THREADJACK: Stimp and green slope, and how they deceive/deny

[Ronald Montesano]

A GCA friend played golf once with an esteemed architect. The friend said Hey, esteemed architect, this breaks left, right? The architect, incredulously, uttered/yelled what? We laughed. A complete misread by the friend.


Green slope does that, I'm told. I played my current hidden gem again this weekend, and the superintendent/course owner mentioned to us that the greens were running at ten at their fastest. The same GCA friend said Well, a few weeks back, you had them up to twelve. The super said No, it's that people don't see the slopes that I do, don't see the breaks and undulations that I know, and then they set it straight in their heads that the greens are a certain speed, based on stimp.

Raise your hand if you've ever measure a green with a stimp meter. I know, mine are also down...both of them. Raise your hand if you have the true 3-D perspective to read a green. I don't. I learned this as an assistant coach. The head coach was our art teacher, and he saw breaks and movement that escaped me. It took five years of tutelage for me to realize, his eyes and brain see things that I do not, can not, will not ever.


The thread started by Tom Doak about his main takeaway from Houston got me thinking about these events in my golf awakening. I invite you to comment herein, about stimp, green slope, counter slope, and share your own stories.

[Ira Fishman]

Hands are down. Our home course has a terrific new Superintendent. Most people say the green speeds are faster under his watch. I think the opposite and believe that because the rolls are truer, people are noticing the breaks more. I also think people are not used to some of the pin placements that he now uses. I guess I need to ask him what is the real answer.


It can take a long time to overcome our eyes deceiving us. We have a hole that virtually everyone thinks slopes back to front when it is really the opposite. It took me a few years to really believe it. Yes, I am a slow learner, but long time regulars still make the mistake.


Ira

[John Kavanaugh]

I doubt that it would surprise anyone that I became so tired of obviously being lied to that I went out and got my own stimp meter. It brought me a piece of mind. Golf is not the only industry where the consumers are treated like rubes.

[John Kavanaugh]

In all fairness I would call stimp readings a "white lie". It would take hours to come up with a true reading for an entire course. Time is better spent on other activities.

[mike_malone]

I think that when balls “roll on” more we think it’s faster. I don’t care what the official speed is. I just want to have a little fear of a short putt that is sideways. Also if it’s long with slope I can miss by ten feet with the slightest mistake.


It’s gone too far when an uphill putt comes back to me.

[John Kavanaugh]

I think that when balls “roll on” more we think it’s faster. I don’t care what the official speed is. I just want to have a little fear of a short putt that is sideways. Also if it’s long with slope I can miss by ten feet with the slightest mistake.


It’s gone too far when an uphill putt comes back to me.

What about a chip that ends up further behind you than from where it started? Who doesn't love watching that?

[John Kavanaugh]

I don't like it when I punch a car with way too much horsepower and lose the back end as possible injury feels imminent. But I don't go out and buy a Prius in response. Truth is putts come back at you about once every 3-5 years. You simply move on and get over it.

[mike_malone]

I think that when balls “roll on” more we think it’s faster. I don’t care what the official speed is. I just want to have a little fear of a short putt that is sideways. Also if it’s long with slope I can miss by ten feet with the slightest mistake.


It’s gone too far when an uphill putt comes back to me.

What about a chip that ends up further behind you than from where it started? Who doesn't love watching that?

If that chip made it to the hole and came back I don’t like it but if it doesn’t properly navigate the front of the green or ridges in the green too bad.

[John Kavanaugh]

My regular group has a song that three of us sing as the striker makes a walk back to his ball. It's the bloop bloop song. I have a feeling that I would love Rolling Green.

[Jeff_Brauer]

The real problem with this discussion is that the average stimp in America (in an informal survey of regional agronomists for big management companies) is still 9.5 to 10, which is enough to smooth greens out without making them too fast.    Perhaps a higher than representative number of golfers on this board play at 12-14 every day.


