George - stories of your match have reached the west coast already... Mr. McBride the elder has been telling stories of that "Golden" day...

Now as to your question:  I don't think we see that many crowned greens because they are relatively more difficult to maintain than greens with little or no falloffs... aren't they?  And aren't they relatively more difficult and/or expensive to build, requiring more earth-moving in darn near all instances?

As for how they play, well it just comes down to perception.  They look hard for the better player because he's used to having his shot results be more predictable - that is, normally the ball will stay relatively close to where he hits it, and he hits it where he wants to most of the time.  Crowned greens add this variable of relatively "good" shots yielding results that are wildly worse than what he's used to... and then put more demands on his short game... so it throws him off.  He's used to getting shots up and down from close to the green, and he knows it won't be so easy on crowns...

For the lesser player, they don't look hard because the penalty is not definite - shots that make him tremble are shots over water or other hazards, where the penalty is immediate and definite.  Crowns don't face him as there is no definite nor immediate penalty.  He normally doesn't get up and down anyway, so pitching up a crown is no big deal... his expecation is 3 or 4 shots, not 2.

So this is generally going to come down to how one plays, and how one feels about the game... I guess I'd qualify as a "better player", so when I see crowns I do indeed tremble a bit.  I enjoy them, but I expect to see some crooked numbers.  I'm not sure I'd want them as a steady diet... but who knows, it might end up being fun.

One thing's for sure:  I think the golf world is better off with these as the exception rather than the norm.  They're cooler that way... and well... these kind of greens don't exactly elicit fast play.

TH

George - I was just "fleshing out" your point as to the effects of crowned greens.  I fully agree about the conclusions... I was just kinda thinking out loud as to WHY it works out that way.

In any case, bottom line is you are dead right on, hit the nail on the head when you say:

"A course like this will still be tough for a lesser golfer to score on, but I truly believe the biggest annoyances for lesser golfers are losing balls and taking penalty strokes. An extra putt or chip is far less painful than digging back into the bag, yet again.

Thus in the end, a course with these is better for everyone than a penal course exacting many penalty shots, that's for sure.

I just still do think we don't see more of these because they are expensive to build and maintain, relatively.  I could be wrong there.  There also does exist a definite perception among golfers good and bad that this is a form of "mickey mouse" golf... I'm not saying I think that way - I don't - but I sure do know a lot of very astute golfers who do....

As for stories of your match, well they were mostly about Golden heroics.  Bill was careful not to mention much about why such were required.

 

George, Huck:

My 'heroics' weren't all that much, the McBrides just missed some putts coming in.   :oThe alternate shot format, by the way, was a Chapman (at Ace's suggestion).  A more impressive triumph was my singles match with David McBride two days later-he's an 8 and we went back and forth all day, with David halving the match with birdie on #17 before I hit two good shots on #18 (a tough finisher, 410 yards uphill with another crowned, push up green) and closed him out.

I exchanged emails with Bill Amick, the course architect, this week, about Solutia.  As I continue to play the course it feels more and more Ross-like to me and reminds me of a combination of Pine Needles, Mid Pines, and Country Club of Asheville,  all of which I've played once.  I'll have a better feel for it after the Dixie Cup in October.  I'm also going to take some photos of the greensites sometime soon and post them for comments from our Ross afficianados on GCA.

Bill Amick's email included the following:

'I didn’t even know the course is now named Solutia Golf Club.  It was built as Chemstrand GC and I knew it became Monsanto.  As many courses are, it was a real struggle to get finished to open.  Ken Raines, a nice fellow was in charge of the construction and was right out of the nylon plant with no golf course experience.  He and his crew were serious workers though and stayed on for years maintaining the course.  Ken admitted later that he had no idea why I wanted the greens built the way I did, until he had to take care of them and golfers began to play them.  I’m glad to hear from you about the course and will drop in again one day.

Maybe I was influenced by Donald Ross more than I realized.  I started in golf caddying at Hope Valley Country Club in Durham, a Ross course.  In fact the picture of the caddy line at Pinehurst in the last couple issues of Golf Magazine took my mind back in time.  I broke the color line at Hope Valley.  All the other caddies there were Black.  I seemed to always get out quickly because I think Cheese, the Black caddymaster, would look out in the caddy yard at my white face and I'd make him nervous.  Following that I then caddied at Wyandot Country Club outside Columbus, OH, also a Ross designed course.'

Solutia, to me, is certainly a hidden 'gem', particularly since the total cost of membership, as I've mentioned before, is $220...per quarter.  By the way, I got to the course on Saturday at 11:15 AM, teed off immediately, had to play through two groups, and finished (with one other player) at 2:10

P.S.  My alleged 'mental toughness' may just be a function of some new found happiness in my life...An incredible woman named Sheila, as well as a new, wonderful home we are buying and a new business I was lucky enough to be able to buy (I'll be taking over at the end of August).  Sometimes, I suppose, changing your life is all for the good.

Mike and George, how many crowned greens were there?  I'm thinking back and only coming up with a handful.  Generally the greens were midsized and well contoured, but which would you say were crowned in the manner say of #2 Pinehurst?

George, if you like courses where you can putt off greens if you aren't careful, you'll love Crystal Downs.  Mike, i had the chance to play Hope Valley about 4 years ago and really liked it.  However the greens complexes had been redone by one of the Maples and had lst much of the Ross feel.  I thought they didn't really fit.  I had heard there was some talk of at least a partial restoration but I lst track of the status.

Bill,

The greens at Solutia that I consider crowned are 1,3,5,6,9,10,12,14,16,17, and 18.  Of these, there are uphill approach shots on almost all of them with the exception of #16 and 17.  I hit an approach shot to #6 the other day, it landed just off the right front edge and went right back down to the fairway-I just needed to hit it on the green.

I'll be back in town on Wednesday and have a couple of weeks before finalizing the business so let's go do it.

By the way, I'm in Corning right now and playing Mark Twain in Elmira tomorrow and Saturday-a Ross circa 1936, greens fees are $21-this will be a good comparison to Solutia.

Enjoy Chicago-are you going to set Shivas straight on lots of stuff

I agree, Jeff, I'm going to have to go out to the course with Mike Golden and take a serious inventory.  I think a couple of the greens were severely crowned and that's about right.  More than that......

As I explained in my previous post, maybe crowned isn't the right word. What I was referring to was the fact that most of the greens, by my count or Mike's, featured greens where the edges ran away from the player, or, using Jeff's terminology, were convex.

I think Tommy once said that the great courses of the world were convex rather than concave.

George,

I've had very few moments of original insight in my life, but I have to claim this one.  

It came back when I was looking at pictures of Olde Kinderhook, a Rees Jones design in NY state.  It was as if you took the typical bowled in, concave Rees Jones course and inverted it.  It then occurred to me that almost every course we revere seems to have "anti-containment", what with hog-backed fairways, and domed greens, and edges slipping into deep, steep bunkers.  The converse is also largely true.  

So, I have Rees to thank for that one.