What impact has golf club technology had on course maintenance?

[Jud_T]

A number of us folks at Kingsley play hickory golf.  Ralph Livingston III, the patron saint of modern day hickory golf, was a member prior to his untimely demise and helped some of us put together our hickory sets.  As anyone who's been there knows the course is about as firm and fast as you can get on this side of the pond.  As a result playing hickories is a joy.  I made the mistake of playing a charity hickory event in Chicago last year at a course that shall remain nameless.  The course, as most in Chicago are, is on clay and had taken on a fair amount of rain the previous day.  Being the mediocre hack that I am I spent most of the day laying the sod over my ball with my precious lefty Stewarts.  I was thinking about this recently and a small light bulb went off in my otherwise thick skull.  To what degree have the greening, watering, fairway and rough cut heights etc. evolved due to the ease of getting the ball airborne with cavity backed clubs, fairway woods  and rescue clubs with sole weights and huge sweet spots?  If we all still had to pick 3 iron blades precisely would courses be maintained more firmly? Would maintenance budgets be lower?  Would the recent complaint from a Rancho Santa Fe resident about folks expecting him to play on a brown golf course due to the drought be a non-starter?  Talk amongst yourselves... 

[Kyle Harris]

Jud:

I'll provide a counter example to the question:

Golf club technology has allowed for a more clever presentation of a golf course day-in and day-out.

Let's consider two examples:

One: The Ideal-Maintenance-Meld^TM as presented by Tom Paul, whereas a well-struck 9-iron will lightly dent a green and bounce twice before any spin influences the shot. 

Two: Turf presented in a tight manner such that any club with significant bounce demands an ultra precise swing to control the shot. This is especially effective on shorter shots and forces integration on some level with ground features.

[Jud_T]

Kyle,


As to point #2, I would say that where possible, this would simply lead one back towards old school golf, i.e. taking a longer club and bouncing one in, or putting if possible.  Yes, hitting a wedge with bounce off a very tight lie is an advanced skill, but this is often the result of poor course management, or in some cases improper or poor course maintenance.

[Kyle Harris]

Jud,

And even when the skill is execute properly, the loft of the club begins to work against the golfer as crisp contact leads to more spin. Maintenance can therefore present shot demands not readily apparent to the casual golfer.

[Joe Hancock]

Kyle,

I think that's part of the problem. Those of us in golf can't keep our fingers off the game, so we think we have to do things to differentiate golf skills. We should simplify the presentation of the course and let the golfers do the differentiating.

And in your example #1, it's those kinds of standards that create problems. It's a rigid way of thinking about the golf course and nature, and how they interact.

[Kyle Harris]

Joe,

However, your type of thinking neglects the idea that for golf to be transferable to other areas outside of linksland we need to assess and categorize the actual challenges of the game taken away from the links. Agronomic necessity often dictates some practice must be done and often times the agronomic need drives the presentation. Firm and fast, more often than not, overlaps with the sound agronomy.

This was the first modern dilemma of golf architecture, and I believe the current dilemma of modern maintenance, and really attacks the root of the question, "What is golf?"

How one presents these challenges is the art, after all. Presentation is simply another choice. It's a big world.

[BCowan]

I think the title of the thread is the opposite of reality.  I think Course maint has impacted technology.  Golf courses from the RTJ era and forward have required more lob wedges.  Faster greens have made blade putters an option now.  Technology has followed GCA.   

The funny thing is the same people that advocate for reducing maint. costs seldom share that for outlook with the Clubhouse and staff.  At higher end clubs the maint. budget can be 1/7 of the total budget.  I think that extra tile and sand for deep core aeration is miniscule to budget of the club in general.  Also clubs tend to choose $90 a yard sand for the bunker vs more tile for drainage.  I have seen courses built on sand play SOFT.  It has more to do with expectations of the membership.  I'd be nice if more clubs would focus on the Golf course instead of the clubhouse.  Drainage isn't a sexy word, nor i bet do many advocate for it. 

''If we all still had to pick 3 iron blades precisely would courses be maintained more firmly?''

