These greens are not difficult at 14

[Sean_A]

As Joe said, you have way over-simplified your position.  It isn't critical thinking to use ANGC in a totally unrealistic manner.  We all know that ANGC is one of the leaders of fast greens and whatever it takes maintenance.  In any case, the number of rounds wouldn't be altered if you ask me because there are other Augusta like examples out there.  There is no getting around the fact that cost of golf is a factor in retaining golfers.  There is no getting around the fact that there is a breaking point at which the next level of green speed costs X more to produce.  That is why you don't see $40 publics with super fast greens...there is no money in producing that sort of thing without raising the green fee. 



Ciao

[BCowan]

Mike,


I played memorial day, the greens ran at 8. Round took 5hrs and 20 mins.  I've played greens that run at 12 and round took 345

If you increase the speed of the greens on a given day it will slow down play as compared to a comparable day.
Your argument is a single data point among hundreds of millions of rounds per year.

Mike,


Do you have data backing your beliefs up?  One can 3 putt slow greens as much as 3 putting faster greens.  Does average player not give putts?

[BCowan]

As Joe said, you have way over-simplified your position.  It isn't critical thinking to use ANGC in a totally unrealistic manner.  We all know that ANGC is one of the leaders of fast greens and whatever it takes maintenance.  In any case, the number of rounds wouldn't be altered if you ask me because there are other Augusta like examples out there.  There is no getting around the fact that cost of golf is a factor in retaining golfers.  There is no getting around the fact that there is a breaking point at which the next level of green speed costs X more to produce.  That is why you don't see $40 publics with super fast greens...there is no money in producing that sort of thing without raising the green fee. 

Ciao

Sean,


I'm not over simplifying my question. You don't know maint numbers and agronomy advances. I worked on a public $40/55 course weekday/weekend that had greens around 10-11.  Some places just wanna compete at the $20-30 price point which is okay.  Keepers at public courses work very hard and do more helping out to make things work IMO.  So please tell me that breakpoint and price point per stimp to 11? 


If one $40/55 has greens at 11 and another at 9 who will do better?  Both are equal in design and drainage.


Golfers want fast greens instinctively IMO, just as they want green lawns at their abode in july.

[Anthony_Nysse]

He also said that virtually all of Poa was eradicated.   That's definitely not the case.

He said that the poa is better regulated this year.

Im not sure when anyone is getting bent out of shape on this. The greens at MV have been, viewed by tour pros for many year, as the best and fastest they play all year.

As for 14'? That's another day at Oakmont, but where is the backlash?

[Jon Wiggett]

Greens which have high stimp readings are not only boring but are easier for good putters. If a club wants to challenge the lower handicap and professional player then lower stimp readings and more contours are the way to do this.


Just to show how lacking in intellect the whole discussion is about stimp readings is the whole thing about the higher the stimp reading the faster the green is was the discussion I had with one of the leading experts who I will not name after he stated 'a higher stimp means the green is faster'. 'Really' was my reply 'I would respectfully suggest the green's speed is zero as it is not going anywhere. It is a stationary object'  'Ah' he countered 'I meant of course the ball will roll faster'. 'not so' I said' the ball's maximum speed is the at the bottom of the stimp meter and therefore the same for all greens. The higher stimp only means that the ball will roll out further. This also means that to cover the same distance the ball will have to roll slower on a higher stimping green. Ergo, higher stimp readings mean slower greens not faster and also a higher likelihood of the ball dropping into the hole.'


The discussion ended there but he did say I had given him food for thought as he left.


I sometimes despair at how the golf industry often is selling a fantasy to the golfing public and at how gullible so many are.


Jon

[Thomas Dai]

Okay so they're 14 for this tournament, what's the recovery time, what will they be running at next week, the week after etc, etc, etc.
Atb

[Garland Bayley]

... I don't care if it's newbies or hardcore golfers, they all love fast greens.  You should try and learn what new golfers and repeat public golfers want. ...

