Craig Sweet,

I doubt that many greens in the Northeast in the summer stimped at 6.... 20,30,40 and 50 years ago.

Bermuda in the south in the summer, maybe, but, not many tournaments were ever played in the deep south in the summer.

If you look at old films you can gain a sense of pace by how big or hard of a stroke was required for putts of varying lengths.

Baltusrol in the 1967 Open didn't stimp at 6.


Jim Kennedy,

My bet is that pressure will build to rake bunkers with furrowed rakes at the local level as a result of the broadcast and commentary.

Your challenge, and the challenge of your peers is to convincve clubs that NO raking, or raking on a NEEDS ONLY basis is a prefered maintainance practice.

Furrowed raking would drive up costs and create controversial issues for superintendents at local clubs.

"..the right side of the 8th at Cypress, which has got 10 million footprints in it...."

Not sure where these 10 million footprints would come from in the normal course of play at Cypress. Jack might be referring to rounds at the old Crosby, but any time I went past CPC when I lived out there, there looked to be 3 groups max on the whole course. CPC would get less play than any other top 10 course.

Pat,

You know me, I didn't play much golf 50 years ago. I was simply trying to referrence a Pete Dye study. I am sure others on here could offer support on the details, but he was using Oakmont as his case study so bermuda is not really possible. Let's table this until someone confirms or refutes my memory, but more importantly... I do not believe that Sam Snead would have made a joke about his dime (ball marker) sliding off a green (at Oakmont in the early 50's) with a stimp of 6 feet.

About PV, I do not feel their greens putted at 6 feet 50 years ago, but in one of our debates about the course you used much slower (than today) green speeds as evidence in one of your positions, so don't go too far with that point. Let's stick with Oakmont.

Quote from: Anthony Butler on June 01, 2006, 10:54:10 AM

"A ball rolling to the center of the bunker should be a function of design and construction (Royal Melbourne) not maintenance practices."

Anthony,

I don't see why you grabbed my quote or what point you are trying to make with it.

I don't  want to seem pedantic, but I can't let this go.

If most types of sand dry out, or if the bunker is unmaintained, or lets say its raked a certain direction or depth, where the ball ends up does depends less and less on the design or construction technique.

Wetting them, packing them, smoothing them, etc, to assure the ball runs  to the middle of the bunker, are maintenance activities.  There isn't a sand or construction technique that would allow this to consistently happen without maintenance.

Are you saying all balls hit into bunkers at Royal Melbourne end up in the center of the bunker?  That would be amazing and I would bet my paycheck that its not true.

Or maybe I'm missing your point entirely.  

Many Cheers

If 98% of bunkers are properly maintained, the ball should not run to the center. That would mean in most cases that the sand is too crusty or hardpacked, and too little sand is underneath the ball. RM's sand is so fine and dry that it lies down quite firm yet there is pleny of sand for you to get your club underneath the ball. The sides of the bunkers at RM are so sharp that no ball is going to stay up in this area when it hits the sand. You can always get it onto the green from an RM bunker with a half-way decent shot, but the size and slope of those greens make it tough to get the ball within 6 feet. Obviously if you left footprints in the bunker the ball would stop there, but most times it rolls down into a fairly level lie.

Because most courses are not working with this type of sand, balls hit into their bunkers should stick more in the spot where it hit the bunker particularly with an approach shot.

Given proper maintenance at RM the ball will roll towards the center... i.e. do what the architect envisioned. On most other courses this would meen the bunkers were improperly maintained. That's why I thinks its a design and construction issue.

Hope that helps...

JES II,

I'd agree with your premise, but, I think there's more to it.

Bunkers were well maintained 50 years ago.
They were hand raked, by golfers, caddies and staff.
Etiquette hasn't changed in 50 years.

The big change in bunker play was the invention of the sand-wedge by Gene Sarazen circa 1933 (?)

My observations are that bunker maintainance appears to be a daily exercise today.  I recall it being more on a "needs" basis 30, 40 and 50 years ago.

Patrick...I believe it was Nick Price that said "back in the day" the greens ran about 6 and now they run 13-14...

Regardless, he was there, he played on them, I didn't.

However, I recall reading somewhere that last year, on the tour, greens averaged 10.6....so I doubt Nick Price is anymore aware of green speeds than the average golfer.

The best part about all this is that Jack is trying to convince the golfing world that bunkers are hazards.  There should be some penalty if you are in one.  If nothing else, maybe people will remember this and start to think a little differently about them.  Superintendents probably take more abuse for the condition of the bunkers then most anything else on their golf course.  Maybe this will give them some ammunition to defend that they are "hazards" and should be hazardous and somewhat unpredictable in nature.  

More anecdotal evidence about historic green speeds.

Nicklaus said in a GCSA interview a couple of years ago that Oakmont in '62 had the fastest greens anyone had ever seen. Then he paused for dramatic effect. They stimped at 6.5 or 7, he said. Unless JN was making stuff up, that suggests regular speeds in the NE were pretty close to 6 or less circa 1960.

I would guess that greens speeds on Bermuda in the SE as late as the '60's was something like 4 or 4.5.

As for bunker maintenance, we did it with our feet until they began putting out rakes sometime in the late 60's or early 70's. I am embarrassed to admit that at first I didn't realize that the rakes were there for the players to use. I thought they had been pre-positioned for the maintenance staff or something.

Bob

Bob,

That was a good story. I think the players have a point, but the PGA Tour is saying, Look, we know you have a point and we want you to have to deal with this. It changes all facets of the game and with as bored as I was getting with the Tour, it is coming at just the right time for me. Monday should be the start of a great TV summer.

I didn't get you wrong at all. I should have started a new paragraph, I understood that you were just stating facts, facts that you will probably have to defend vehemently here soon. I am FOF as well.

Mark,

Interesting observation. I did not have that reaction initially, but now that you mention it...

Another situation in which the Tour could threaten its relationship with the average golfer, a relationship it must have for its success.

You must have watched the Nat;l spelling bee last night. "schadenfreude" was one of the words. I don't erecall which contestant got it but she spelled it correctly!