No, when blades were played by all, there was no irrigation in the rough.  Fairways were a little longer.  The older bents didn't grow as vertical as the newer ones IMO and made hitting longer irons really tough for the average player.  Low handicappers love(d) it. 

   

[Thomas Dai]

I'd be inclined to suggest that changing maintenance practices - more use of water and resulting lushness etc -have led to changes in equipment, not the other way around, and, if water shortages/restrictions go the way some foresee, well it might be somewhat chucklesome to watch folk with wide flanged sole irons hit shots off handpan or semi-hardpan. The return of blade heads and long irons beckons???


There's also the ball issue - yee olde wound ball didn't fly as straight as the modern ball (some weren't even round in the first place, even less so after a club had miss hit them) - and the modern 1.68 ball is higher flying in comparison to the older 1.62, which was a more 'rolling' ball.


Atb

[Jud_T]

''If we all still had to pick 3 iron blades precisely would courses be maintained more firmly?''

No, when blades were played by all, there was no irrigation in the rough. 

Pardon the ignorance, but how did this not make it play more firmly?  Is it not easier to get a rescue club through thick wet long rough than a long iron blade?

[BCowan]

Pardon the ignorance, but how did this not make it play more firmly?  Is it not easier to get a rescue club through thick wet long rough than a long iron blade?

   I thought you were emphasizing fairways being firmer.  I view the wet irrigated rough as a way to stop my ball from going under an Christmas tree planted in the 50's .  I don't foresee single row irrigation coming back in vogue.  I'm all for non irrigated rough.  I couldn't tell you about rescue clubs, I can't hit one for the life of me, but I love my 2 iron.  My point is on firmer fairways a higher handicap is going to do better with a hybrid.  I got the impression you felt on firm fairways a blade iron would be easier to hit than a hybrid for the avg. 18 handi. 

 
   

[Mike_Trenham]

The funny thing is the same people that advocate for reducing maint. costs seldom share that for outlook with the Clubhouse and staff.  At higher end clubs the maint. budget can be 1/7 of the total budget.
 

Ben your numbers are way off, no club spend 6 x their maintenance budget on other items.  My estimate would be 3x is about the highest I know off and outside events drive it up to that level.   $1.2 million on the course (typical for a higher end club with 18 holes) and $7.2 million on everything else is one heck of a budget; $8.4mm budget.

[David_Tepper]

I think the premise of this thread could be backward. Shouldn't the question be "what impact has course maintenance had on golf club technology?"

Clearly the changes (improvements?) in irrigation systems, course mowers, use of fertilizers, the development of many different strains of grass, etc. have had a major impact on how courses are presented and played. Isn't it possible the developments in golf club technology have, in part, responded to those changes?

 
 

[Kyle Harris]

I can't think of any direct correlation the more I delve into the thought.

There hasn't been a time where the goal of the golfer has been to hit the ball farther or higher in terms of the full swing, or to have more control over the shorter shots, if the golfer is so motivated to improve. Technological advancement in implements is simply a means to that end.

Maintenance advances, especially early in the growth of the sport, were necessitated by building courses on sites not aboriginally suited for the purpose. The desire was for sound agronomy and engineering.

Flynn and Macdonald both wrote about the potential impact of technological equipment advances on golf architecture. Flynn even put forth the idea of maintaining fairway landing areas in such a manner to prevent the ball from rolling. This is probably the closest direct evidence of a cause, but it does not seem to have gained much traction, perhaps because of the advances made in irrigation toward the end of Flynn's life. However, just because Flynn wrote on the subject does not mean any subsequent advance was a means to that end. Macdonald wrote that a sportsman would never use a technological advance to render the golf course defenseless.

[Carl Rogers]

I find the discussion of the ball also relevant.,
Didn't the old smaller ball:
--- not hook or slice as much?
--- less subject to the uncertainties of the wind?
--- spin less ... (roll out more)?
--- sit down in the grass (smaller surface area)?
--- travel farther (smaller surface area, thus less drag in the air)?
In our already bifurcated world, why not introduce the small ball back into the game?

[Josh Tarble]

Jud,
I've been thinking about this lately...was it courses that shaped technology or technology that shaped courses.  If you remember, even very old courses were being built with excessive distance (for the time) and harder and harder.  It would have been only natural for people to want to hit the ball farther to make these courses easier.


