[wsmorrison]

Yesterday, Tom Paul and I had lunch with a friend of ours, Mike McNulty, the eminent superintendent at Philadelphia Country Club and lifelong Philadelphian and EAGLES fan.

We spoke about a great many fascinating subjects.  Mike is a superintendent that gets results and sometimes takes novel approaches such as his method for gassing the fairways and greens and bunker drainage.  One of the points that Mike brought out was a question about the effect of new mowing equipment and playability out of the rough.  He hasn't seen this discussed on this site and thought it should be mentioned.

According to Mike, when gang mowers with their bed knives and reels were used to cut the rough it resulted in the grass laying in an orientation and leading to iffy lies.  Today the rotary mowers lift and cut the grass leaving the blades standing more vertical.  This makes the balls sit down requiring a more lofted club to get out especially if the length of rough remained the same.  

According to Mike, 2" rough cut by a rotary is equivalent in difficulty to 3-3.5" cut by reel mowers.  This in combination with the loss of "luck of the lie" is, in his mind a regrettable occurence.  Do you see more evidence in the uniformity of lies and balls sitting down?  I'm not talking about young spring grasses that aren't yet sturdy enough to hold up the ball, but hearty mature later season rough.

I hope that Mike will participate in an interview as Ran has suggested to me; I'll bring it up with him sometime soon.  I think it would be interesting to everyone on this site.

[Don_Mahaffey]

Wayne,
Mike is correct. We used to mow our blue grass roughs with a gang until last August when we bought a new rotary. The new mower works great, it's quick, low maintenance with no reels to care for, nimble, and a great cut. But, the gang mower would lay some grass over or miss a few leaf blades leaving an uneven less maincured look. A "rough" look compared to the new mower's finished look. From a productivity stand point the new mower is the way to go. If you have some rain and miss a few days mowing or get flush growth in the spring it can keep up while the older gang was a nightmare if you got behind. But, the older gang may be a better fit on an older course that desires a "classic" look.

[wsmorrison]

Don,

Thanks for your comments.  What you said about falling behind a mowing schedule and the advantages of the rotary mower over the gang mower is exactly what Mike mentioned as well.

If the playability is so markedly affected by the new mowers, is there anything that might be done to keep the old luck factor?  I guess it doesn't pay to keep two sets of mowers.  Can the manufacturers do something?

I understand you have to balance the ease and maintenance issues with playability.  Don, do the members or committeepersons recognize a difference in playability at your club?  I sure don't think they do at ours.  I didn't realize it until my chat with Mike.

[Joe Hancock]

Good comments....

I also would add that the gang mower in the rough would be ideal as long as it is unirrigated rough to whatever extent that is possible.

Joe

[Mike_Young]

As Joe says above....yes mowers have made a difference but water and fertilizer have made 2 inch rough today much tougher than 2 inch rough of 15 years ago.

[gookin]

Not to mention increased practices for overseeding roughs.  My sense is that practice was rarely done in the past.  For us it has become a regular fall occurance.  Our rough today cut at 2 1/2 inches is much tougher than ten years ago.

[BCrosby]

How much lower are fairways cut today than they were in 1970?

Let me ask that differently. What is considered a tighly mowed fairway today and what would been considered tight in 1970 or so?

A six pack of Guiness is riding on the answer.

Bob

[Bill Gayne]

Bob,

Isn't the answer pretty much the same as today at 1/2 inch to 5/8. The grass hasn't changed. The real advantage of today's equipment being the uniformity of the cut in the fairway?

[BCrosby]

Bill - Wrong answwer.  

[Joe Hancock]

I would guess the 1970 tight fairway height would be 3/4 of an inch, vs. 3/8 of an inch today.

Guiness...... served in Scotland, correct?

Joe

[Mike_Young]

Masters Tournament was cut at .500 during mid eighties.
I would vventure someplaces are under .375 today.
Just think about that aspect in regards to distance

[TEPaul]

Stay focused on the rough cut method boys---it could be very interesting!

[Mike_Young]

Rough cut .....IMHO rough should not be consistent.  If one knows to a certain extent what type of lie to expect and knows how to cope with it he may not fear rough as much as if he doesn't know what to expect.  With the demand for more "aesthetically pleasing" golf holes rough became more managed.  Thus I am in favor of a more sparse but varying height in rough areas.  With pestiicides, fertilizers, aerification and new types of mowers a lower rough can be much more penal than some of the older higher roughs.  Thus todays rough needs to be shorter, IMHO.

[Joe Hancock]

My course has single row irrigation. As such, our roughs go brown sometime through the summer, and no matter the height of cut or type of mower, if a ball is running it has a better chance of stopping in or up against something. The course plays tougher with fast rough, in other words.