You get so called experts praising fast greens on TV, and you hear people parroting that nonsense. They have no idea what they are talking about.

I don't know who these people you hear from are, but you are not hearing what I hear. I hear about greens being too fast all the time. If you are at a course with little or no contour in the greens, you may hear that fast greens are good. If you serve on the green committee with interesting green contours, you are going to hear a lot about the greens being too fast.

[BCowan]

... I don't care if it's newbies or hardcore golfers, they all love fast greens.  You should try and learn what new golfers and repeat public golfers want. ...

You get so called experts praising fast greens on TV, and you hear people parroting that nonsense. They have no idea what they are talking about.

I don't know who these people you hear from are, but you are not hearing what I hear. I hear about greens being too fast all the time. If you are at a course with little or no contour in the greens, you may hear that fast greens are good. If you serve on the green committee with interesting green contours, you are going to hear a lot about the greens being too fast.

I've never heard a golfer other then myself complain that the greens are too fast. I'm also not going to get in a back in forth with u.

[Sean_A]

As Joe said, you have way over-simplified your position.  It isn't critical thinking to use ANGC in a totally unrealistic manner.  We all know that ANGC is one of the leaders of fast greens and whatever it takes maintenance.  In any case, the number of rounds wouldn't be altered if you ask me because there are other Augusta like examples out there.  There is no getting around the fact that cost of golf is a factor in retaining golfers.  There is no getting around the fact that there is a breaking point at which the next level of green speed costs X more to produce.  That is why you don't see $40 publics with super fast greens...there is no money in producing that sort of thing without raising the green fee. 

Ciao

Sean,


I'm not over simplifying my question. You don't know maint numbers and agronomy advances. I worked on a public $40/55 course weekday/weekend that had greens around 10-11.  Some places just wanna compete at the $20-30 price point which is okay.  Keepers at public courses work very hard and do more helping out to make things work IMO.  So please tell me that breakpoint and price point per stimp to 11? 


If one $40/55 has greens at 11 and another at 9 who will do better?  Both are equal in design and drainage.


Golfers want fast greens instinctively IMO, just as they want green lawns at their abode in july.

Instinctive?  I think it has much more to do with what golfers have learned duorng their early time in the game. I certainly learned faster was better.  I later learned that firmness and trueness of roll is better. 


As for your question, I would say the course with the more interesting and firm greens is the better one. To me, the proper speed will follow proper firmness.  To me, the 9 greens have a better chance to be higher quality because 11 is a tad too fast to really allow for much grade change or intricate contour in greens.  I recall someone posted a graph one time correlating grade and stimp....that would be interesting to see again.


As for question two...I don't know the breaking point to stimp from 9 to 11. I suspect where the course is located, number of rounds, type of grass etc is very pertinent information. It would be interesting if supers/course owners chimed in. 

Ciao

[BCowan]

Sean,


This isn't about what I or u like.  I like firm and 10.  Average golf likes soft and fast imo.

[Joe Bausch]

Greens which have high stimp readings are not only boring but are easier for good putters. If a club wants to challenge the lower handicap and professional player then lower stimp readings and more contours are the way to do this.


Just to show how lacking in intellect the whole discussion is about stimp readings is the whole thing about the higher the stimp reading the faster the green is was the discussion I had with one of the leading experts who I will not name after he stated 'a higher stimp means the green is faster'. 'Really' was my reply 'I would respectfully suggest the green's speed is zero as it is not going anywhere. It is a stationary object'  'Ah' he countered 'I meant of course the ball will roll faster'. 'not so' I said' the ball's maximum speed is the at the bottom of the stimp meter and therefore the same for all greens. The higher stimp only means that the ball will roll out further. This also means that to cover the same distance the ball will have to roll slower on a higher stimping green. Ergo, higher stimp readings mean slower greens not faster and also a higher likelihood of the ball dropping into the hole.'