Had courses been built short and easy and limited to say 5500 from the very beginning, would there have been a push to make equipment that went further?

[Jud_T]

Josh,


Point taken, and arguably top courses were much harder for the bogey golfer back in the day, but I wasn't referring to length so much as to turf, agronomy and watering practices as they relate to equipment "improvements".

[Tom_Doak]

It's a vicious circle.  Clubs maintain their greens ever firmer and faster and architects build their courses longer to make it difficult to score, so golfers want better technology to allow them to score better, so clubs maintain their greens even faster and add more back tees.  Rinse and repeat.


When the dreaded square grooves were introduced by Ping in the 1980's, it was going to be the death of the game because it wouldn't matter if you'd driven it into the rough or not, so they had to be outlawed.  No one ever stopped to consider we could have gone the other direction, raised the heights of cut in the fairway, and saved money on maintenance.

[BCowan]

The funny thing is the same people that advocate for reducing maint. costs seldom share that for outlook with the Clubhouse and staff.  At higher end clubs the maint. budget can be 1/7 of the total budget.
 

Ben your numbers are way off, no club spend 6 x their maintenance budget on other items.  My estimate would be 3x is about the highest I know off and outside events drive it up to that level.   $1.2 million on the course (typical for a higher end club with 18 holes) and $7.2 million on everything else is one heck of a budget; $8.4mm budget.

 Mike,

   My numbers are not way off but rather on the money, feel free to look at the tax returns of the top private clubs.  $1-1.2 million for maint. is about right.  I'm not arguing for it, it just is a reality in the states. 

[Anthony_Nysse]

The funny thing is the same people that advocate for reducing maint. costs seldom share that for outlook with the Clubhouse and staff.  At higher end clubs the maint. budget can be 1/7 of the total budget.
 

I would say that an operating budget of $1-$1.2m or more at a high end course in the north would be about right, $1.7-$2m+ in the south. That being said, at a club with a normal type of operation (F&B, golf shop, pool/tennis) the maintenance budget tends to make up 30-35% of the total operational budget. That's a very fair assessment. IN some cases of "golf only" type clubs with small F&B departments and clubhouse, the golf maintenance budget may be 50% of the total operational budget.


Ben your numbers are way off, no club spend 6 x their maintenance budget on other items.  My estimate would be 3x is about the highest I know off and outside events drive it up to that level.   $1.2 million on the course (typical for a higher end club with 18 holes) and $7.2 million on everything else is one heck of a budget; $8.4mm budget.

 Mike,

   My numbers are not way off but rather on the money, feel free to look at the tax returns of the top private clubs.  $1-1.2 million for maint. is about right.  I'm not arguing for it, it just is a reality in the states.

[Mike_Trenham]

The funny thing is the same people that advocate for reducing maint. costs seldom share that for outlook with the Clubhouse and staff.  At higher end clubs the maint. budget can be 1/7 of the total budget.
 

Ben your numbers are way off, no club spend 6 x their maintenance budget on other items.  My estimate would be 3x is about the highest I know off and outside events drive it up to that level.   $1.2 million on the course (typical for a higher end club with 18 holes) and $7.2 million on everything else is one heck of a budget; $8.4mm budget.

 Mike,

   My numbers are not way off but rather on the money, feel free to look at the tax returns of the top private clubs.  $1-1.2 million for maint. is about right.  I'm not arguing for it, it just is a reality in the states.

I have looked at plenty of 990s and it is rare to find a club with 18 holes and more than 6.5 million in revenue, let alone the 8.4 million figure your algebra derives.  And these clubs all have pools and tennis and lots of outside parties and tons of non-golf members.

[BCowan]

The funny thing is the same people that advocate for reducing maint. costs seldom share that for outlook with the Clubhouse and staff.  At higher end clubs the maint. budget can be 1/7 of the total budget.
 

Ben your numbers are way off, no club spend 6 x their maintenance budget on other items.  My estimate would be 3x is about the highest I know off and outside events drive it up to that level.   $1.2 million on the course (typical for a higher end club with 18 holes) and $7.2 million on everything else is one heck of a budget; $8.4mm budget.

