What is the right speed?

[Peter Flory]

I can't remember what course I was reading about, but I came across an article from the teens or twenties that was complimenting a golf course because all 18 greens were the same consistency and speed.  They way that they described it, it made me realize that it was an extremely rare thing.  For most courses back then, regulars to the course would get to know the nuances of each green, including it's speed relative to the others. 


I'm glad we're past that, but it's an interesting part of the game that doesn't really exist in the same way. 

[Matt Schoolfield]

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I'd trade speed for more contour every single time. I don't understand why others wouldn't. I feel like the best greens in golf are one's that have large concepts that ask the player to strategically approach them (like the Eden pre-2015, or the 16th at Pasatiempo pre- whatever they're doing to it now) rather than just using speed as a way to make something that would otherwise be relatively easy, to suddenly be difficult. I guess I think of stupid-fast greens as just being the narrow fairways of putting. If people want to flex, good for them. I'm just trying to have a good time.

Maybe the reason why they generally annoy me is that they seem needlessly difficult. As with adding distance or narrowing fairways, you can always add more difficulty there, but it sort of doesn't change anything of substance in the course or make it more interesting. It just makes it harder.

[Tom_Doak]

The speed should be left up to the super instead of the greens committee.  They know best what speed to have the greens in order for it to play the way the architect designed it, or at least they better!!!

There are a whole lot of superintendents who think they’ll be paid better if the greens are faster, and that’s been one of the root causes of stupid green speeds.


If they didn’t think that, they would mostly keep the greens a little longer to save themselves from worrying about losing grass.

[Ken Moum]

The speed should be left up to the super instead of the greens committee.  They know best what speed to have the greens in order for it to play the way the architect designed it, or at least they better!!!

There are a whole lot of superintendents who think they’ll be paid better if the greens are faster, and that’s been one of the root causes of stupid green speeds.


If they didn’t think that, they would mostly keep the greens a little longer to save themselves from worrying about losing grass.

I doubt if anyone has spent more time defending superintendents and greenkeepers than me, their situation is almost untenable in a lot of ways.


But David's suggestion that green committees and supers should get free rein is a little naïve, IMHO.


There are plenty of people in those positions with wonderful skills and knowledge.  And there are lots of them who don't play or have other motives, as you suggest, etc. 

[Jeff_Brauer]

I always think and design for 10 on the stimp but with elastic that they can go to 12.

This sums up where I was on design, but maybe more like 9.5 and 11.5, but I am not splitting hairs here.


And, as I worked with far more public and management company run courses, far and away, the average green speed target on those courses was in fact, usually 9-10 in peak season. as those managers knew from experience that was all public players could handle as fun, but not ridiculous.


This whole argument is again based on perhaps 1-10% of courses nationwide, and those are mostly private clubs few of us will play, just like so many design discussions are based on the top 1% of golfers.


Of course, the right speed is tied to the typical slope in the cupping areas.  My experience showed that the chart Jerry Lemons did was pretty accurate on the max speed as a function of % of slope, or vice versa.

[MCirba]

Mark,


Curious to know at what speed you'd like to see Bethlehem Muni run at (a) for daily play, and (b) for regional tournaments?


Having done work there, you're well aware that they have both significant slope and some countervailing interior contours and can be perplexing without a good amount of experience and local knowledge.   Thanks for your thoughts.

[Mark_Fine]

Mike,
The greens at Bethlehem are probably the best set I have ever seen or played from Gordon.  The project was not at all a pure restoration (our marching orders were to make the course more playable for their regular cliental as it was always deemed too hard).  However, it was pretty cool to restore/enhance many of the lost pull ups and roll offs around the green perimeters as well as to expand each green back to the edges of the fill pads.  We also had to tie in the green surfaces to the new green side bunkers, surrounding shoulders, mounding, and approaches,...  Chris Judd (the superintendent) is doing a fantastic job with the greens/course on a limited budget. He can get those greens rolling at 13 if he wanted but that would be way over the top.  For the majority of everyday public play, he keeps the greens around 10 or so which is still plenty quick.  For a major tournament, I personally wouldn’t go much above 11-12 as any faster will take away a number of really good hole locations.  Honestly 8-9 would still be a good speed for many of those greens but so many golfers like smooth and fast. 

[Ira Fishman]

I never understood what a Stimp reading means in practical terms. Is a 13 Stimp 30% faster than a 10?


Ira

[Matt Schoolfield]

I never understood what a Stimp reading means in practical terms. Is a 13 Stimp 30% faster than a 10?


Ira

My understanding is that stimp is the distant traveled by a ball at a standard velocity, and we are measuring the effective deceleration. If that is correct, the 30% should be a bit more complicated (and a higher percentage) because the equation should be nonlinear.

