The Undocumented Evolution of Putting Greens

[Kyle Harris]

As per Mr. Tom Doak's request:

In the "Restoration Shelf Life" thread I posited that many of the changes occurring to the golf course over time may have been necessitated by factors outside of pure golfing/architectural necessity or desire. For example, perhaps apocryphal: It has always been my understanding that the 2nd green at Pine Valley is the result of the great many washouts encountered on the front portion of the green during the first few decades of the course's existence. I believe it was ultimately William Flynn that developed a workable plan for preventing further erosion, however, the putting surface itself remained in tact.

Sticking with William Flynn courses, at Huntingdon Valley certain areas of putting green were raised under the direction of long time golf pro Joe Kirkwood. Presumably these were carried out in the name of playability, but perhaps the portion on the third hole, which fed into the bunker, could have been a maintenance consideration.

When I first jumped into the golf maintenance and agronomy side of things, I was shocked by the somewhat cavalier attitude superintendents had with subtle changes to green contours due to any number of maintenance considerations. Whether or not it was a sod job that should have had more space to properly tie-in to surrounding features or carrying out a renovation in-house, little care was given to preserving what was in the ground in terms of design.

Any other examples out there?

[Mark_Fine]

If you want to talk about the evolution of putting greens, you could do a case study of those at Pinehurst #2.  Their evolution might be the most misunderstood of all greens out there 

[Peter Pallotta]

Kyle  - just an aside, but when I read the subject line it struck me as remarkable (and telling) that we can even ask the question, ie that there are enough cases of *documented* evolutions that we can ask about undocumented ones -- striking given that we're talking about living/organic things out in the open air and subject to natural and inevitable and constant change, and indicative perhaps of the intense level of maintenance/human intereference at high end American classics -- doing the unnatural in the service of a natural appearance.

[Kyle Harris]

Peter - That's the idea behind the comments on the other thread. Restorations will undo many of those undocumented changes, which resets the hand of mother nature...

Restorations may not necessarily solve the problems which caused the original changes in the first place, however.

Hence the concept of a restoration's shelf life.

[Peter Pallotta]

Sorry. I should have read that thread first, but it seemed beyond me (more than usually so). I've read it now."Subjective" is one possible description of hands-of-man changes; to be too blunt, "self serving" might be another.

I've argued in several threads over the years that most of the complexity/subjectivity/debates seems to revolve around the insistence on using the word "restoration".  If club members and architects alike simply used a more accurate term there'd be no debate at all; terms like "rejuvenate", "renovate", "revitalize" and "re-vision" all come quickly to mind.

From what I've read on here, any of those terms serve much better -- except in the rarest of cases -- to describe what's actually taking place than does "restore".

It is easy to be cynical about all this, especially since the terms I offered up are perfectly good terms to describe what are perfectly reasonable and defensible and sometimes necessary and perhaps even inevitable changes to a golf course over time -- and so the fact that folks *don't* use any of those terms makes me, well, a bit suspicious.

I think architects should all start demanding that potential clients use "revitalize" instead of "restore" -- it would free up the architects to fully and openly and without embarrassment do what they're trying to do anyway, i.e. to make the golf course better! 

Peter

[Jeff_Brauer]

Kyle,


I recall a project of mine where there was a big rain just before grassing.  It washed out some USGA mix.  The contractor, trying to save time and start grassing right after the rain didn't put new mix it, they just massaged what was left, leaving less than 12" most places, and they purposely shorted the front and sides of the green more, knowing no pin would be put there.


In other cases, re-grassing greens, without bringing the architect back (me, in this case) has often led to tiers or other steep slopes being dragged out and changed enough to affect the green design.  Given most greens get re-turfed at some point, I gather most have changed from the architects intent.


A common change is bunker sand blowing or getting blasted onto the first dozen feet or so of the green.  Another is the green growing in an inch a year.