The discussion ended there but he did say I had given him food for thought as he left.


I sometimes despair at how the golf industry often is selling a fantasy to the golfing public and at how gullible so many are.


Jon

I think Charlie Rymer summarized this nicely a couple of years ago:  "Greens are fast; balls roll slow.  Greens are slow, balls roll fast."

 

[Sean_A]

Sean,


This isn't about what I or u like.  I like firm and 10.  Average golf likes soft and fast imo.

This is where you run into issues.  Wet and fast requires money....hard to deliver for $40.  And for those courses which have a winter and remain open, a lot of temporary greens will be in their future with this model.  I think attitudes are changing...they will have to because golf can't afford to waste money on unnecessary water feeding. 


Ciao

[BCowan]

Sean,


This isn't about what I or u like.  I like firm and 10.  Average golf likes soft and fast imo.

This is where you run into issues.  Wet and fast requires money....hard to deliver for $40.  And for those courses which have a winter and remain open, a lot of temporary greens will be in their future with this model.  I think attitudes are changing...they will have to because golf can't afford to waste money on unnecessary water feeding. 


Ciao

Sean,


I'm posting from US perspective. Those delivering are doing so when soil temps are below x mark.  Lots of factor with water source.  Things differ from state to state

[Jon Wiggett]

I think it has much more to do with what golfers have learned duorng their early time in the game. I certainly learned faster was better.  I later learned that firmness and trueness of roll is better. 

Sean,


Consistency of result is the only real thing that is important. Let the ball skip and bobble all it wants so long as the place it comes to rest is consistently the same. In my experience, one of the biggest differences between a fine leafed green such those with plenty of fescue and those dominated by fatter leafed creeping bent grasses is the finer leaf gives a far better consistent result especially on breaking putts. This is to do with the thickness of the blade not the length. You can cut lower but not thinner. This is why the finer they can get the leaf on modern bent and such the better.


Agree 100% on the firmness and it is nice if they roll true.


Jon

[jeffwarne]

Ben,


You throw around on this board that you used to work maintenance. Were you ever in charge of the budget? You know, the actual decision making process about prioritizing how you spent someone else's money? It's not enough to do the work. If you haven't been in the responsible position of deciding how, and how much, money is spent to maintain a golf course, then you should consider yourself equal in that department to everyone other than owners and superintendents. If you have been in that position, I'd love to know about it.


Thanks

No, I wasn't in charge of the budget but I know what was very important to the owner which was not a golfer .  I also know what was spent annually.  Better yet I know what the market wanted.  People that actually work maint have a closer knowledge of what goes on maint wise at a course IMO.


You are welcome

Despite your rant, I'd say we actually agree on greens, contour and speed.


And I'm not against fast greens, I'm against designing, or worse yet ruining old greens(with stupid tiers to mitigate slope) due to speeds too high for the enjoyment of the design and use of interesting pin placements.
And I'm really against powerful people in golf quantifying the arms race with such phrases as the thread title is about.(he also mentioned 15 and 16 as POTENTIALLY out of control if the wind blows)

What makes you so sure I never worked maintenance?

[jeffwarne]

... I don't care if it's newbies or hardcore golfers, they all love fast greens.  You should try and learn what new golfers and repeat public golfers want. ...

You get so called experts praising fast greens on TV, and you hear people parroting that nonsense. They have no idea what they are talking about.

I don't know who these people you hear from are, but you are not hearing what I hear. I hear about greens being too fast all the time. If you are at a course with little or no contour in the greens, you may hear that fast greens are good. If you serve on the green committee with interesting green contours, you are going to hear a lot about the greens being too fast.

I've never heard a golfer other then myself complain that the greens are too fast. I'm also not going to get in a back in forth with u.

Glad that didn't happen...

[Mark Bourgeois]

Possibly to Jon's point and possibly
to  Sean's as well, in my experience golfers are don't understand speed very well -- when they say "fast" they usually mean "true."


