Why be square?

[Mark_Fine]

I like them and I should know the answer but I don’t.  Many classic greens were squarish in shape.  Does anyone know the logic behind why?  I have often told golfers/members if their golf course is a Ross and it has round greens, then the greens have been changed because Ross didn’t build round greens.  We restored an old Emment course after finding an original drawing and old photos and returned all the greens to their squarish shapes.  They look great but why were the square in the first place? 

[Tom_Doak]

Mark:


Good question.  I take it from your example that you are talking about generally rectangular green pads, and not the 90-degree-corner mowing lines that have become a retro fad lately?


The two best answers I can come up with are (a) lack of imagination and (b) perceived fairness.


The early inland "Victorian" courses with their dragon's teeth mounds were not geometric to make a visual statement, I think, but had square greens because that was the simplest description of what a green was to the construction crews who built them.  Once you decide a green should be thirty paces deep, most people will assume a rectangle.


The fairness part I mention is about being able to hold the green with an approach shot; if it's not roughly square then a shot is much more likely to leak off the back on the shallower side, and that would seem unfair from 160 yards out where it's hard to tell what's going on.  Most early greens were built to receive shots, not to repel them, because getting there was much harder than it is today.

[Tim Martin]

Some of the greens at the Orchards in Massachusetts which is a 1922 Donald Ross course have been recently “squared”. They play and look good and I’m going to check into whether they were the original shapes as there is a lot of archival information at the club.

[Tim Gavrich]

Might formally rectangular greens resist shrinkage over time a little more than rounded ones do? I would imagine a squared-off edge is easier to measure periodically to make sure the mowers aren't losing inches per year.

[Jim Hoak]

I've always been told that squared-off greens increase possible hole locations.  Not true?

[Joe Hancock]

I've always been told that squared-off greens increase possible hole locations.  Not true?

Jim,


Draw a square, then draw a circle inside the square. True.


However, let’s say the area the green is located is circular, but then someone imposes a a square-cut green on it. Then, false.

[Mark_Fine]

Yes I am talking about the squarish greens you see on almost every Ross drawing and on many other early plans as well.  Ross as well as most every other early architect didn't care about fairness so it is hard to believe it is that.  I don't recall reading much about why they had that kind of shape.  It must have had to do with maintenance as most of the early architects were concerned about how their designs would be cared for.  Many were greenskeepers. 

[Sven Nilsen]

Mark -


Saying Ross built rectangular greens is a bit of a misnomer.  The leading edge of his greens may have often been squared off to the fairway, but on the whole there is no particular shape that sums up the greens he built.  He built them on angles, with rounded back edges, with cutouts on certain sides, boomerang shaped, etc. 


As an example, here are his green sketches for Myers Park - https://giventufts.pastperfectonline.com/webobject/DDAC830A-6F14-4EF5-B27C-856633829613


Sven

[Thomas Dai]

Lines of least resistance?
Looks like the kind of machine that might be easier to manoeuvre in a straight line than around intricate curves and slopes.
atb

[Peter Pallotta]

Did the rectangular shapes go hand-in-hand with tilted (as opposed to contoured) greens?
Or to put it differently: if the design
wasn’t for contoured greens (but instead for ‘flat’ and back-to-front tilted ones), did the mind of the builders naturally gravitate towards ‘matching’ geometric-rectangular shapes? 

[Thomas Dai]

Square and stripes.
Royal Cinque Ports a long time ago.
atb

(photo per Fried Egg website article)

[JMEvensky]

Are square/rectangular greens any more/less difficult to mow? To this lay person it would seem the corners would be more exacting.

[Mark_Fine]

Sven,
I didn't say rectangular, I said "squarish" for Ross.  If you look at most of his greens, they fit that kind of shape though all the corners are rounded off (I was not implying they look like that Deal photo). 


