Too Firm?

[David Cronheim]

David,

Remember Tom Watson hitting the centre of the 18th green at Turnberry with a well struck 8I in the 4th round of the Open?  We all know where that ball finished.  Now Watson strikes the ball as well as most pros and that shot didn't hold the green and those greens weren't particularly firm by links standards.  If you're a better ball striker than Watson, great.  A well struck 8I pitching in the front parft of a green should hold but not one pitching in the centre.

Remember that Watson's shot going over the green was seen as a anomalous outcome which landed on a firm/downslope patch. I believe the expectation was that it would have and should have held on the green given the conditions that the course was playing.

The hole was playing straight downwind with a 20 MPH tailwind. With no wind, his ball would have unquestionably held the green.

[Matthew Petersen]

I've had two experiences with course playing "too firm." Both I would only categorize that way because the architecture isn't set up for really firm play--there just weren't ways to run shots onto the greens, but that would have been the only way to realiztically play the course.

First was playing the Raven at Verrado not long after it opened, but in late fall when we'd seen no rain for months. The combination of no rain and the new desert course just made it crazy hard. I hit drives into places I haven't even been close to since. No way to stop balls on the greens, except for the few that allowed bouncing it in.

Second was a few winters ago at Vistal (Phoenix). They didn't overseed the course, just tees and greens. In general I am all for that in terms of conservation in the winter here, but it left the course (which is hilly and has very few greens open and not raised in front) basically unplayable. Since the greens were overseeded, a lofted shot hitting the green had some chance to stop if you had a lot of spin on it, but the chances weren't great. The bigger problem was on drives, which basically had no incentive to stop rolling until they found a bunker or desert. Saw some truly ridiculous things that day.

[Richard Choi]

I once played at Fiddler's Elbow in December when the ground was frozen solid.

I knew it was too firm when I hit a thin drive and it rolled all the way down the hill past the green 400+ yards away. That was too firm.

[Kalen Braley]

I would agree with the last few posts...

...the only time I've seen "too firm" is in winter conditions when everything is frozen.  It makes golf next to impossible as the ball bounds and rolls out forever.  I've even had to pick up on a few holes because we couldn't get the ball to stop anywhere near the hole.

....all that being said, its still fun, especially when you get those 300+ yard drives!! 

[Mark Smolens]

David,

Remember Tom Watson hitting the centre of the 18th green at Turnberry with a well struck 8I in the 4th round of the Open?  We all know where that ball finished.  Now Watson strikes the ball as well as most pros and that shot didn't hold the green and those greens weren't particularly firm by links standards.  If you're a better ball striker than Watson, great.  A well struck 8I pitching in the front parft of a green should hold but not one pitching in the centre.

Remember that Watson's shot going over the green was seen as a anomalous outcome which landed on a firm/downslope patch. I believe the expectation was that it would have and should have held on the green given the conditions that the course was playing.

Not what most commentators thought, at least over here.  That view (which I think Watson has endorsed) was that a 9I was a better club choice.

Mark, I agree that the 9 was the correct club, but I have seen TW quoted several times in which he refused to accept that premise (perhaps since the question was posed about his using a friend to caddy for him at the Open when his caddy -- Alfie something? -- during the Duel in the Sun had convinced him to take one less club on his approach into 18).

[Ulrich Mayring]

To me, in golfing terms, firm denotes a range of hardness. From "not so soft" in the winter to "not too rigid" in the summer. Typically, links and heathland courses can play firm throughout the year, clay-based courses often fall outside of firm on either end of the scale.

So there can never be "too firm" or "not firm enough". If a course plays firm (a function of sandy soil and greenkeeping), then it plays within that acceptable range of hardness. "Too firm" to me is like saying "too acceptable" - makes no sense.

Note that this is only my personal definition of "firm". But I wouldn't call a tarmac-like course "too firm", I would call it rock-hard. "Firm" always has a component of "springy, elastic".

Ulrich

[Jason Topp]

Courses that require aerial approaches can be too firm but I have seen such circumstances so rarely that I cannot remember any specific examples. 