Again, just my relatively ignorant perspective but it seems to me the answer isn't faster greens, it's a roller (that gets used).


(Obviously just talking golfers not floggers.)

[BCowan]

Ben,


You throw around on this board that you used to work maintenance. Were you ever in charge of the budget? You know, the actual decision making process about prioritizing how you spent someone else's money? It's not enough to do the work. If you haven't been in the responsible position of deciding how, and how much, money is spent to maintain a golf course, then you should consider yourself equal in that department to everyone other than owners and superintendents. If you have been in that position, I'd love to know about it.


Thanks

No, I wasn't in charge of the budget but I know what was very important to the owner which was not a golfer .  I also know what was spent annually.  Better yet I know what the market wanted.  People that actually work maint have a closer knowledge of what goes on maint wise at a course IMO.


You are welcome

Despite your rant, I'd say we actually agree on greens, contour and speed.
What makes you so sure I never worked maintenance?

Ha, isn't one allowed 1 ignorant comment on a thread 

[jeffwarne]

Greens which have high stimp readings are not only boring but are easier for good putters. If a club wants to challenge the lower handicap and professional player then lower stimp readings and more contours are the way to do this.


Just to show how lacking in intellect the whole discussion is about stimp readings is the whole thing about the higher the stimp reading the faster the green is was the discussion I had with one of the leading experts who I will not name after he stated 'a higher stimp means the green is faster'. 'Really' was my reply 'I would respectfully suggest the green's speed is zero as it is not going anywhere. It is a stationary object'  'Ah' he countered 'I meant of course the ball will roll faster'. 'not so' I said' the ball's maximum speed is the at the bottom of the stimp meter and therefore the same for all greens. The higher stimp only means that the ball will roll out further. This also means that to cover the same distance the ball will have to roll slower on a higher stimping green. Ergo, higher stimp readings mean slower greens not faster and also a higher likelihood of the ball dropping into the hole.'


The discussion ended there but he did say I had given him food for thought as he left.


I sometimes despair at how the golf industry often is selling a fantasy to the golfing public and at how gullible so many are.


Jon

I think Charlie Rymer summarized this nicely a couple of years ago:  "Greens are fast; balls roll slow.  Greens are slow, balls roll fast."

 

Joe, While true, on an old school sloped/tilted green, when putting uphill, the balls roll quite fast because the difference between uphill and downhill is so great, compared to a flatter, faster green, where the speed of roll is less pronounced from uphill and downhill.


What amazes me is people think there weren't lightning fast putts 30 or even 50 years ago that merely required a touch-when downhill..
and a virtual full turn uphill.


Which required technique ,judgement and skill,
not a never more than six inch delicate stroke

[Sean_A]

I rarely hear golfers say greens are too fast,but I hear the too firm complaint quite often. Usually my thinking is the firmness is fine, but the fairways have to match the greens.


Ciao

[Thomas Dai]

What amazes me is people think there weren't lightning fast putts 30 or even 50 years ago that merely required a touch-when downhill..

Players of yee olde period who putted on the MacKenzie designed greens on the course I play most often described to me how during times of dryness and firmness in the pre-hosepipe/bowser/irrigation years they deliberately cut across or hooked putts in an attempt to hold the ball against side slopes.
Atb

[jeffwarne]

What amazes me is people think there weren't lightning fast putts 30 or even 50 years ago that merely required a touch-when downhill..

Players of yee olde period who putted on the MacKenzie designed greens on the course I play most often described to me how during times of dryness and firmness in the pre-hosepipe/bowser/irrigation years they deliberately cut across or hooked putts in an attempt to hold the ball against side slopes.
Atb

+1


Random thoughts


I think Jack does a good job in the booth-usually quite insightful. Obviously as knowledgeable as they come.

First of all I enjoy firm fast greens.(despite some rain nearly every day for the past month our greens and fairways are currently as firm and fast as almosts any I've played)
More to the point I enjoy fast putts(due to slope), even putts that can't be gotten close when out of positon.

