Crystal Downs and the pros

[Peter Pratt]

I had the extreme pleasure to play Crystal Downs yesterday. I've faced its challenge once a year for the last three years. This time around, the greens had been aerated and top dressed. They were incredibly fast, much more testing than on my two previous plays. I loved the battle, but was mentally exhausted by the end. After the round, the member commented that they were wild even by normal standards.

A question came up: How would CD fare against the best players in the world? Would the greens prevent them from going low? As most of you know, the course tips out at 6500+. Would the pros hold their powder on a few holes (#1, 10, 11, 13)--where the pins were ghastly--and eat up the rest?

Would those of you who've played it with the best be willing to weigh in?

Thanks!

[Tommy Williamsen]

Pros go between 12 and 18 under on many courses. I can't see CD being any different. 17 would just be a long par three.

[K. Krahenbuhl]

Pros go between 12 and 18 under on many courses. I can't see CD being any different. 17 would just be a long par three.

I'll take the over on 52-58 for an unlimited wager.  That's a seriously misguided statement.

[Mike Boehm]

Pros go between 12 and 18 under on many courses. I can't see CD being any different. 17 would just be a long par three.

I'll take the over on 52-58 for an unlimited wager.  That's a seriously misguided statement.

I'm pretty sure 12-18 under was in reference to a 72 hole aggregate.  52 would be pretty strong playing!

[Tom_Doak]

I have played there with Ben Crenshaw (twice), Morris Hatalsky, and Ian Baker-Finch.  Finchy had the best round of the group, a 71 on a fairly benign day.

For years I thought the course would stand up quite well to the pros, because the four short par-4's were better approached with an iron off the tee and a wedge to the green.  But that was in the 1990's -- IBF hit driver at 7, 15 and 17, and it was obvious that the top pros could hit 3-wood onto the green on 7 and 17.

Still, scoring at Crystal Downs depends completely on the speed of the greens and the wind and the thickness of the native roughs.  You could put the entire PGA Tour out there on a day with 25-mph winds and the greens really fast, and you might not see anybody break par.  But I'm sure on a calm day, with the greens not goofy fast, if you put 156 players out that somebody would come back with 63 or 64.  Even then, I don't think the cut score would be very low.

[Paul OConnor]

Peter,

I was out yesterday also.  My second visit.  I'm not sure the best pros would have been more than one or two under, with those conditions.  First, with only two par fives, that takes a couple possible birdies out of the mix.  Also, it seems to me that in order to score really well at Crystal Downs, one needs to possess an awful lot of local knowledge.  There are just too many crazy rub of the green bounces and rollouts, and the greens are pretty complex.  The penalty for very small mistakes can be extreme.

One of the Gentlemen I played with has been a Member for 11 years.  On #1 he chipped up 3 feet past the pin on his third.  Tapped his putt, the ball nearly stopped two inches from the cup, but low, and then kept rolling to the front edge of the green 35 feet away.  Small mistake, big cost, he made 6.  And he was a good player, shot 76, played the course hundreds of times,  knew what would happen, and he still got screwed.  

The modern PGA pro is more likely to score low by hiting everything to 10-15 feet and making half the putts.  No way anyone is getting 10-15 feet away on every Crystal Downs green, and for sure they are not making half the 15 footers.  Too much speed on too much slope.

Another of the Gentlemen I played with shot one over his age, 80, he played the forward tees, but had a blast.  Made tons of great putts, and was amazingly liberal with his off the green approaches with the putter, from 30-40 yards in front of the green.  Pretty cool to watch.    Seems to be one of the shots one needs in order to score well.

[Phil Benedict]

Peter,

One of the Gentlemen I played with has been a Member for 11 years.  On #1 he chipped up 3 feet past the pin on his third.  Tapped his putt, the ball nearly stopped two inches from the cup, but low, and then kept rolling to the front edge of the green 35 feet away.  Small mistake, big cost, he made 6.  And he was a good player, shot 76, played the course hundreds of times,  knew what would happen, and he still got screwed.  

What you described sounds like goofy golf.  I know this is a revered course but are the slopes too severe for modern speeds?

[Nigel Islam]

They may be able to hit 7 but they still have to two putt it. Course record is 66 by Fred Muller the pro.

[Paul OConnor]

Peter,

One of the Gentlemen I played with has been a Member for 11 years.  On #1 he chipped up 3 feet past the pin on his third.  Tapped his putt, the ball nearly stopped two inches from the cup, but low, and then kept rolling to the front edge of the green 35 feet away.  Small mistake, big cost, he made 6.  And he was a good player, shot 76, played the course hundreds of times,  knew what would happen, and he still got screwed.  