Update: the equation is:

deceleration rate = (final velocity² - initial velocity²) / (distance x2)
I found a paper, here [PDF], and it has a graph of stimp coefficients of friction:

[MCirba]

Mike,
The greens at Bethlehem are probably the best set I have ever seen or played from Gordon.  The project was not at all a pure restoration (our marching orders were to make the course more playable for their regular cliental as it was always deemed too hard).  However, it was pretty cool to restore/enhance many of the lost pull ups and roll offs around the green perimeters as well as to expand each green back to the edges of the fill pads.  We also had to tie in the green surfaces to the new green side bunkers, surrounding shoulders, mounding, and approaches,...  Chris Judd (the superintendent) is doing a fantastic job with the greens/course on a limited budget. He can get those greens rolling at 13 if he wanted but that would be way over the top.  For the majority of everyday public play, he keeps the greens around 10 or so which is still plenty quick.  For a major tournament, I personally wouldn’t go much above 11-12 as any faster will take away a number of really good hole locations.  Honestly 8-9 would still be a good speed for many of those greens but so many golfers like smooth and fast.

Mark,


Agreed on all counts.   Of all the Gordons' courses I've played I think only Old York Road (which are possibly a bit too over the top) and Medford Village are comparable in terms of terrific greens.   Your noting of the work of Chris is also spot on, not only with a limited budget but the amount of play the course gets is nothing short of amazing.   


I like the 8-9 range, personally, as they still permit some of the more edgy hole locations and I can't imagine #8, for instance, at anything much beyond that without having very limited number of viable positions.   Thanks.

[Kyle Harris]

I never understood what a Stimp reading means in practical terms. Is a 13 Stimp 30% faster than a 10?


Ira

This is really the crux as to why comparing the final number is meaningless.

What is ZERO on a Stimpmeter? Until you have a meaningful zero, you can't compare numbers as a scalar.


Really, the meaningful number is how much the number changes after you do all the maintenance for the day and then how it changes throughout the day. I suspect the days when the greens "feel" the quickest are the days when those changes are close to zero.


When people ask me how fast they're running I give them the difference between a before and after reading.

[Kyle Harris]

Mike,
The greens at Bethlehem are probably the best set I have ever seen or played from Gordon.  The project was not at all a pure restoration (our marching orders were to make the course more playable for their regular cliental as it was always deemed too hard).  However, it was pretty cool to restore/enhance many of the lost pull ups and roll offs around the green perimeters as well as to expand each green back to the edges of the fill pads.  We also had to tie in the green surfaces to the new green side bunkers, surrounding shoulders, mounding, and approaches,...  Chris Judd (the superintendent) is doing a fantastic job with the greens/course on a limited budget. He can get those greens rolling at 13 if he wanted but that would be way over the top.  For the majority of everyday public play, he keeps the greens around 10 or so which is still plenty quick.  For a major tournament, I personally wouldn’t go much above 11-12 as any faster will take away a number of really good hole locations.  Honestly 8-9 would still be a good speed for many of those greens but so many golfers like smooth and fast.

Mark,


Agreed on all counts.   Of all the Gordons' courses I've played I think only Old York Road (which are possibly a bit too over the top) and Medford Village are comparable in terms of terrific greens.   Your noting of the work of Chris is also spot on, not only with a limited budget but the amount of play the course gets is nothing short of amazing.   


I like the 8-9 range, personally, as they still permit some of the more edgy hole locations and I can't imagine #8, for instance, at anything much beyond that without having very limited number of viable positions.   Thanks.

Mike Mike Mike,

The erstwhile Bucks Country Country Club (Now The Bucks Club - not to be confused with the merchandie powerhouse) features some incredibly interesting Gordon(s) greens said to be based on the greens at the original Huntingdon Valley CC Baederwood Course.


Surely, you've played here.

[Mark_Fine]

A stimp meter is a pretty simple device.  All is does it measure how far (in feet) a ball rolls on a flat part of the green (average of three rolls in both directions).  If the final reading is 10 then the ball rolled on average 10 feet.  Not rocket science. 


Bethlehem’s greens are exceptional from a design standpoint.  I may be a little bias but I have seen A LOT of Gordon greens as well as have been privileged to work on quite a few Gordon courses and these are the best overall set I have come across.  I will say that Gordon was much better at building interesting greens than he was at building bunkers.  I have often joked that Gordon seemed to study what Flynn did very closely regarding greens when they worked together but unfortunately he must have skipped class when it came to his bunkering which is often repetitive and uninspiring. 

[MCirba]

Mike Mike Mike,

The erstwhile Bucks Country Country Club (Now The Bucks Club - not to be confused with the merchandie powerhouse) features some incredibly interesting Gordon(s) greens said to be based on the greens at the original Huntingdon Valley CC Baederwood Course.


Surely, you've played here.

Kyle,


 


I've played the original Gordon's course at Bucks County as well as the revised version that has 4 or 5 new replacement holes but it's been at least 15 years or so, which was in my PY* phase so I may not have been as discerning.






* Pre-Yips