My beef is not that the greens are 14 at Muirfield for a big event.
It's that the greatest player of all time, and host of a very highly regarded PGA Tour event said "they were easy at 14"
Then continued on to say they'd run them them at 15-16 but with a new Super they didn't want to run the risk of them getting out of control if the weather changed.
I just hate him throwing out numbers rather than just saying they're fast.


Why not just eliminate all slope and be done with it? and play with your johnson out (to be measured and admired)all the time.
If 14 is "easy" and 15-16 are possible, why not 18....20?
...like 5 minute abs

[Joe Hancock]

Jeff,


Your random thoughts are more poignant than my focused thoughts, so tell me what you think about the fact that there has been 73 hole-outs around these greens this week. I don't know what to think about that, as it seems at odds with my belief that ultra-fast greens make recovery shots more difficult. They said this is the most hole-outs of any tournament so far this year. Is it the subtlety of the greens contouring?

[jeffwarne]

Jeff,


Your random thoughts are more poignant than my focused thoughts, so tell me what you think about the fact that there has been 73 hole-outs around these greens this week. I don't know what to think about that, as it seems at odds with my belief that ultra-fast greens make recovery shots more difficult. They said this is the most hole-outs of any tournament so far this year. Is it the subtlety of the greens contouring?

Joe,
I haven't played Muirfield in years, so I don't know if the slopes have been altered (I'd guess they have to accomodate such speed, as has Augusta-but I don't know that)


I'd say it's due to the trueness of the greens, and the fact that on a fast green the ball is travelling slow and has a great chance to fall in-even if it was going to go 5-10 feet by.


Or maybe because it's so tough tee to green ,they MISS more greens, yielding more opportunities for offshores [size=78%].[/size]

[SL_Solow]

I think a lot of this discussion is misdirected  and assumes facts not in evidence.  if the concern is that fast greens are a major contributing cause to golf's lack of participation, I think it is an overstatement.  Golf has always been a niche sport in this country.  Golf has experienced significant growth when there has been a confluence between 2 factors. First, it has occurred during a period of significant economic growth and second there has been a charismatic player who attracted the public.  Conversely, economic downturns have led to a contraction in interest because golf is not cheap and it is a niche sport.

Thus in the Roaring 20's Bob Jones came along and the game soared.  The depression followed, participation fell and courses closed.  The war followed and the game stagnated until the post war recovery got into full swing.  Add Arnold Palmer, growth ensued.  Arnie faded, growth slowed and the game stagnated.  But there was no major fall off because the economy stayed relatively strong.

Along comes the tremendous economic growth under Clinton and then Tiger appears.  The game takes off until the banking crisis.  Thereafter Tiger starts to fall off before there is a recovery and the downturn in the game which was already underway accelerates.  But the numbers are not below what they were before the last boom.  The question is whether enough young people will step up and at least maintain the participation base.  Based on my interactions in our golf association, I am optimistic.

Turning to the cost of maintaining fast greens, Ben, I have to disagree.  I have sat on and chaired greens committees for more than 20 years and helped build the budgets.  I have worked with our local chapter of the superintendents association for more than 15 years.  We are spending more money to maintain greens at extreme speeds than we would at lower speeds even with the improved grasses.  I suggest this based on personal experience and I am waiting for any superintendent to suggest otherwise.

This is not to suggest that greens speeds are the sole or even most important factor in increased costs of maintenance and greens fees.  The costs of bunker maintenance is out of hand and at many "high end" courses can exceed the cost of maintaining greens.  The overall standards for maintenance and the conditioning "arms race" raises costs significantly along with other factors related to labor etc.

The real question that we are arguing is what constitutes better architecture and what makes golf more fun.  I tend to opt for less speed and more contour but I fear that the ship has sailed and Jack's comments are reflective of that reality.