Furrowed bunkers at the Memorial

[Jim Thompson]

One pro remarked that "back in the day" greens stimped at 6 and today they stimp at 13-14....which, by the way, I think is a huge stretch....and thus you need to be able to spin the ball....unlike "back in the day"....

Hey,  this might just be the first step to motivating players to play a ball that spins again.  This may have more benefits than we are considering?

[Patrick_Mucci]

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.

[JESII]

Pat,

I am not going to state numbers, but Pete Dye did a study about green speeds which I am sure you are familiar with. A good deal of his study was based on video which I question as a reliable method of determining green speeds, but he thought 7 or 8 was fast 40 years ago.

Regardless, the argument is baseless considering the other advancements in technology that should help to take those bunkers out of play.


Jim Kennedy,

I wrote a real nice response describing my understanding of your position and it vanished.

Summary: I now understand your position that this effort by the PGA Tour and Muirfield Village may help increase the randomness which hazards should characterize, but it actually moves away from the proper treatment of hazards. That is, they are hazards, and hazards are not to be manicured.

If I summarized it OK, I agree with you 100%. I only had my eye on the randomness issue, thus the difference.

[Anthony Butler]

"..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.

[Patrick_Mucci]

JES II,

On bermuda I'd probably agree.

But, to state that green speeds were at 6 ... 30, 40 and 50 years ago, would seem to be inaccurate based on my personal play and observations.

Do you feel that PV putted at 6 ... 30, 40 and 50 years ago ?

[JESII]

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.

[Patrick_Mucci]

JES II,

There's a difference between 6 on the stimp and speeds less than 12-13.

[Anthony Butler]

"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...

[JESII]

JES II,

There's a difference between 6 on the stimp and speeds less than 12-13.

Anyway...


Do you agree that the players argument that less manicured bunkers "back in the day" were acceptable because greens were slower and the player did not have to spin the ball is crap? My position is that "back in the day" the player hit a 6-iron into the bunker that today is a 9-iron or wedge (assuming a par 4) so an increased penalty for finding the bunker makes sense.

[Patrick_Mucci]

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.

[Gary_Nelson]

Pat,

Did your playing strategy change in the past 30 years as the bunker maintenance became more refined?   Did you purposely try to avoid the unkempt bunkers more so then compared with the smoothly raked bunkers of today?

Gary

[Craig Sweet]

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.

[Jim Nugent]

A few more interesting pieces about Thursday's round at MV:

"Lumpy showed it wasn't only the bunkers that can cause problems at Muirfield Village, especially with some of the precarious pin placements. His approach on the 18th landed close to the hole, then spun off the green and into the fairway. His chip rolled back toward his feet, and he escaped with bogey by making an eight-foot putt.

The group at 71 included David Duval, who had six birdies and saw a good round slip away when a potential eagle turned into a shocking double bogey with five putts from 25 feet."

[Mark_Fine]

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.  

[Dan_Callahan]

Jack had some nice comments on the Golf Channel last night. He was asked about the furrows. He said that architects simply can't continue to extend courses to combat the distance issue. They need to find new ways to raise the level of challenge.

One of the commentators said he spoke to David Fay about the furrows. He reported that while the practice won't be in place at Winged Foot, Fay was quietly cheering on Jack for his efforts. Fay made some pretty funny observations about how Tour pros whine whenever their lie isn't absolutely perfect.

[BCrosby]

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

[Mike Vegis @ Kiawah]

From http://www.geoffshackelford.com/.



Caption:  Now This Is Furrowing...
From The Golden Age of Golf Design, Oakmont circa 1929.

[Glenn Spencer]

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.

[BCrosby]

Glenn -

Don't get me wrong. I am a FOF (friend of furrows). It is going to be fun to watch.

Bob

[Glenn Spencer]

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.

[Jim Sweeney]

This thing at the Memorial in an interesting experiment.....Mr. Mucci's observation about cost being a detriment to widespread acceptance of the practice is right on.....It won't survive on tour either because the players would revolt.....seems to me that if bunkers are meant to represent sandy, dune-like area, well, I've not seen too many dunes with geometrically perfect striations on their sides.....better off just letting bunkers mature and evolve with as little maintenance as possible, and raking only on a need basis, IMO.

NIce effort, though, on the tour's part.

[Jim Sweeney]

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.

[Mike Vegis @ Kiawah]

Addressing the green speed thing, all those All-star golf shows are there for the watching on The Golf Channel.  Thye sure bang the hell out of the ball on the putts even hitting three-footers short with a pretty big stroke at times.  

One also sees putts just DIE all of a sudden.  NOt today.

What I've always been impressed with are those who made the transition from the wristy putting stroke needed to put those long, hairy greens of the 1960 to the bikini waxed greens on today's tour.

[Jim Sweeney]

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!

[Mark_Fine]

Jim,
Not sure when the last time you played a links course in the British Isles, but over there, you don't yell for your ball to "get in the bunker".  It is almost always a lost shot if you do.  The furrows are just an attempt to restore some of that hazard value.  If you are no worse off in a hazard than you are on turf, why bother with maintaining the hazard?
Mark