[Mac Plumart]

I just spent the last few days playing a course that makes wonderful use of short grass as the courses defense.  And it made me wonder a few things...

#1---What courses make great use of short grass as a holes defense?

#2---Is short grass as a hazard an under-utilized and/or under-appreciated hazard?

[Mark Pearce]

1.  Any half decent links course.

2.  Not on half decent links courses.

[Mark Bourgeois]

1.  Any half decent links course.

2.  Not on half decent links courses.

+1

[RJ_Daley]

Mac, I think Lynn S. just made that observation on the setup/maintenance meld at Glen Cove, at the USGA Women's Am.  He reports the play is largely a chipping contest of long rough around greens and long grass around bunkers.  

I have seen courses that reexamined their greens surrounds and added tight mown collection areas where there were once lush wet blue grass depressions.  The results were always great when they would get rid of the concept of a one foot, 18 inch colllar and then totally surrounded by lush 2-3 inch blue grass.  Unfortunately, one of the drivers of this mentality may be easier maintenance and mowing time.  That and the propensity to over water the greens and surrounds seems to mitigate towards long grass surrounds.  

Of course we all know that the bunkers are protected from the horrible result of a ball bounding and rolling into them, thus disturbing the idyllic nature of the clover leaf perfectly raked marble sand eye candy bunkers that seem to be a misguided aesthetic.  

[Brent Hutto]

Any place you can putt from is no "hazard".

[Mike_Young]

Mac,
I love short grass as a strategy and know a few places who use it as such but not sure I have ever seen a short grass hazard...unless it was the mowed area inside the line on the pond at 15 at ANGC....

[Peter Pallotta]

Any place you can putt from is no "hazard".

A modified +1 from me.

Mac: I'm an average golfer, with an average skill set, who practices less than the average, and I will happily take the "short grass" anytime, anywhere, and under any circumstances.  

Every time I read about how a golf course forces the golfer to "use his imagination" around the greens, I think to myself: "yeah, the imagination of a gnat". If you can't use a putter you can chip it with a mid iron, or bump it with a hybrid.

"Oh, make it stop, please - my head is aching with all the imagining it's forced to do".

Why can't just we accept that "short grass" is simply more fun than gouging the ball out of deep rough, and that it certainly puts less demands on an old virtue like "skill".  That's a good enough reason, I think, for golfers to like it and for architects to use it.

Peter

[Keith OHalloran]

Mac,
Where were you playing? Sounds like you had a nice set up.
As far as short grass as a hazard, I agree to an extent. I feel like when the grass gets too short, the average player loses his ability to hit any sort of wedge and begins to putt every time. When the grass is so tight that is essentially takes the choice away, I think it loses it's luster sort of speak.

[RJ_Daley]

I disagree.  A proper short grass 'designed' greens surrounds that takes into account the internal green contours along with tie-in green surrounding terrain offers golfers to use multiple skills and to practice them.  Short grass still will eventually lead to long grass rough.  The question is, how wide or in what places are some short grass runaways hummocks and hollows?  Some folks feel good about their skill to chip or gouge a ball 10 ft off a green with lofted clubs from 3" rough.  But, then if greens have interesting slopes and rolls, etc., the long grass chips and pitches get to be a grind and a bore.  Using more options and being good at multiple methods surely trumps a one dimentional skill set in my view.

[Greg Chambers]

How can short grass be considered a hazard?

[Keith OHalloran]

RJ,
If you are disagreeing with me, I understand what you are saying. My point is that there are times when the short grass is so tight that there are no real options for many players,. When the grass is a bit longer (but still short) and presents options to the masses, it is indeed a better option.

[Mac Plumart]

Short grass as a defense of the hole/green.

[Greg Chambers]

I've always viewed short grass as a means to provide more options...strategic.  I've never viewed it as being penal....hazardous.