[Thomas Dai]

A few things occur gradually and in so sloow a manner as to be pretty invisible unless photos etc are regularly taken and examined/compared and rectification work undertaken some of the more obvious ones being the likes of -

Sand splash and bunker creep
Wet spots at green edges (shouldn't be there but...) - tend to be avoided by mowers and pretty soon the mowing pattern has changed.
Effect of nearby trees - shade.
Drains collapses and blockages.
Effect of nearby roots and drains.

Atb

[Mike_Young]

One of the silent evolutions in putting greens is the greens complex itself.  Often in cases where dirt as brought in and piled for shaping the entire complex ir is compacted with dozers and constant back and forth of machinery but in the overall scheme of things that is not compaction compared to other other construction operations such as road building or vertical construction.  Therefore the entire pad moves and it is not even noticed....but it does..

[Jeff_Brauer]

One I have seen a few times is supers splitting a bunker that blocks circulation from path to green.  Maybe the path was added later in a few cases, I don't know. In one case, a Tour pro told me he wanted a continuous bunker....so it was original design.  In another case,  I left a natural dune, which was later formalized and split in two.


In any case, when golfers form a cow path through your bunker, you find the need to split it in two.  If you find trees shade the grass, or roots get in the green, you remove the tree. If you find a slope scalps, you soften it, etc.

[Tom_Doak]

Kyle:


Thanks for posting this.  It's a topic I have underestimated in my work on golf courses, partly because when we are doing restorations we don't have any reliable 3-D information about the original greens, and partly because most clubs are loathe to tear up the greens in a renovation unless absolutely necessary [because it involves closing the course].


However, I have often looked at a green on an old course and had the feeling that the contours had changed over time, whether by deliberate action or not.  And I've actually witnessed changes over time at Crystal Downs [which I've known for 30 years] and at Pacific Dunes [where the wind tends to topdress certain greens very unevenly, especially #14], so I'm starting to realize that it happens more often than not.


The biggest factor to me in recent years is the USGA's recommendation of heavy sand topdressing for greens on older courses.  At Crystal Downs, this program over 30 years has built up the green surfaces [and importantly, only the green surfaces] 4 to 8 inches from the grade I knew in 1986.  As a result, greens that fell front to back now have a bit of a rise in front of them that makes the running play much harder; the falloffs at the low sides of the greens are much more severe; and some places where there was a subtle "dish" in the green are now just bald plateaus.  I've observed the same evidence of evolution at Cypress Point, SFGC, and other clubs where we consult.


But what to do about it?  I can't see any way to restore the old green contours; you just have to rely on an architect you really trust.




Mike Y:  I have seen only one instance of one of my greens settling over the past 25 years of construction [the left front of the 3rd at Stonewall Old].  But we generally don't build greens out of fill material, so my experience may be the exception rather than the rule.

[Mike_Young]

Mike Y:  I have seen only one instance of one of my greens settling over the past 25 years of construction [the left front of the 3rd at Stonewall Old].  But we generally don't build greens out of fill material, so my experience may be the exception rather than the rule.

TD,

I would you think you are the exception.  I probably am also since I try to cut most of my greens into the site but when working down here in red clay I have seen them move over the years when a pad is constructed and I'm sure it probably happened even more before heavy equipment.

[Dave McCollum]

Long before I knew anything about building greens, we designed and built a couple of push up greens in sand.  On one we shaped a little back tier we all thought looked perfect for a fun pin position.  We also questioned whether it was too severe.  However, when the green grew in, the feature softened (settled?) and was much less dramatic than originally intended.  I made a mental note that if I ever built another green, I'd exaggerate contours to allow for this.  Is this common or just a one-off given our materials and techniques?

As long as jacking this thread off line, I'll also mention that when I first read the title, I thought it was a history or timeline about how the modern putting green evolved from the old courses.  That sounded interesting to me.  Other than Old Tom Morris accidentally discovering top dressing, I don't recall reading much about this.     

[Jon Wiggett]

I am not sure if this is what you are looking for but I know two courses that are built on peat moors where the green's contours are constantly changing as the soil drys out or becomes wetter. They also see a lot of heave in the winter when the ground freezes much of which alter the slopes permanently.