As to some of the scenarios mentioned, my favorite all time golf quote is Colt, saying that "A putt should never run from the putter like a swine possessed by the devil."  To my knowledge, no architect, including Maxwell, ever wrote that putting the ball off the green is a concept they sought to purposely implement.


As JK mentions, I doubt many would go to the extreme of it never happening (at least on a hilly site, where steeper slopes and maybe false fronts would be more commonly used) but almost everyone figures it can happen once every five years or so and can't get too upset about it.  I doubt any club would renovate a green because one golfer de-greened a putt, but it has probably happened.  As to those rub o the green putts, golfers being people, contours (i.e., Redan, Punch Bowl) that bring balls back on the green are easily accepted over those that reject, LOL.  Or as I like to put it, its "Oh crap, Oh crap,......Oh, crap, that turned out perfect!" architecture.


Short version, there is more discussion of fast greens here than is statistically warranted by actual golf in America. Why get upset if a few clubs and their members prefer ultra fast greens?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Re-reading this, I recall I was a guest at an exclusive club, hosted by the super, who I had known forever.  I was introduced to a few members, one of whom, while shaking my hand exclaimed that I would find the greens rolling super fast, 12-13 on the stimp.  My super friend, who was positioned behind him, said, "Yeah, they are running at least 12 today" but also winked while saying it, indicating that he was pretty much always trying to deceive members.  I suspect if they watch him test, he is always testing in the downhill direction to make the numbers look better.  Best of both worlds, they are putting on 10 speed greens, but think they are putting on 12 green speeds.  Everyone wins.

[John Kavanaugh]

Re-reading this, I recall I was a guest at an exclusive club, hosted by the super, who I had known forever.  I was introduced to a few members, one of whom, while shaking my hand exclaimed that I would find the greens rolling super fast, 12-13 on the stimp.  My super friend, who was positioned behind him, said, "Yeah, they are running at least 12 today" but also winked while saying it, indicating that he was pretty much always trying to deceive members.  I suspect if they watch him test, he is always testing in the downhill direction to make the numbers look better.  Best of both worlds, they are putting on 10 speed greens, but think they are putting on 12 green speeds.  Everyone wins.

A good member treats the staff as he treats his friends. Sounds like sandbagging to me.

[David Ober]

I also have one. I got tired of people (Pat Mucci among them!) saying how no one's greens are over 12. It's really fun to shut up know-it-alls who are sure they know green speeds. Several of you in the other thread were saying that 11 is fast. All I can do with that is chuckle.


I've stimped so many greens over 11.5 and even well over 12 over the years that I've completely lost count. Poa greens, in California, in the late fall and all the way through early spring, can get lightning fast even for everyday play if the super/membership want them that way. Most don't, of course, and that's fine.


And they can get even faster, obviously, when "prepped" (double-cut/rolled) for a tournament. Fastest I've ever stimped: MPCC at 14 for the Cal Am in 2006(?); Bear Creek in California prior to Senior Q-school in November, 8(?) years ago at 13.75. Tour came in and asked us to slow them down 2 feet.


We had a four(?)-month period several years ago where the greens were major championship firm and 12+ every day -- on a course with a 147 slope from the back tees and 138 from 6,450 yards. It was ... a six-month bloodbath for the mid-cappers at the club. Guys who, in the summer when the greens are receptive, could shoot 75 - 79 when things were going well, were shooting 87 - 92 -- and that was with Equitable Stroke Control!


Good times. Good times.

[John Kavanaugh]

Four months without the greens dying and everyone quitting the game?

[David Ober]

Four months without the greens dying and everyone quitting the game?

There was rain interspersed in there. Closed on Mondays. Definitely faster for the weekends so maybe slower on Tuesday and Wednesday, but, yeah, four months. The membership has very, very few "high handicappers" they just don't stick around as the course beats them up. And there was, definitely plenty of complaining -- so it was dialed back the following year.


