"Tom P:
Wasn't your club one of those which found the optimum green speed a couple of years back?
And are you saying they have now exceeded it?
I'm shocked.
"
TomD:
Not exactly. What I said some years ago on here was that I was proposing to my club that they find the ideal MAXIMUM green speed for our greens. I recommended a couple of ways to go about that including that "blind stimp number test" application that was basically developed out of the method your Crystal Downs had used that was picked up by the U of Michagan scientist (Thom Nicoli sp. ?). I proposed my club buy and buy into that speed test procedure but they refused!
So yes, in my opinion, my own club has now essentially exceeded what I feel is the ideal maximum green speed for our particular greens and the more alarming thing is for the first time this year they exceeded it on a very consistent basis.
And so I guess my next campaign with my own club will be to insist and insure that if they think in the future that these new and consistet high speeds are too fast for any of our slopes and contours that they do not resolve the problem by touching our slopes and contours but that they only reslove it by slowing our greens down to the point that we can find the maximum effective green speed for our particular greens and our membership.
Obviously one way to do this is to somehow get the club to put into the by-laws (or something similar and as effective) that in no case in the future will they ever touch our slopes and contours in some effort to soften them in the name of maintaining higher green speed.