Tees have to be built on log rafts embedded into the ground so as to avoid the same problem. When at one of the clubs the idea was put forward about doing a similar system for the greens it was rejected by the membership as they liked the fact that the greens altered constantly as it meant the course remained a fresh challenge.


Jon

[Pat Burke]

As per Mr. Tom Doak's request:

In the "Restoration Shelf Life" thread I posited that many of the changes occurring to the golf course over time may have been necessitated by factors outside of pure golfing/architectural necessity or desire. For example, perhaps apocryphal: It has always been my understanding that the 2nd green at Pine Valley is the result of the great many washouts encountered on the front portion of the green during the first few decades of the course's existence. I believe it was ultimately William Flynn that developed a workable plan for preventing further erosion, however, the putting surface itself remained in tact.

Sticking with William Flynn courses, at Huntingdon Valley certain areas of putting green were raised under the direction of long time golf pro Joe Kirkwood. Presumably these were carried out in the name of playability, but perhaps the portion on the third hole, which fed into the bunker, could have been a maintenance consideration.

When I first jumped into the golf maintenance and agronomy side of things, I was shocked by the somewhat cavalier attitude superintendents had with subtle changes to green contours due to any number of maintenance considerations. Whether or not it was a sod job that should have had more space to properly tie-in to surrounding features or carrying out a renovation in-house, little care was given to preserving what was in the ground in terms of design.

Any other examples out there?

The course I work at, I moved to in 1996 when I was still playing.  I mostly practiced on the south course as it was newer, firmer and faster.  It more closely matched the tournament condiditions I was playing, so I spent a LOT of time out there.  I also spent a lot of my younger days working on greens crews, so over a few years I started to see the slow creep in and shrinking on the greens.  I've told a couple of our supers what I had seen, and had one, literally yell at me for causing problems (I only told him).  A couple weeks after getting yelled at, he asked me to go on the course with him.  On the 18th hole he told me that based on photos and probing, he figured the green had shrunk between 4-5 feet.....yes feet😀 
As I've gone around both courses, you can just see hole locations that cannot be used any more, especially given the speed of the greens.  So much unintended change, for something so simple!

[Mike_Young]

Pat,
I too.  Seen a lot of greens that have crept in over the years.  And some of them are only 10 years old.  Just figure.  If a clean-up cut is missed by just 1/4 inch per day in one direction for 300 days per year that would equate to a little over 6 ft. ( Of course it is missed in both directions so not that bad)  It was really bad when the first triplexes came out because the handle bar steering was not very tight and so many corners disappeared. 

[Tom_Doak]

Pat,
I too.  Seen a lot of greens that have crept in over the years.  And some of them are only 10 years old.  Just figure.  If a clean-up cut is missed by just 1/4 inch per day in one direction for 300 days per year that would equate to a little over 6 ft. ( Of course it is missed in both directions so not that bad)  It was really bad when the first triplexes came out because the handle bar steering was not very tight and so many corners disappeared.

I didn't even bother mentioning green size because I assumed it was a given.  I've almost never seen a course where the green shapes haven't slid around a bit over time ... usually they shrink but not always.


I told the story once before about being at Crooked Stick when they tore up the greens in 1986.  Crooked Stick's front nine were the first set of nine USGA greens anyone had constructed, and they were complete with a plastic moisture barrier so it was easy to see where the green had once been.  When we went looking for the moisture barrier on the 5th green, we could not find it for a long time, but eventually did ... they had grown in approximately 20-30 feet of false front at the front of the green, and added 8-10 feet of green outside the mix at the back to utilize a flatter area!  [They didn't cut holes outside the mix, but they would cut holes almost right to the edge.]


I played St. Andrews Beach a week ago and those are now my smallest greens ... I don't think they were to start with, but they've shrunk many of the greens by 10-20% to cut costs.  With short grass all around them, it's just fine, though.

[Thomas Dai]

Some don't believe greens shrink or the edging lines gradually change over time. Indeed I've known Committee folk insist that sprinkler heads be moved inwards as original putting surfaces shrink. Regular photo survey time.
Atb