Tom Paul has evolved an idea called the Ideal Maintenance Meld. I'll let him explain it in detail if anyone needs that, but the basics are that every golf course has an ideal presentation of firmness of the fairways - approaches - and greens. This firmness is intended to highlight the architectural characteristics of the golf course.

I feel the hieght of rough should be an ingredient in this conversation for the simple reason that plenty of balls end up in the rough. Its height is one of two factors (the other being thickness) that determine what type of shot you can hit from it.

Thoughts?

Rough affects shots in three ways: ability to advance the ball (high thick rough), the ability to control distance and the ability to control spin.

I'd add a fourth way it affects shots...

In the mind of the player.

Good players (especially great ball strikers) often like deep rough, and narrow fairways because they A) takes away any confusion about where they want the ball to go and B) usually favors their skills.

Players of lesser ability hate tall rough and narrow fairways because they A) causes their brain to lock up out of fear and B) often eliminates the most exciting shot in golf--the recovery shot.

When you hear a pro compliment a course by saying "It's right there in front of you," he usually means there's only one option off the tee and that all other shots will be punished severely.

That's why one of my favorite golf courses anywhere is Brora Golf Club.... the sheep keep the rough semi-playable.

<grin>

K

JES,
   I think the rough is a variable that shouldn't effect the IMM. The rough should just be a determinant of how you want the course to resist scoring. However, then you have to consider pace of play.  For example, if you have firm and fast and most golfers on the course have no shot of staying on the green from the rough and then pace of play slows way down that would be a negative. On the other hand you could be having a competition or just a club that has lots of good golfers where you want to have a more exacting test of golf so that the golfer putting the ball in the fairway and on the greens has an advantage. I'm not being very clear, but hopefully you get the idea.

I'm trying to think of how to continue this and I'm a bit stumped.

For starters, Peter and Adam, there are courses that try to keep their fairways and greens nice and firm but also water the hell out of the rough so it's long and nasty. These are real high-end clubs where money is not the object it is at others but it happens.

Ed, I think height of rough should be determined as you say, in consideration of all the other dynamics, but most importantly, how the course itself plays. I think there should be a consisten philosophy that takes into account the terrain (therefore the likelihood of a "good" shot running into the rough) and the architecture of the course. Fairway width, green complex design, shape of hole etc...

Phil Benedict, you said...

I don't believe high thick rough is appropriate for fast and firm courses.

How about if the fairways are 60 yards wide?

Under fast and firm conditions the problem of distance control is accentuated, making recovery from shorter rough possible but problematical.  Creates shot-making options that you don't necessarily need to consider from the fairway.

And that's why I think it ought to be considered when developing an IMM.

My point was to hope you would look at the sentence of your that I quoted in a different light. I am not a proponent of high thick rough in any instance. I am a proponent of wide fairways so long as the greens are built to give reason for that width. I also would rather play golf in 50 degree overcast wind than 80 and sunny if the trade-off is firmness in the fairways and greens.

My reasoning for wanting to include rough height in the IMM conversation is that if the greens are well built, and maintained real firm the course will be a hell of alot more interesting and fun to play if the rough provides a bit of penalty, but not so much that it kills temptation...and scoring will be plenty high, if that matters.

The combination we have used for the rough is to have it basically just high enough to make if hard for better players to spin the ball and predict how it will come out, thus lending a nice unpredictability to it, and some actual decisions on how much risk they want to take.  Rough that long doesn't bother the rest of us much, but our courses are difficult and fun enough without it.  

Without spotters and/or top caddies the ability to easily find balls is a consideration. What is worse than 4 men going around in circles eyes to the ground saying "I know it's here somewhere"?

I think this is an important point. High thick rough slows down play.  All the more reason to have f&f conditions so that short rough can affect play without creating lost balls.

It's not so much the height, but the humidity.

The best idea/argument I've seen, from Tom Doak, proposes that rough should be yet another option for the player.  Rather than simply a penalty circle, the player could take a chance with lie for benefit of better angle, length, etc.  This becomes a problem with uniform, groomed rough.  

Sully:

I think your post #8 goes about as far as is possible in outlining what my preference would be in how "rough" should factor into what I've called the IMM.

Not to go off this thread's topic (rough), but I do recognize that my IMM idea is most certainly not complete as to how all architectural and maintenance factors about any particular golf course interrelate to produce the best and most interesting combinations in play.

Let me digress for a moment to explain why and how i came up with it in the first place.