I just looked at the Myers Park drawings and even those are predominately squarish in shape (they certainly aren't round circles).  Many of the squarish shapes become round over time for a variety of reasons.  Look at the greens just "restored" at Winged Foot.  They are mostly squarish - why was that the case early on in design? 

[Jeff_Brauer]

I always figured it had something to do with the hand green mowers in use at the time.  If not a square edge, which would be easy to mow, then if they wanted a round corner, those walk behind mowers would probably have had a pretty tight turn radius, althouth picking them up and turning them 90 degrees would probably be easier.


Riding mowers from at least the 1970's had a turn radius of up to 27 feet, although I have no idea what the modern ones are.  But, the conversion to riding mowers and their turning diameters probably affected green shapes.


Just a guess.

[Sven Nilsen]

Mark:

Squares are rectangles.

You and I see very different things in those Myers Park greens (just look at 17 alone).  There are certainly a couple that are way closer to circles than they are to any kind of rounded off square.  But perhaps we're splitting hairs here.

The point I was trying to make is that Ross built greens of all shapes.   

He built greens of all shapes and sizes.  He was building greens over a nearly 50 year design career, through a few different eras of design trends.  He built courses during the "geometric" or "victorian" era of design, and he built courses during the golden age and beyond.  He built courses that had sand greens.  Many of those were nearly perfect circles.

If there's one thing you can say about Ross is that his career, and his courses, defy definition.

So to say he didn't build circular greens is a fallacy.

To answer your original question, early on the green was for the most part a continuation of the fairway, just mown at a lower height.  If you continue the fairway lines for the length of the green, you get the squared off shape you're discussing.

When greens started being built up, the became more of a separate part of the course, its own entity and no longer merely an extension of the fairway.  Around that time, the idea of replicating nature had fully taken hold.  The curve is way more natural than the straight line.

Sven

[Mark_Fine]

Sven,
We do see things a bit differently.  #17 looks more square than round to me, however, as you say maybe we are splitting hairs.  And yes I know Ross went through several different what I will call design phases so depending on when the course was designed and who was working with him they will look different and depending on whether he spent time on the site or even whether he even ever saw the site in person, will matter a lot.  But I think you would agree he didn’t design truly round greens except for the pure sand ones but no one counts those because they don’t exist anymore and they are never something that anyone is trying to restore.  His predominant shapes are more squarish in my mind. 


I like your logic about fairway lines running into greens, etc. That makes sense. 

[Sven Nilsen]

But I think you would agree he didn’t design truly round greens

He didn't design truly square ones either.


Langford would probably have been a better example for this exercise.  I keep thinking about Spring Valley in Wisconsin.  The greens have shrunk over the years and the mowing patterns have been drawn in to the circular shapes you are talking about.  You can see the rectangular/squarish shapes of the original green pads, and wonder what the course might be like if they extended back to the original dimensions.

[Mark_Fine]

Seen,
Agreed.  Even Raynor and McDonald didn’t design purely square greens (like in that Deal photo), but they gravitated toward that kind of shape.  Your example about Spring Valley is a good one.  I come across greens like that often, ones that have turned into circles/ovals and that was not how the architect intended them to be.

[Jim_Kennedy]

..a side benefit of a square green is there'll always be four healthy, untrammeled, wedge shaped 'nurseries' in the corners that can be cut out and moved to patch bad spots 'inside the circle'.


 

 

[Garland Bayley]

Lines of least resistance?
Looks like the kind of machine that might be easier to manoeuvre in a straight line than around intricate curves and slopes.
atb

This too was my impression. Technology of the day bread squarish greens.

[Tim Martin]

I had the super of a Ross course tell me that he reintroduced some squared greens in effort to get those with false fronts back to their original intent of having balls rolling and giving the golfer a variety of shots to play. They are squared in front only.

[Mark_Fine]

Tim,
Good to hear.  Sven gave a great explanation why the fronts are often more squared off than the backs.  Bringing back those squared off fronts also helps open up the approaches which not only looks great but encourages the ground game especially if the approaches are kept firm.