Okay, and maybe it was only two months ... but it was pretty amazing. ;-)

[Steve Lang]

   hands down here on the stimp ...  but I've checked level and slopes with my iPhone on some greens to calibrate the ol' eyes, and have made topo maps for Ms Sheila for some of her away tourneys i've travelled to




All I want presented is true rolling greens, I'll figure out the slopes and handle the rest as able or not, just playing the game

[mike_malone]

My regular group has a song that three of us sing as the striker makes a walk back to his ball. It's the bloop bloop song. I have a feeling that I would love Rolling Green.

Open invite.

[Tim Martin]

I doubt that it would surprise anyone that I became so tired of obviously being lied to that I went out and got my own stimp meter. It brought me a piece of mind. Golf is not the only industry where the consumers are treated like rubes.

JK-Do they put the stimp meters in the same aisle as the tape measures? Disregard if you went online to Stimps R US.

[Rob Marshall]

I doubt that it would surprise anyone that I became so tired of obviously being lied to that I went out and got my own stimp meter. It brought me a piece of mind. Golf is not the only industry where the consumers are treated like rubes.

LOL, Too Fing funny. The starter at a course I play in Florida is always saying the paspalum greens are running at 10. I've been threating to bring my stimp out for years to show him he is full of crap. They are the stickiest greens I've ever played.

[David Ober]

I doubt that it would surprise anyone that I became so tired of obviously being lied to that I went out and got my own stimp meter. It brought me a piece of mind. Golf is not the only industry where the consumers are treated like rubes.

LOL, Too Fing funny. The starter at a course I play in Florida is always saying the paspalum greens are running at 10. I've been threating to bring my stimp out for years to show him he is full of crap. They are the stickiest greens I've ever played.

Do it! And video...

[Grant Saunders]

We have just finished hosting a high level national amateur event last week. We didnt stimp the greens once and Im not sure I even know where the stimp meter is!


We were, as most clubs likely do, maxed out on our available resources for greens prep anyhow. If we had stimped them and found we wanted/needed another foot of speed (as an a example) the only option really on such a narrow window to do anything is to perform additional cutting and rolling. There was no ability within our staff numbers and machinery available to carry out any mowing or rolling above what we were already doing even if we had wanted to.


The concept of hitting a targeted speed as seen in tour events where operators are instructed to mow again or roll again as many times as necessary is only the domain of very high end operations.

[David Ober]

We have just finished hosting a high level national amateur event last week. We didnt stimp the greens once and Im not sure I even know where the stimp meter is!


We were, as most clubs likely do, maxed out on our available resources for greens prep anyhow. If we had stimped them and found we wanted/needed another foot of speed (as an a example) the only option really on such a narrow window to do anything is to perform additional cutting and rolling. There was no ability within our staff numbers and machinery available to carry out any mowing or rolling above what we were already doing even if we had wanted to.


The concept of hitting a targeted speed as seen in tour events where operators are instructed to mow again or roll again as many times as necessary is only the domain of very high end operations.

Are you at Maridoe? If so, I had a buddy there, playing in the East-West matches.

[Rob Marshall]

Greens that are running at 10 to 10.5 in my mind are perfect. If you are above the hole you need to be careful if your greens have some slope. You don’t run the risk of losing them. I’ve played some tournaments where the greens were built when the stimp would have been 8. When they get to 12 they become a joke. Just stupid.


What membership would put up with greens that are causing you to shoot 10 shots higher than they would normally shot on the same course. For the record, I miss Pat Mucci.

[Grant Saunders]

Are you at Maridoe? If so, I had a buddy there, playing in the East-West matches.

Nope, Im in New Zealand

[David Ober]

Greens that are running at 10 to 10.5 in my mind are perfect. If you are above the hole you need to be careful if your greens have some slope. You don’t run the risk of losing them. I’ve played some tournaments where the greens were built when the stimp would have been 8. When they get to 12 they become a joke. Just stupid.


What membership would put up with greens that are causing you to shoot 10 shots higher than they would normally shot on the same course. For the record, I miss Pat Mucci.

I miss him too.


What many people don't understand about very fast (and firm -- it's the combo that's a killer) greens is that it's not so much the putting, it's on the approach and short game where many golfers really throw away strokes in those conditions.