[RJ_Daley]

I wonder if we should try to define at what HOC we define as short grass, and where.  For instance, if it is short grass of FW or first cut (depending if the course uses a first intermediate rough cut of 1-1.25") surrounding a bunker that promotes a bounding rolling ball to trickle into a bunker VS 2"+ surrounding bunkers that stop balls from getting in the bunker; that would be my understanding of short grass in that example.  Thus it is part of thr bunker hazard or possible extra stroke it may cost the golfer.

If we are talking greens surrounds, the short grass HOC leading to runaways hollows and mounds could be actual green cut, a collar cut that could also be a FWHOC.  I'd consider those to be short grass hazards, IF they are positioned in such a way as to present a set of options of a difficult nature to select a putt, bump, chip that takes into account the rest of the green and surround features that if not the right choice and not a skillful execution could lead to a number of +par further strokes, then it has a penal or hazard-like quality.

[Michael Moore]

I just reread Tom Doak's essay on the topic. It says that very wide fairways devoid of hazards are hazards. We got plenty of those at Riverside Municipal.

[Colin Macqueen]

Mac,
I always enjoy these sort of threads and once again neat and varied observations are being made.

There is a thread "Short Grass as a Golf Hazard" from back in March (http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,58005.0.html) which covers plenty ground as well if anyone is interested.

I personally like the tight, short grass around the green as it gives me options as Peter suggests and so always makes me have to clearly decide whether to chip, bunt or putt and this in itself lends interest and challenge, pits ego against skill. Ego tends to win out and unveils a lack of skill!!

Cheers Colin

[Thomas Dai]

Short grass surrounding hazards makes the hazard play bigger - for example short grass on banks etc allows the ball the roll further away from the target or into hazards rather than being held up on the bank.
atb

[Brent Hutto]

A green can be defended by having severe slopes surrounding it. Short grass can in the many cases bring a wider area of those slopes into play. But it's not the short grass that's the defense, it is the slopes.

Put another way, take a course with flattish greens and with dead flat areas of rough surrounding those greens and replace the rough with short grass. The difficulty will not increase absent slopes. Ergo it is not the shortness of the grass but the trickiness of the slopes that add difficulty.

P.S. If it were the short grass providing the difficulty, then by extension mowing all the slope and contours within 25 yards of the green to putting-surface height would make it even more difficult still. So why wouldn't we say that very large greens are a "hazard" in that case?  

[Chris DeToro]

I think perhaps the understated benefit of short grass as hazards is that the ball rolls out more.  Keeping it closely mown allows the ball to take the natural contours of the land, making the ball run out placing you further from the hole instead of in rough or brings into play other hazards--think Augusta, think Olympic in the Open a couple years ago

[Mac Plumart]

Colin,

Thanks. That thread is essentially the same one as this one. Great responses an this one and that one.

[Paul Gray]

Any place you can putt from is no "hazard".

To be fair, we recently had a thread in which you explained how hazardous you found a plateau green surrounded by short grass.

[Bob_Huntley]

Tom Doak presented the members of the Valley Club in Montecito with a challenge at their first hole. It seems as though the grass around the front of the green had been cut with the most expensive Gillette razor. To get a ball over an intervening bunker was no easy shot.

Bob

[Mike_Young]

Sorry if I am confused but when the word hazard is being used are you referring to areas inside of a hazard?  My understanding is all hazards are either sand or marked as a hazard. 

[Grant Saunders]

I view short grass as a psychological hazard and feel it can be every bit as influential as a bunker. Certainly the degree of its influence can be heightened when combined with varying contours but it shouldn't be underestimated the impact of trying to gauge how a ball will react when going from one height of cut to another.

To me, its the indecision that is created by offering more options that  generates the notion of it being a hazard. It is important, in my opinion, that the height of cut not be too short as that essentially lessens the number of options which is the main goal in the first place.

[Mike_Young]

Grant,
It would only be a hazard if it were marked.  Agree??

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