At what velocity (in club lengths) does wind go from being a design asset to a design liability ?

Joe Hancock,

That doesn't surprise me  

Ive seen the monterey peninsula courses get to a 5-6 club wind.

To experience those, and conclude that the design quality was somehow altered, is preposterous.

But that shouldn't surprise you either.  

Seems likely there's a formula for width and wind speed. Why anyone would want to follow it, is another issue.

Sorry Pat,  This was the first thought I had when I read your post...

BRIDGEKEEPER: "What is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?"
ARTHUR: "What do you mean? An African or European swallow?"

I presume you mean a European, steady wind and I say 2 clubs for the pros(they melt if they have to think that hard) and endless for those of us who can hit near putt like shots with all clubs in the bag, the daisy cutter.  I draw the line though if the wind is stong enough to pick my ball up and carry it elsewhere.  

Steve

Pat:

I don't know--your question may be a little vague or something along those lines.

It reminds me of the time I was a kid in Daytona Beach Florida and sometimes on Sunday evenings my Dad would take us all down to this old fish restaurant on the Inland waterway under the bridge over the inland waterway to New Symrna Beach. In those days there was very little down there and the traffic was very light, so light in fact Dad used to stop on the middle of the bridge at the control house on the bridge where the guy who opened the bridge for boats was.

Dad said to the bridge operator something like "What's going on?" The bridge operator said some of these northern tourist coming down here drive me crazy and Dad said; "What do you mean? The bridge operator said a Jewish couple from New York just came over the bridge and asked him how to get to Florida. The bridge operator asked them where they were headed and they said Miami. The bridge operator said if you've just come from New York you've been in Florida for about the last 175 miles. The Jewish couple just looked at him and said; Oh no we haven't and we just want to know how to get to Florida. So the Bridge operator told them to just go over the bridge and take a left and they'd find Florida right down that road about 275 miles!  

"At what velocity (in club lengths) does wind go from being a design asset to a design liability?"

Only hurricane Ivan knows for sure.

Pat:

I guess one good example of excessive wind as a design liabilty would be those times (sometimes not so rare) where something like a non-option forced carry is rendered virtually impossible by excessive wind. I'm sure we can all think of examples of holes and times such as that. The painful example of the 17th at Kiawah during the Ryder Cup was not completely one of those examples but it was real close!

Only hurricane Ivan knows for sure.

Right now Ivan is a sixteen-club wind (sustained)... I'd imagine anything less than a driving 6-iron hit straight into it would balloon up and land behind you (assuming you could stand up to hit the shot).

ChrisB:

Actually if you tried to hit a controlled low trajectory 6 iron from say 100 yards into a wind of the sustained strength of Hurricane Ivan (150-160mph) your golf ball would probably end up about 2 miles behind you and you yourself would be launched backwards like a missle and you'd probably end up back by the clubhouse (if it was still there) where you'd been about 14 holes before!  

 How does cutting the grass on the greens too low, alter the quality of the design?

While I haven't been to bandon, I bet if any green was designed for 12-14 ft on the meter, they'd be flat and not worth the paper to design them on.

LenBum is dead wrong.

When wind velocity blows balls off of the green, or the sand from the bunkers, it would be deemed excessive.


It certainly would be excessive but would it mean there is a flaw in the design? How often have you played in wind like that? I have but only a few times and never did I look back on a hole thinking it was unfair or flawed. No designer should take wind velocity like that into account unless of course it blows like that a majority of the time. Moving tee markers and raising mower heights would offset wind like that. Wind like usually doesn't just "come out of no where". There usually is time to adjust the course setup. And even if there isn't, so be it.  Be prepared to put some high numbers of the scorecard but don't blame the design............................

Pat:

What you're asking about and talking about (or appear to be) really isn't so much in the realm of "design flaw", in my opinion. It's more in the realm of maintenance pratices or set-up practices (which falls into the realm of course maintenance, not course design--or certainly not completely into design) relating to various architecture.

I think the "line of demarcation" that you're asking about was front and center and plain as day to see this year---and that "line" was on display on the weekend of the US Open at Shinnecock.

With something like the wind or the potential of the wind to effect playablity that "line of demarcation" at Shinnecock was really close. At least so said a knowledgeable source like Mark Michaud. He mentioned that if the wind that blew on Monday following the Open blew on the set-up they used on Sunday the USGA would've had to shut down play.

You can imagine if the greenspeeds at Shinnecock on Sunday were around 9 or even 10 or 11 this would not have been true but at 12 or 13 it's true.

So this "line of demarcation" you speak of or ask about isn't just architectural design or a "design flaw"---it's the set-up or maintenance practices applied to various architecture. This all falls into that realm I call "the maintenance meld" (the effects of how maintenance practices relate to (or "meld" into) the playabliity of various architecture).

Ballybunion New has this design flaw.  Too many greens, that are too small and perched for sensible play in a typical wind.