What you described sounds like goofy golf.  I know this is a revered course but are the slopes too severe for modern speeds?

It's pretty goofy in spots.  I think the bargain is that you just accept your beating on the greens in order to experience the sublime.  The pain probably feels pretty good after a while!

[Peter Pratt]

Pat,

It did feel like a few of the greens were over the top yesterday, but I also know that every pin was accessible with the proper approach, either from 150 yards or 10 yards. I loved it--and I shot a smooth 89, with a damn good birdie on #5. That hole was a perfect example of the intense thinking required. With a far right pin, my three compadres approached the hole by playing short irons to the left and letting the slope take the ball toward the hole. Yesterday, that didn't work--two ended up in the fringe and one in the back bunker. I hit it straight at the pin and it stopped 6 feet away. Now, that was a rare case of me strategizing and executing correctly. At CD, you sometimes can't ride the slopes...

[Tom_Doak]

Peter,

One of the Gentlemen I played with has been a Member for 11 years.  On #1 he chipped up 3 feet past the pin on his third.  Tapped his putt, the ball nearly stopped two inches from the cup, but low, and then kept rolling to the front edge of the green 35 feet away.  Small mistake, big cost, he made 6.  And he was a good player, shot 76, played the course hundreds of times,  knew what would happen, and he still got screwed.  

What you described sounds like goofy golf.  I know this is a revered course but are the slopes too severe for modern speeds?

Well, you've got it exactly backwards.  "Modern green speeds" [if you mean more than 10.5 or 11] are too severe for the slopes at Crystal Downs, but you're placing the wrong party at fault.

[Phil Benedict]

Tom,

Who is forcing CD to have green speeds above 10.5-11?  Why can't the speeds be calibrated to the architecture?

[Tyler Kearns]

Tom,

Who is forcing CD to have green speeds above 10.5-11?  Why can't the speeds be calibrated to the architecture?

Phil,

Most often, the speeds at courses are dictated by the membership, but Tom will have specific knowledge in terms of Crystal Downs. I'm the chairman of the green committee at my home club, and it is always the low-handicap players telling me the greens need to be faster, without any consideration for the vast majority of the membership. Our course is a Stanley Thompson design, and the greens have lots of contour, however, in order to maintain consistency, we have a ceiling on green speeds that allows our 16th hole to be playable, although we do not try to reach that ceiling each and every day. Ultimately, I let the superintendent decide what the greens can handle, as faster greens tend to put increased stress on the turfgrass.

I've never understood the ego involved in maintaining super fast greens, as long as they are running smooth and are relatively firm, green speeds in the 9 - 9.5 range are fine.

TK

[David Cronheim]

Tyler, I tend to agree with you. Also, I've found that most club members have no clue what truly fast greens are like. They may think they want greens that roll 12-13, but I find most have never actually even played an 11.

[Jud_T]

I'd just like to see those guys play #11 with the greens running at 12.

[Steve Salmen]

Afer playing Crystal two years ago, I had a real appreciation for how good at putting the pros are.  They play Augusta where the greens are at least as fast (probably faster) and much larger.  I can't speak to the slope because I havenn't been there, but I think with a few practice rounds, they would learn where to keep the ball below the hole.

[David_Tepper]

I have never been to Crystal Downs or Augusta National. Are the greens at CD more contoured than AN? Do the greens at CD play at faster speeds than the greens at AN during the Masters?

Look at the scores (both low & high) that are shot at AN during the Masters, on a course well over 7,000 yards. Wouldn't it be logical to assume that the pros would shoot scores at least 1 or 2 shots lower at CD?  

[Phil Benedict]

I find it interesting that members are willing to endure the embarrassment of missing a 3-footer and seeing it roll 35-feet away in the name of fast greens.

[Tom_Doak]

I have never been to Crystal Downs or Augusta National. Are the greens at CD more contoured than AN? Do the greens at CD play at faster speeds than the greens at AN during the Masters?

Look at the scores (both low & high) that are shot at AN during the Masters, on a course well over 7,000 yards. Wouldn't it be logical to assume that the pros would shoot scores at least 1 or 2 shots lower at CD?  