[Brent Hutto]

Anyone who has to wipe mud off his ball as often as I do playing rounds at home would have to be pretty bloody-minded to complain about "too firm" when an iron shot bounces five feet high when it hits a green or fairway. I'll take that recovery shot from the rough behind the green (after my 7-iron shot bounced over the green) over trying to chip off of thin, muddy lies 10 yards short of the green.

[Mark Chaplin]

Those stating the link between architecture and firmness are spot on. At Deal we only have two greens where you have to carry the ball onto the green #1 and #8. The first green is 40 yards deep and you have to carry the burn. Now the greens have firmed up the pin is never forward of half way unless the wind is forecast to be against all day in which case the breeze holds the ball, long is safe. Eight usually plays wind across and slightly downwind. This green is 35 yards deep with a very slight incline on the last quarter. The ultra tricky front pins are for the winter only, during drier spells the pins stick in the rear third. Contrary to what Sean thinks well struck shots are currently stopping within 10-15 yards of pitching, weak strikes will run through. Long is the easier recovery unless you are unlucky with the sea wall, not an archetictural feature.

[Niall C]

David,

Remember Tom Watson hitting the centre of the 18th green at Turnberry with a well struck 8I in the 4th round of the Open?  We all know where that ball finished.  Now Watson strikes the ball as well as most pros and that shot didn't hold the green and those greens weren't particularly firm by links standards.  If you're a better ball striker than Watson, great.  A well struck 8I pitching in the front parft of a green should hold but not one pitching in the centre.

Remember that Watson's shot going over the green was seen as a anomalous outcome which landed on a firm/downslope patch. I believe the expectation was that it would have and should have held on the green given the conditions that the course was playing.

The hole was playing straight downwind with a 20 MPH tailwind. With no wind, his ball would have unquestionably held the green.

David

I was standing about 30 yards away from Watson when he hit that shot and I can tell you there wasn't a 20mph wind or anything like it. When he hit the shot he was pleased with it and it looked like the usual great swing. I've never seen the footage on the TV but from what I susbsequently read his ball landed on the apron which if I remember that hole correctly has if anything, a slight upslope. The fact that it bounced through was probably to do with the front being harder than the green. If he had landed further on he probably would have held. Just my two bobs worth.

With regards to whether a course can be too firm, that depends on the architecture. In the case of traditional links courses, the answer is no because they were designed/eveolved to be flexible with mostly flanking hazards rather than cross hazards. Again, just my two bobs worth.

Niall

[BCrosby]

"With regards to whether a course can be too firm, that depends on the architecture. In the case of traditional links courses, the answer is no because they were designed/eveolved to be flexible with mostly flanking hazards rather than cross hazards. Again, just my two bobs worth."

Niall makes a good point. I can imagine greens designed to receive only aerial shots as being maintained too firmly to hold aerial approaches. But I've never played a course where that was the case. I'd guess that's not by accident. The US default maintenance meld is wet and soft. If you have greens that require aerial approaches, supers are more inclined than they would be anyway to keep things wet and soft. It's their safe choice. So that's what they do.

Bob   

[Kris Shreiner]

Watson hit an awesome shot that went about a foot or two past where it should have come to rest. If you watch the tape, it just barely trickled over that last ridge and settled on the backside of the green. A real pity...he should have won that Open! In his prime he'd have confidently bump chipped that shot back up and over, using the deft checking of the ball he could summon like few others to ensure it didn't race away like his nerve-racked putter effort did. Alas, what could have been.

Cheers,
Kris

[David Davis]

I'm a big fan of firm courses as well and I've never played a course that was too firm. However, the best solution I can drum up for you if your course is too firm would be to use softer golf balls. Try nerf balls...they compress really well and always land softly.

