Are large greens the minimum requirement for a championship course ?

[mike_malone]

I played a course this morning which was nice but the greens were kind of small and they seem to make up for that by having a lot of internal undulation now that I'm back at my own course the greens are much larger and seem to me to be a minimum requirement for championship golf

[John Kavanaugh]

I am often fooled when I get home since they are measured by the diagonal.

[Andrew Buck]

I played a course this morning which was nice but the greens were kind of small and they seem to make up for that by having a lot of internal undulation now that I'm back at my own course the greens are much larger and seem to me to be a minimum requirement for championship golf

I get a surprisingly good picture on my phone.

That said, define "championship golf" and "championship course"

[JESII]

the screen business in florida must have been unbelievable in the 80's...much like CDO's from 2005 - 2008.

[JESII]

Pebble

[Tom_Doak]

Mike:

I would have said it was the other way around.

In fact, if I recall correctly, Tiger Woods got in big trouble with his friends at the WGA for dismissing Cog Hill [pre-renovation] as a possible major championship venue, because the greens were too big so it didn't fit the profile.

The definition of "small" greens is slowly trending larger, but most older courses tend to have greens on the small side.  Pebble Beach, as Jim Sullivan says, has about the smallest of them all.

[Nigel Islam]

Mike:

I would have said it was the other way around.

In fact, if I recall correctly, Tiger Woods got in big trouble with his friends at the WGA for dismissing Cog Hill [pre-renovation] as a possible major championship venue, because the greens were too big so it didn't fit the profile.

The definition of "small" greens is slowly trending larger, but most older courses tend to have greens on the small side.  Pebble Beach, as Jim Sullivan says, has about the smallest of them all.

Inverness has some pretty small greens as well. I played Camargo and Inverness within 5 days of each other. What a contrast! To me that proves a course can be excellent and challenging with small greens or large greens.  I personally prefer smaller greens for some reason.

[BCowan]

Nigel,

  I agree.  Inverness does have some sexy greens.  I used to just love small greens, but after playing some of Dr Mack's large greens, it's hard not to love them too. 

[Jason Way]

I was fortunate enough to be out at The Country Club today.  They don't seem to think a course needs to have big greens to be championship-level challenging.

[Ally Mcintosh]

Although most Open rota courses do have larger than average greens, Muirfield maybe being the exception.

Common sense really. When the course is generally "bigger", the greens tend to scale up with it

[Sean_A]

Although most Open rota courses do have larger than average greens, Muirfield maybe being the exception.

Common sense really. When the course is generally "bigger", the greens tend to scale up with it

Ally

I was thinking that with the exception of TOC the Open Rota courses have average to smallish greens.  In fact, there are relatively few courses in GB&I that could be said to have large greens....and I bet most of these are modern.  

In any case Mayday, no, large greens are far from a requirment for championship golf.

Ciao

[Ally Mcintosh]

Although most Open rota courses do have larger than average greens, Muirfield maybe being the exception.

Common sense really. When the course is generally "bigger", the greens tend to scale up with it

Ally

I was thinking that with the exception of TOC the Open Rota courses have average to smallish greens.  In fact, there are relatively few courses in GB&I that could be said to have large greens....and I bet most of these are modern.  

In any case Mayday, no, large greens are far from a requirment for championship golf.

Ciao

Sean,

After some quick measuring, I'd say we are both wrong. I was probably tempted in to associating Portmarnock's large greens and scale with the Open rota courses.... Open courses certainly do not have small greens but they don't - on average - appear to be any bigger than the "non-championship" links like North Berwick or Cruden Bay.... I haven't measured them against the next level down...

I was completely wrong about Muirfield. It has some of the larger greens on the rota, Troon having some of the smallest.... Carnoustie has large greens in general as well...

I think links courses tend to have "large" greens when averaged against inland courses but I think you correctly specualte that modern is likely to mean bigger...

Despite what you and Tom state, I believe Mayday has a point, however tenuous. Championship golf usually means big course (in terms of length and usually site size for infrastructure and spectators). Big course more often comes with big greens.

[Sean_A]

Ally

Maybe we disagree on what is a large green? Do me favour when its convenient, measure Beau Desert's greens. It would be interesting to compare those with a typical Open rota course.

Ciao

[Ally Mcintosh]

Ally

Maybe we disagree on what is a large green? Do me favour when its convenient, measure Beau Desert's greens. It would be interesting to compare those with a typical Open rota course.

Ciao

Beau Desert seems to have a really good mix of green sizes with quite a few that are considerably longer (43 to 47m) than your average Open rota course and 2 or 3 which are really quite small. But whilst it has some very long greens, in general they are all relatively narrow (15 to 18m). The bigger links courses tend to have a lot of wider greens... If you take a typical (I realise this is a big generalisation) Open rota green, it may be 34m deep by 24m wide.