The greens at Crystal Downs have more slope in them than what's left of the greens at Augusta, after numerous modifications over the years.  Not way more slope, but more.  They are normally not anywhere near as fast as what the players see during The Masters, but when you combine the slope and speed, they are almost as difficult to putt on.  If they got them up to 12 for a tournament, they would be as difficult to putt on as Augusta or Oakmont or Oakland Hills, which to me are the standard-bearers for difficult tournament greens.

The superintendent at the Downs did a green speed study years ago which included a part where they asked selected members about the green speeds every time they played for a few months.  Of course, nobody ever said the greens were too fast, they were either just right or they could be a little faster -- it's just human nature.  So, from that it was determined that the "optimum" speed of the greens was 11.5, which is ludicrous.  They maintained them at that speed for a year or so, and finally listened to common sense and slowed them back down a bit.  You might see them at 11.5 for the fall classic at the end of the season, but not for normal summer play, thank goodness.

[George Pazin]

I wonder if someone could come up with something analogous to wind chill factor, where it's a combination of speed and slope is taken into account.

I'd also like to see a study done like the one Tom said they did at CD, except where they simply ask people to guess the speed at the end of the round. If I were a betting man, I'd guess most people think their greens are much faster than they are, and I'd also guess this is due to hearing announcers throw around numbers during pro tourneys. They start thinking, if 13 is good for the US Open or 14 is good for Muirfield (they always seem to throw out crazy numbers during The Memorial), then surely we can handle 11 or 12.

[JMEvensky]

I wonder if someone could come up with something analogous to wind chill factor, where it's a combination of speed and slope is taken into account.

I'd also like to see a study done like the one Tom said they did at CD, except where they simply ask people to guess the speed at the end of the round. If I were a betting man, I'd guess most people think their greens are much faster than they are, and I'd also guess this is due to hearing announcers throw around numbers during pro tourneys. They start thinking, if 13 is good for the US Open or 14 is good for Muirfield (they always seem to throw out crazy numbers during The Memorial), then surely we can handle 11 or 12.

George,some magazine,maybe SI,did something similar. From memory,the better the player, the more accurate the green speed guesses.I think the experiment used from PGAT guys to high handicaps.

[Matthew Petersen]

I wonder if someone could come up with something analogous to wind chill factor, where it's a combination of speed and slope is taken into account.

I'd also like to see a study done like the one Tom said they did at CD, except where they simply ask people to guess the speed at the end of the round. If I were a betting man, I'd guess most people think their greens are much faster than they are, and I'd also guess this is due to hearing announcers throw around numbers during pro tourneys. They start thinking, if 13 is good for the US Open or 14 is good for Muirfield (they always seem to throw out crazy numbers during The Memorial), then surely we can handle 11 or 12.

George,some magazine,maybe SI,did something similar. From memory,the better the player, the more accurate the green speed guesses.I think the experiment used from PGAT guys to high handicaps.

It's pretty comical how badly the average player understands what fast greens are. I played a round earlier this year in Phoenix on some average-running Bermuda greens. The course sits on the shoulder of a mountain so you get that effect of down-mountain putts being extremely fast and up-mountain ones being very slow. After running a down-mountain putt a good 20 feet by the hole on 15, we reached the 16th tee and this guy said, "So just how fast do you think these greens are? 11 or 12?" These weren't even fast greens. But that's how people think, especially those who have never seen what really fast greens are.

[Tom_Doak]

I'd also like to see a study done like the one Tom said they did at CD, except where they simply ask people to guess the speed at the end of the round. If I were a betting man, I'd guess most people think their greens are much faster than they are, and I'd also guess this is due to hearing announcers throw around numbers during pro tourneys. They start thinking, if 13 is good for the US Open or 14 is good for Muirfield (they always seem to throw out crazy numbers during The Memorial), then surely we can handle 11 or 12.

George:

That was part of the green speed study, too.  They asked the same members to estimate the speed of the greens, and whether they were too fast or too slow or just right.

The more valuable part of the study was to measure the green speed 2-3 times a day and after all sorts of different cultural practices to see what a difference each task made.

[JMEvensky]

Tom Doak,don't the other members ask your opinion about the best speeds for those greens?

[Tom_Doak]

Tom Doak,don't the other members ask your opinion about the best speeds for those greens?

Rarely.  I'm only over there a few times a year, and when I am it's more often to host friends than to play with other members.  There are a few who ask what I think, and I'm happy to tell them that I think the greens shouldn't be above 10 on the Stimpmeter, and I think they've been right around that for most of this summer.  I played a couple of times in March and early April when the greens were between 7 and 8 -- the club doesn't open until May 1 -- and it was more the way I remembered it from 25 years ago.