acreage, playing it forward, tree and underbrush clearing, and more recently, a closer cropped "second cut". We have broadened a few key landing zones, built several forward tees and cleared back wooded areas that seem to collect golf balls and stall play. This week Yale purchased a whole new fleet of mowing equipment including two new rough mowers which can mow closer and provide a cleaner second cut, this should help with finding errant shots and the resulting recovery. We have also mowed, thinned and cleaned up the native grass areas, these naturalized areas are critical to our look and sustainability efforts, but will impede play when they are overgrown.

[Jason Topp]

Does the presence of Kikuyu render comparisons to courses in other areas of the country irrelevant?

[Craig Sweet]

One thing I have learned is "give the members what they want"...otherwise you will be out of a job. Yeah, you can have the USGA boys come and look at your course, and make recommendations, but your membership has to want to implement them. There's plenty of Super's with a stack of USGA reports for their course sitting on a shelf in the office.

If you're a member, and you knew this membership liked slow and wet before you joined, you have no one to blame but yourself. Maybe you need to find a new course?

[Dan Herrmann]

Another Philly area success was at Rolling Green. 

[Jay Flemma]

The set up at Olympic demonstrates how firm and fast can make a course far more difficult for long hitters.  Think about tour events where its wet and slow (in fact think of last year's Open at Congressional). Big hitters have a big advantage on slow courses because they don't run through fairways whereas shorter hitters are still hitting long irons and hybrids.

Remember though that the real purpose of fast and firm is to encourage the ground game, giving more playing options that resemble the way golf was meant to be played. One Cali course fell into the trap and is using F&F to suppress scoring (not its intent). You want fast and firm so that everyone can utilize the ground option if they choose.

What's god for TV is usually bad for golf.  It seems your older members are still drinking the TV kool-aid.  The USGA suggestion is a good one.

[Craig Sweet]

Jay Flemma...I do not get this "the way golf was meant to be played"  How is it that some aspects of the game are allowed to evolve and others aren't?  If we applied "the way golf was meant to be played" rule to everything we would be playing in sheep grazed pastures with rocks and wooden sticks. 

[Paul Jones]

How is your club doing financially? You can save money by going to a more firm approach.

[Adam Clayman]

Bruce, the fact that you have a Kikuyu surface, practically precludes F&F in all but the winter months. I would save your ammunition for other more realistic battles.

If I read incorrectly, please forgive me. But KK is nearly impossible to get firm and fast until dormant.

[Ian Larson]

I've worked at Riviera and LACC. Kikuyu at Riv and Common Bermuda at LA. I don't see the difference between the two. It's not hard at all to get fast and firm on either. They are also warm season grasses that are very durable. They thrive in the heat and there is never a good agronomic reason to overwater, ever. And it's not like Riviera is some special magical place with its Kikuyu.

It just comes down to a solid verticutting and growth regulator program to keep the thick stolon thatch lean and thin. It's a very basic thing any golf course can do. Water in itself only greens up the turf to a certain point, after that it's nutrients that are needed to facilitate photosynthesis.

Verticut, use growth regulators, give it only as much water as it needs and include manganese and iron in fairway sprays for some color. There's never an excuse to overwater, especially in Southern California. That's very irresponsible as golf courses are to be stewards of the environment. Not raping its resources for something like this.

[Bruce Bearer]

"You mean that 90-minutes I spent with you at the LA Starbucks/Farmers Market was wasted?"

Brad - Absolutely not!!!  I've got many, many great notes from that meeting and I'm still working on it!!  Thanks again and look forward to seeing you out on the west coast again soon.