[JNagle]

Mike -

I believe the size of the greens must be looked at from the standpoint of intent vs. reality.  Knowing your home course as I do, your smaller greens (before expansion) were rather difficult in terms of limited cupping areas and a large percentage and cupping area limited to the higher percentage and severely slopes portions of the greens.  With the larger expanded greens there may be some areas with a lesser percentage of slopes but now hole locations can be placed closer to hazards and green edges.  IMHO there are many factors that dictate what the appropriate size of a green needs to be - length of hole, angles of play, natural surrounding grades...... and so on.  Does a bigger target truly equate to easier play when cups can be cut in tucked locations or in and around swales, swells, ridges, knobs.....?  We are in the process of working with a club set to host an upcoming USGA Championship event and their priority is to expand the greens to their intended sizes.  When visiting with a USGA Agronomist last year, his statement was "we are looking to get the shortest height of cut as close as possible to the hazards"  That goes for green side bunkers, fairway bunkers, fall-offs and water. 

[Sean_A]

Ally

Maybe we disagree on what is a large green? Do me favour when its convenient, measure Beau Desert's greens. It would be interesting to compare those with a typical Open rota course.

Ciao

Beau Desert seems to have a really good mix of green sizes with quite a few that are considerably longer (43 to 47m) than your average Open rota course and 2 or 3 which are really quite small. But whilst it has some very long greens, in general they are all relatively narrow (15 to 18m). The bigger links courses tend to have a lot of wider greens... If you take a typical (I realise this is a big generalisation) Open rota green, it may be 34m deep by 24m wide.

Ally

Without measuring, it is my impression that on average Beau has one of the largest sets of greens in England.  #s 2, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14 & 17 are fairly large and 18 is huge.  I wouldn't say any of the greens are small, bit a few like 4 & 5 are average to modest.  I can't think of a classic champ links other than TOC which has as much green footage, but I could be wrong. All that said, I wouldn't say Beau's greens are really large...its just that GB&I greens tend on the smallish side.

Ciao

[Jeff_Brauer]

Don't know why, but I read the title as "Are large SCREENS necessary for a championship course....and figured, why of course, for scoring, video, etc.

Carry on.

[John McCarthy]

As a practical matter, with large tournaments with multiple practice rounds would  largish greens help by having more pinable locations? 

[Michael Felton]

TPC Sawgrass's greens are pretty small, from recollection. Harbor Town too I think has very small greens.

Sean - the greens at Walton Heath are very big.

I can definitely see where large greens might allow a greater spread of wear and tear on the greens over the course of a 4 day tournament.

[Pat Burke]

Large greens can have small targets when done well.
Creating targets that demand distance control to be rewarded isn’t dependent on size alone


Of course, that’s assuming “challenging” is a goal!!

[Ben Hollerbach]

The larger the greens the more likely the event will turn into a putting contest.

Players missing the greens will lead to more bogeys, making approach accuracy more important to scoring.
Pebble has tiny greens, how small are The Country Club's? They do not look big at all.

[MCirba]

Mayday,

Is your question related to the fact that the USGA wants about 8 distinct "pinnable"areas for their tournaments?  (i.e. four practice rounds, four competitive rounds)

I recall this was the justification used to reduce the slope of the 12th and 15th greens at Merion.

[Thomas Dai]

How many hole locations are really needed for championship play and thus how big do the greens really need to be)?
Small greens, more demands on the short game.
Do hole locations really need to change every day (during a championship)? For example in times gone by I believe The Open kept the same hole location throughout the event.
Limited fields and even less players the last 2 days. Soft spikes. Considerable readily available resources like machinery, manpower, irrigation, sub-air etc.
Just asking.
Keen to know what Supts think.
Atb

[JohnVDB]

When the changes to Poppy Hills were being discussed in 2010, Robert Trent Jones, Jr.’s people asked how many hole locations were needed.  Our superintendent said, at least 7.  When you run as many tournaments as the NCGA does,you need that many.


Obviously it is desirable to have 4 good ones for any important tournaments and then you need at least one more for practice rounds so that you don’t wear out the areas you want to use.  But I’ve seen holes with only one or two goodmarea.  For example the 9th at Indianwood Old where we had the US Senior Open really only had 2 and one of those was only large enough to use once so we had to put the hole in basically the same spot for 3 days of the championship.  It worked, but it wasn’t the best. 

[mike_malone]

Mayday,

Is your question related to the fact that the USGA wants about 8 distinct "pinnable"areas for their tournaments?  (i.e. four practice rounds, four competitive rounds)




I recall this was the justification used to reduce the slope of the 12th and 15th greens at Merion.

Mike,


I have no idea what I was thinking in 2015.