It occured to me once or twice in pretty close succession some years ago when I played a couple of courses that I thought were pretty much in ideal "condition" from a PLAYABLILITY standpoint that there really was no "description" or term to describe that "ideal playability" condition. I realize that the optimum or ideal description for the condition of most any golf course was the term "good condition". And I began to wonder what that meant to most people and what it accomplished or was intended to accomplish.

I realized the term "good condition" which everyone used to describe a golf course that was assumed to be in an optimum maintenance state didn't exactly have much meaning in the context of "ideal playability". I realized it certainly did have a lot of meaning in the context of aesthetics and particularly immaculateness. I also realized that almost always meant over-irrigated, over fertilized and chemical dependent turf and it also almost always meant that all American courses at least ideally were maintained in this same way despite how different their eras or type and style of architecture may be.

So I decided to create a phrase that more completely described the "ideal playability" on the different types and styles of golf courses out there recognizing that ideal  maintenance practices should and would need to be inherently different for "ideal playabilities" of various types and styles of courses (architecture), rather than the "one-size-fits-all" maintenance practices that had resulted in what had come to be expected in America with the term "good condition".

The words were supposed to have real meaning in describing maintenance practices that ideally "melded" into particular types and styles of architecture and design intent (in play) and that those maintenance practices would need to be quite different depending on the type of course or its design intent.

Obviously the most glaring defect of all was the over-irrigation of most all courses and the consequent constant softness of the ground essentially wiping out the bounce and rollout of the ball and wiping out the entire aspect of the ground game which if one thought about it would realize is ideally about HALF the game of golf.

So sure, at first the IMM initially concentrated on returning firm and fast particularly to those golf courses whose architectural type and style depended more on ground game options than perhaps the more aerially designed courses of the latter half of the 20th century.

But you are so right that rough is a most important factor in this entire question of "ideal playablility" on particular courses.

And there certainly are others I've not yet gotten around to considering much or outlining. For instance:

1. hazard maintenance, particularly bunkers---eg how to ideally maintain their sand surfaces and their surrounds from a "playability" standpoint.

2. The entire subject of fairway size and outline on any particular hole.

3. The entire subject of trees in a strategic sense.

4. And, again, certainly the entire subject of the configurations and "playabilities" of rough on any particular type and style of architecture.

But the over-all intention or goal of the IMM is to figure out precisely what any particular golf course or even hole was designed to basically offer or require in "play" (what its over-all strategic options are in its design and architectural structure) and then to design maintenance practices for that golf course that get as close as possible to "balancing" those options and strategies or casting all of them into a virtual state of "equilibrium" in both function and in DECISION-MAKING.

Basically, in my mind, when all the architectural aspects of any golf course are in a form of functional "balance" or in a state of "decision-making equilibrium" they just can't get any better "in play".

To me the ideal state of condition of any golf course is when maintenance practices allow that course's options to be so "balanced" that most players struggle to even decide which of a number of options to even attempt.

If all greens are completely soft and receptive than most everyone will try to fly the ball into the green with no thought to attempting another shot option.

If all approaches are constantly soft then they don't function in play and no one would even think to attempt to use them.

If all bunkers' sand surfaces and surrounds are so bland in "playability" few will even think to avoid them.

If rough is so thick and penal practically no one would even think to try something possible and tempting albeit dangerous or heroic.

If greens and their speeds are so slow where one ends up on them has little strategic meaning.

So you are very right to bring up the subject of how "rough" factors into various ideal maintenance melds, particularly since rough and high rough is perhaps the most common and effectively penal aspect of architecture and maintenance.

If you would like to have a more specific discussion, with me anyway, about the subject of rough and the IMM I'd be glad to go through every hole at HVGC with that specific subject in mind and what it means "in play" on any or every hole---at least to me.

And another thing I have never quite gotten around to describing or explaining is what the IMM would be on some very modern and almost completely aerially designed modern course and architecture. Inherently that should be quite different than an old style course and the specific area it would obviously need to be quite different is the "ideal" receptiveness of the greens.

 Should rough be inconsistent as well ?

 Jim,

 I think the consistency of rough, particularly just off the fairway, has lessened the purpose of rough. Which I take to be relatively unmaintained areas of the course with random possibilities for lies. I love it when I hear my friends say " This rough is lousy; there's no grass in some places".


   I think the unmaintained rough is a better fit for the fast and firm fairway, because you wonder what kind of lie you will get as the ball rolls into the rough.


  I may not be able to post anymore for a while---NCAA-golf-and the market melting.

I agree.

The 04' Shinnecock open had irregular rough to the extent that certain players were deciding to play for it, in certain spots.

There's something about the texture of unmannicured rough that appeals to my golfing senses. While the uniformed version often shows to much of the hand of man.