[Keith OHalloran]

David,
That is indeed a very clever answer! I went on TGW and they do not offer nerd balls yet, but once the word of your idea gets out, I a, sure the market will be flooded.
As for too firm. I once played East Lake, and many holes demanded a carry to the green either because of fronting bunker or elevation. That day, the greens where too firm to hold anything more than an 8 or maybe 7. I did not hit drives long enough to hit short irons in, so the course was too firm.

[Patrick_Mucci]

The answer is "yes" greens can be too firm, especially when approaches are soft.

When well struck approaches, with plenty of RPM's can't hold the green, it's too firm.

Now some will claim otherwise, but hole locations behind bunkers, hazards or sharp drop off's prove my point.

[Brian Colbert]

Those who played in or attended the 2010 US Amateur at Chambers Bay know all too well what "too firm" is. I just remember hitting an 80 yard wedge into the 500-yard first hole and then watching as the ball bounced once on the front right corner of the green, eventually rolling all the way off the left and back down the slope some 60 yards.

[David Davis]

@Keith, thanks I was a little weary about giving that one away. After all it was a joke, at first...

@Patrick, point well taken and agreed. I have to say that I've been lucky when I've played in the US and never played in any extreme conditions there. It's always windless, sunny and the courses are in perfect shape with very receptive greens. Kind of like playing in a controlled environment compared to what I'm use to. In fact, so receptive that I realize I can't control my spin so I stop using balls like Pro V1's as they tend to come back far more than I want them to even though I don't consider my self someone that get's an abnormal amount of spin on the balls. I can imagine that a target golf course is way tougher if the the greens are hard as rock as indeed when you can't utilize a run up there would be no way to stop longer clubs. I would assume this is an extreme situation though and not something very common. Kind of like we had this last summer on the links courses where all of sudden green are receptive compared to normal.

@ Brian, I hope chambers is that firm in a couple weeks when I'm there. They've just had sun and warmth for a month straight so I have my fingers crossed and if it's that hard I'll either use a little 8 iron or a texas wedge and head your warning. Thanks, I'll report back.

[Adam Clayman]

Sorry, but there is a "too firm." Links courses are designed with firm playing conditions in mind. Many US courses are not. When they get baked out, there's no calculating a 65 yard run on your 135 yard 8-iron because there's often a bunker, rough or a pond in front. That said, too firm occurs less than people might complain about. My measure of whether a course is too firm is whether a perfectly struck full shot with a short to mid iron CANNOT hold a green because it will not accept any spin. If I hit an 8-iron into the center of a green from the fairway and it releases over the back, then the course is too firm.

Whatever happened to pro's being able to stop balls on sewer caps, if they had to?

This notion of perfectly struck shots, you and Patrick seem to have pre-determined, as a finite variable, is unknowable and  is too subjective. It's also likely at the core of the problems with the modern golfer and golf. No mystery.

 The results determine how perfectly struck, any particular shot was struck, not the act of striking.

Also, This notion of holding American gca up as some pinnacle of design is ridiculous.  If a course is so one dimensional that there's only one way to excel at the task at hand, under any condition, it's crap. Two words; Confidential Guide.

[Brent Hutto]

Adam,

So to paraphrase, you're saying that while a badly designed course can be possibly be "too firm" a well designed course can never be "too firm". Which would imply that one criterion for a "well designed course" is the ability to be played under arbitrarily firm conditions, no?'

I'll offer a contra-argument. In an area where the type of soil, type of grass, climate and maintenance budget make very firm conditions generally impractical would it not be desirable to optimize the design of the course to reflect those realities?

Why would someone want to build and maintain a course exactly like The Old Course in every design detail in a location where it will be playing too soft and wet to allow any meaningful ground game on, let's say, 300+ days a year? If firm, dry turf and running, bouncing shots are seldom going to be possible (and let's throw in the likelihood that the wind will seldom exceed 10-15mph) surely there are better ways to design a course than making a links course lookalike.

I'm not sure which I find more frustrating...

1) Playing a course that is soft and damp which requires elevating the ball and stopping it at the whole because of fronting and crossing hazards

2) Playing a course that looks like it would offer all kinds of ground-game options when in fact it is so soft and damp that 90% of those options are nonexistent.

