It is the fact that superintendents ignore the mowing patterns that gives rise to the problems of shrinking greens and tees in the first place.

Stopping the shrinkage is a simple issue.

Restoring the greens and tees is, I agree, a more complex problem.

"It is the fact that superintendents ignore the mowing patterns that gives rise to the problems of shrinking greens and tees in the first place."

rg:

Maybe you haven't noticed but that was a problem that happened a whole lot more than it does now.

"Stopping the shrinkage is a simple issue."

It is a simple issue but it was an issue that very few clubs---eg memberships, supers etc seemed to have noticed in the last 50-60 years. Again, maybe you haven't noticed but that's all beginning to change now. The entire idea of really restoring classic courses, of which expanding the green surfaces back to their original sizes, is something that's basically only been going on in the last 10 or so years.

"Restoring the greens and tees is, I agree, a more complex problem."

I wouldn't exactly call it a complex problem but it is something that takes a bit of time, money and effort. You don't exactly just begin to mow it back out because it's generally not the same type of grass---if you do an original green space expansion you pretty much take off what's there and reseed the expansion areas. In most cases it takes a year or two so the transition is no longer noticeable.

But if you feel like just blaming someone today or from the past, be my guest. My experience is doing that just pisses people off and isn't very productive.
 
 

Along the lines of what Don Mahaffey said:  I attended one of the Seth Raynor Society gatherings and a number of the participants were supers from SR courses.  If you have a classic course whose archie has a society (Tillie, SR or Ross), it seems to me that the club ought to pay for the super to be a member.  The club ought to buy a library for the super containing some of the old and new books that delve into the old master archies lives and works, and the modern commentators of GCA that study and observe GCA from a classic preservationist perspective.  

I think that supers of some of the sub-categories of golf course styles and maintenance melds ought to form their own networks of mini-associations.  Like, Fescue managers, or golden era courses, or prairie or dunesland managers, etc.  Clubs should budget more for the supers to get away now and then and have mini gatherings of supers with like interests.

Adam Clayman,

I'd strongly disagree if a club has continued to use walking mowers.  The issue becomes a little more complicated when Tri-plexes or riding mowers are put into use.

Ask your friend, how were the greens mowed when the golf course opened ?   What's changed ?
Habit and benign neglect, not weight, difficulty or money are mostly responsible for green shrinkage.

TEPaul,

I'd disagree with you.

This is a simple process, one that the superintendent can initiate and complete over a few years or less.

Paralysis through analysis has frozen and caused the abandonment of too many worthwhile projects over the years.

On this one, I'm with NIKE, "Just do it".

Adam Clayman,

It is rare.

Remember, in many cases, minimum wage, transient workers carry out maintainance functions, and it's difficult to imbue them with artisan values.

The budget or money issue does exist, and I intentionally glossed over it to avoid complicating the initial issue.

In many cases, the decision to go to riding mowers is a money issue.  (time and labor)  But, there can be tradeoffs, like scalping, turning, access and egress, compaction, quality and speed.

Strangely enough, many of the golf courses that have suffered green shrinkage use walking mowers, hence, I view the issue more in the context that rgkeller does.

Pat Mucci said;

"Strangely enough, many of the golf courses that have suffered green shrinkage use walking mowers, hence, I view the issue more in the context that rgkeller does."

All this probably only goes to show how varied things can be from course to course and super to super. I've asked numerous supers what they feel about green space shrinkage over time and the vast majority have said that those mowing greens simply err on the inside so as never to scalp a collar---for which some supers say the mower operator would get shot. But the other day while on the 16th green at Manufacturers I started talking to super Scott May about this problem and phenomenon and he said he actually instructs and encourages his green mow operators to cut into the collar slightly and he walked me around the edge of that 16th green and showed me precisely where that'd happened to his satisfaction and where it hadn't. But to date Scott May is the only super I've ever heard say that. Most all the rest said the opposite.

Pat:

Every green is different of course and it's all a matter of extent and degree that you're dealing with. A lot of it does have to do with strains of grass obviously. Greens like mine couldn't mow back to our original peripheries when we went to A-4. You have to gass, remove and reseed in that case. On one of our greens (back left of #17) we reclaimed almost 30 FEET of lost green space by reclaiming an enormous back left green space flareout!!

In large measure, the "blame" is to be placed on an overall lack of understanding or appreciation of the importance of the original design intent.  Only recently have many clubs reconnected with thier heritage and begun to explore what may have been lost over time.  This is not the superintendents fault in most cases.

Another culprit is the advent of using riding mowers to mow greens.  With many of the original interesting shapes and locations of the edge of greens, they could not be mowed with riding mowers and again there was not an appreciation of what shrinking the greens meant.  

As far as recaputuring the "lost" edges and shapes of the greens (resulting in lost strategic variety and interest), it depends on the grass types and the condition of the grass in the lost areas of the greens.  In areas where the greens and collars are bent grass or bent/poa, and grown mostly on native soil, enlaring the green can be done with out a great deal of trouble, assuming the thatch in the lost areas are not so dense that it cannot be removed in a season.  Chuck Martineau at Whippoorwill in Armonk, New York has done a great deal of recapturing the original green sizes with aerifying, topdressing and veriticutting.  We are going to do this over the next year at Engineers on Long Island to enlarge greens there to their orignal size.  In some cases, you use grass from the putting green or a nursery mown at green height to enlarge the green when the thatch in the collar is too dense (like we are doing at Fresh Meadow this fall).

However, if you are at a course where Bermuda surrounds the green surface, especially if a sand/mix cavity was constructed and Bent is the greens surface, it is more difficult to recapture lost area.  If the surface of the green is also Bermuda and the "intruding" collar is still of the same variety, it is possible to recapture by removing thatch and moving the cut line out.  

When we are involved in a renovation of greens to simply change the grass type, we always look to recapture the orginal size of the green.  

As far as the general problem of greens receeding, with our new courses we regularly visit to inspect to make sure mowing lines are being adhered to.