Joe

[Don_Mahaffey]

Wayne,
I'm at a resort course so the better quality of cut we get with the rotary is considered to be better then what we got with the gang. The real savings is with manpower. With the gang mower we had to send out trim mowers to cut around trees, bunkers...etc. With the rotary we don't need the trim mowers anymore.

As crazy as it may seem I do believe you could get the type of rough your looking for if you reduce inputs such as water and fert, and you mowed with dull rotary blades at a little higher cut. If the turf is lean and a little wispy combined with some really dull blades I think you'd have the look your after. I can post this here, but if I posted something like that on GCSAA's site they'd have me committed.  

[TEPaul]

"real savings is with manpower. With the gang mower we had to send out trim mowers to cut around trees, bunkers...etc. With the rotary we don't need the trim mowers anymore."

Don:

That's the kind of intelligent response we're looking for to have a productive discussion on this subject---eg an apparent solution creates another layer of work!!

On the other hand, if you hired me on a gang mower it might be a win/win/win situation. I've been cutting around trees with all kinds of things all my life and I could get those gangs close enough in and around the trees that you wouldn't need the next step of trim mowing around them. And the best part is in about a week I'd have knicked up all those trees with the gangs so bad they'd all very likely die in about a month!

I call that a win/win/win situation, don't you?

[Don_Mahaffey]

Tom,
The problem is our gang mower had a lot of interaction with trees over the years and the trees usually won

[Doug Siebert]

Joe Hancock,

I think that the "fast and firm" summer rough areas may be why a lot of courses go crazy planting trees.  Looking back, I think that may be why my home course is such a forest.  Back when I first started playing there were some of us using the dry areas for 50 free yards during droughts and they fixed it by planting trees.  But somewhere along the way they forgot the reason why they started planting them and appear to have just gotten into a habit of filling up their little nursery plot between the 5th and 6th holes with a couple hundred saplings each season and have to figure out where to put them to free up the plot for next year!

[Joe Hancock]

Doug,

It's fun to remember the good ol' days, huh?

Ball hits and a cloud of dust arises....those were the days.

Joe

[Gary_Mahanay]

Joe,

How far does your single row heads through on a calm day?  Does your rough cut get any water?  Was it your course that I read about a while back that had so flooding problems?

Gary  

[Joe Hancock]

Gary,

Thats me......

My fairway irrigation heads throw ninety feet under ideal conditions. My fairways are generally 150-175 feet wide, based entirely on the reach of the irrigation.

Here's to hoping for a flood golf season in '05.

Joe

[Mark Brown]

The impact of shorter fairways on players can't be forgotten, but I think it has been. It's very similar to the green speed factor.

I used to play on fairways cut between 1/2" and 3/4" and could sweep the ball off the top of the grass as it sat up pretty well. Now I play (not by choice) on fairways cut between 3/8" and 1/2", and there's very little room for error, particularly on Bermuda grass that grows horizontally and the ball doesn't sit up again.

To me it's a huge problem to the point where I've had to change the way I hit my irons on tight, and even worse on tight and wet fairways which is the worst possible combination. If the fairways are firm it makes it easier but in this day and age, particularly in the Southeast not too many courses are usually firm -- they have to be bright green for member egos and real estate sales.

If the ball sits up, I can take a full, smooth swing and sweep the ball off the fairway. If they're cut short (and wet makes it worse) I have to make a shorter swing and make sure I hit the ball first and take a divot under and after the ball. It's almost a punch shot, and it's real easy to hit it thin or fat. For me it is taking some of the enjoyment of hitting iron shots, and I would much rather play of a 1/2" cut -- I'm a 9 handicap, and used to be better. I can't believe this issue has been discussed much more by now.

What do you guys think about this? To me it's another example of technology making my life more difficult.

[Mark Brown]

Continued -- it's the same thing with chipping areas that are cut so tight that most players a putting from 15 feet off the green. They're not chipping. Remember Davis Love's chunk on the final hole of the President's Cup?

[TEPaul]

MarkB:

I agree that a much shorter fairway cut certainly does put much more pressure on high handicap players than it does on lower handicap players but generally very "tight" fairways are more difficult to hit off of for everyone. That "tight" fairway cut is considered a good player's condition. It is a condition that higher handicappers have complained about for years.

Mike McNulty's (super of Philly C.C) comments on the type of cut of rough mowers is different, though. His point is that with the rotary mowers most now use for the rough creates a condition where the ball will almost invariably sink into the grass making something like a lofted iron recovery inevitable compared to the rough cut of the old gang or reel mowers which makes a more daring recovery possible more often.

[Neil Regan]

"...when gang mowers with their bed knives and reels were used to cut the rough it resulted in the grass laying in an orientation and leading to iffy lies.  Today the rotary mowers lift and cut the grass leaving the blades standing more vertical.  This makes the balls sit down requiring a more lofted club to get out especially if the length of rough remained the same.  "

Couldn't an attachment be added to a rotary mower to make the grass lie down a bit, after it's been mowed ?

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