[Jud_T]

I'm not sure which I find more frustrating...

1) Playing a course that is soft and damp which requires elevating the ball and stopping it at the whole because of fronting and crossing hazards

2) Playing a course that looks like it would offer all kinds of ground-game options when in fact it is so soft and damp that 90% of those options are nonexistent.

#2- because I keep trying to run the ball on as that's the visual cue you're given, only to continually come up disappointed.

[Adam Clayman]

Brent, Trust me, your No. 2 is way more frustrating.

Sadly most of this is moot since the lowest common denominator is deciding how the courses we play are presented. Soft and lush.

On your question about courses being built in less than ideal areas, isn't that decision, where to build, part of the gca's acumen? It
s like a math problem, if you start with the wrong variable, all the calculations in the world won't come up with the correct answer.

[Patrick_Mucci]

David Davis,

You're correct, it isn't very common, but you tend to encounter the firm green/soft approach combination more than you'd like to.

Fixing that, such that approach and green are firm, tends to be a more extensive project.

[Carl Johnson]

Those who played in or attended the 2010 US Amateur at Chambers Bay know all too well what "too firm" is. I just remember hitting an 80 yard wedge into the 500-yard first hole and then watching as the ball bounced once on the front right corner of the green, eventually rolling all the way off the left and back down the slope some 60 yards.

Brian, I've never seen CB in person and don't play golf at your level.  With that, here are my questions.  Is there any kind of an approach shot that could have been hit from your approach location on the first so that it would have ended up in a reasonable postion on the green?  Or even better, so that you could have gotten it close to the hole?

[David Davis]

Adam,

So to paraphrase, you're saying that while a badly designed course can be possibly be "too firm" a well designed course can never be "too firm". Which would imply that one criterion for a "well designed course" is the ability to be played under arbitrarily firm conditions, no?'

I'll offer a contra-argument. In an area where the type of soil, type of grass, climate and maintenance budget make very firm conditions generally impractical would it not be desirable to optimize the design of the course to reflect those realities?

Why would someone want to build and maintain a course exactly like The Old Course in every design detail in a location where it will be playing too soft and wet to allow any meaningful ground game on, let's say, 300+ days a year? If firm, dry turf and running, bouncing shots are seldom going to be possible (and let's throw in the likelihood that the wind will seldom exceed 10-15mph) surely there are better ways to design a course than making a links course lookalike.

I'm not sure which I find more frustrating...

1) Playing a course that is soft and damp which requires elevating the ball and stopping it at the whole because of fronting and crossing hazards

2) Playing a course that looks like it would offer all kinds of ground-game options when in fact it is so soft and damp that 90% of those options are nonexistent.

Brent,

I'm trying to follow what your saying here but the Old Course might not be the best example. As it's based on sand as all links courses are. As soon as you take away the sand and try to build say an inland links course in lush farmland yes then perhaps this will be an issue. There's not that many places outside of tropical rainforests that get the poor weather wet weather the you get in Scotland, England, Ireland and as much as I hate living in it when it's bad, The Netherlands. The links courses you can really play all the time in any weather except freezing weather (and then you can still play unless you value your wrists). What would not make sense would be to build a strict target golf course on super hard links ground, although perhaps it's been done although off hand I can't think of one. Anyone else?

I do know a couple courses like what you mentioned though, where they have built inland links courses in swamps, we call them Polder courses and they are getting a lot of abuse as of late on this forum by yours truly...

[Jud_T]

OK,

I'll play along.  Spring Valley CC often plays very firm.  Not sure what the irrigation is, but I'm guessing it's the original one Langford drew up (as an aside, they just dug up the original irrigation map he drew from storage and it's now framed in clubhouse).  The course is run on a shoestring.  While it's a very good course on a great piece of land, and one of the best values around, often times one is confronted with a wedge shot off very firm ground that doesn't have enough grass on it, yet the ground game isn't really an option as what grass there is isn't cut short enough to putt the ball up.