 Mike,

   My numbers are not way off but rather on the money, feel free to look at the tax returns of the top private clubs.  $1-1.2 million for maint. is about right.  I'm not arguing for it, it just is a reality in the states.

I have looked at plenty of 990s and it is rare to find a club with 18 holes and more than 6.5 million in revenue, let alone the 8.4 million figure your algebra derives.  And these clubs all have pools and tennis and lots of outside parties and tons of non-golf members.

Mike,

I used 1 million maint budget yielding $7 million.  You need to look harder.  Are you inferring that I'm lying? 

[Josh Tarble]

Jud,


My comment wasn't exactly an answer to your question but in the same vein.  Like Tom said, I think it's all a vicious circle and neither the developers or the manufacturers want to get out of it. 


I do think green speed may be the same type of situation as well.  Had all designers continued to build wild greens, would green speeds have got out of control? 

[Anthony_Nysse]

The funny thing is the same people that advocate for reducing maint. costs seldom share that for outlook with the Clubhouse and staff.  At higher end clubs the maint. budget can be 1/7 of the total budget.
 

Ben your numbers are way off, no club spend 6 x their maintenance budget on other items.  My estimate would be 3x is about the highest I know off and outside events drive it up to that level.   $1.2 million on the course (typical for a higher end club with 18 holes) and $7.2 million on everything else is one heck of a budget; $8.4mm budget.

 Mike,

   My numbers are not way off but rather on the money, feel free to look at the tax returns of the top private clubs.  $1-1.2 million for maint. is about right.  I'm not arguing for it, it just is a reality in the states.

I have looked at plenty of 990s and it is rare to find a club with 18 holes and more than 6.5 million in revenue, let alone the 8.4 million figure your algebra derives.  And these clubs all have pools and tennis and lots of outside parties and tons of non-golf members.

I would agree. Many courses with $1.5m+ maintenance budgets with $5-6m in revenue.

[Mike_Trenham]

The funny thing is the same people that advocate for reducing maint. costs seldom share that for outlook with the Clubhouse and staff.  At higher end clubs the maint. budget can be 1/7 of the total budget.
 

Ben your numbers are way off, no club spend 6 x their maintenance budget on other items.  My estimate would be 3x is about the highest I know off and outside events drive it up to that level.   $1.2 million on the course (typical for a higher end club with 18 holes) and $7.2 million on everything else is one heck of a budget; $8.4mm budget.

 Mike,

   My numbers are not way off but rather on the money, feel free to look at the tax returns of the top private clubs.  $1-1.2 million for maint. is about right.  I'm not arguing for it, it just is a reality in the states.

I have looked at plenty of 990s and it is rare to find a club with 18 holes and more than 6.5 million in revenue, let alone the 8.4 million figure your algebra derives.  And these clubs all have pools and tennis and lots of outside parties and tons of non-golf members.

Mike,

I used 1 million maint budget yielding $7 million.  You need to look harder.  Are you inferring that I'm lying?

No not saying you are lying just misinformed.  I would say green budget is 1/3 to 1/4 of revenue at most high end clubs not 1/8th as your initial post stated.

[Bradley Anderson]

Did anything effect the modern game more than the way Jack Nicholas hit the ball in the 1960s?

The ball and club makers went to work providing equipment for the average golfer to hit the ball far and high like Jack. Architecture was more directly effected by this phenomena than maintenance was.

The evolution of maintenance equipment was more driven by the same technology that made cars lighter and more efficient. There was no reason to keep making heavy belt driven machines when you could reduce the weight and compaction factors with hydraulics.

And why would we continue making sprinklers that apply two inches of water to the middle of a green to get one inch of water on the collar?

The forces which drove Penn State to develop bent grass seed, were the same market forces which gave us the stolon grasses that proceeded the seed varieties.

There are however some older technologies that are worth bringing back. The gang reel mower was a better rough mower than the rotary. The gang mower laid the grass down with the grain of the hole and it was just an easier shot because the ball had more grass underneath and the blades were titled with the direction you were hitting the ball. Unfortunately the gangs are not very efficient in housing development courses or corridor holes that have a lot of trees.