False fronts on greens

[Mark_Fine]

A lurker saw The Biarritz thread and noticed many here don’t care for the swale being maintained as green surface.  He emailed me asking why the front areas of several of their greens that have large false fronts should continue to be maintained as green surface since the area is never pinned and if kept at fairway/approach cut would save money and serve the same purpose as balls could still be bounced up onto the flatter middle/back portions of the green and would still run off the front if they end up short.  Apparently some of this particular course’s false fronts are large composing 25% or more of the green surface.


Personally I hope we didn’t start something here and clubs begin reducing green surface in the front portions of their perched false front greens.  Thoughts?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Mark,


I agree that many will find any non-cupped slope to be a "waste of green surface."  Of course, anything in the 10-12 foot perimeter around the edge won't be cupped and can be steeper than 3%, so small ones don't waste cup space.


I tended to do false fronts only when the approach shot was gently uphill and it was the best way to see some of the green surface.


I recall de-greening a putt from above the cup at Ojai, in front of many friends.  Going from putting to chipping again is always a bit embarrassing, and memorable, which limited my use of false fronts for other reasons.  That said, I tell myself it isn't as bad as having de-greened a putt into a greenside bunker.........


So, like anything, the practical types will tell us it is wasted space, but in a few spots, it can be an essential design feature.

[Ira Fishman]

I am quite confident that both of you are better architects than Donald Ross.


Ira

[Mark_Fine]

Ira,
Not sure where you are coming from?? The topic was false fronts and that someone questioned their value?   I happen to love them and have added or restored many over the years. 


But to your comment, yes there are many grounds committee members who oversee golf courses who think they are better architects than Donald Ross (they are one of the many reasons courses get changed over the years and why some of us have work).  It’s why trees get planted, water features added, bunkers changed or removed, greens altered, grassing lines altered, …..the list goes on.

[Matt Schoolfield]

I always assumed that the main purpose of false front is to cause confusion/hesitation as to the distance to the green. With the advent of laser/gps units, this seems even more potent.

I think false fronts are worth maintaining if that is an important strategic aspect to the hole. Especially if hole locations can be placed at various depths to force decisions on whether to flirt with the false front or not.

[James Bennett]

On an uphill approach, there are four choices for the architect that I can think of.


1. Have a false front which then permits a player to run the ball onto the green, but it also allows a weaker ball to roll back.
2. Have a raised front edge which makes the green surface blind and prevents a ball running onto the green because of the steeper approach slope required.
3. Locate the green further back up the hill where the slope surrounding the green is gentler, and a false front is not necessary.  Of course, this also results in a blind approach shot where perhaps the top of the flag only can be seen.
4. locate the green at the bottom of the slope.  This results in a much shorter hole and a longer walk to the next tee.


I think option 1 can be an excellent option.


Regarding the decision about whether the sloped approach should be cut as green or approach - I am happy to have it as green as it increases the options for play.  Options are good, as are having a greater range of outcomes for a shot (eg putting off the green.  Something memorable).


James B

[Donnie Beck]

A lurker saw The Biarritz thread and noticed many here don’t care for the swale being maintained as green surface.  He emailed me asking why the front areas of several of their greens that have large false fronts should continue to be maintained as green surface since the area is never pinned and if kept at fairway/approach cut would save money and serve the same purpose as balls could still be bounced up onto the flatter middle/back portions of the green and would still run off the front if they end up short.  Apparently some of this particular course’s false fronts are large composing 25% or more of the green surface.


Personally I hope we didn’t start something here and clubs begin reducing green surface in the front portions of their perched false front greens.  Thoughts?

The false front is essential to the design of the Birritz. A running shot has to have enough steam to clear the false front or it falls back into the chasm.

[Thomas Dai]

The effective playability and options of false fronts and especially the approaches to them are diminished with irrigation/over-irrigation.
Grass types on the approaches are important too.
Atb

[Mark_Fine]

Thomas,
I was just typing this as you posted your point about maintenance (Donnie said similar) but I will post it anyway. 


Lots of good points made about “false fronts”. As stated, I think they can be a great design feature and I add and restore them often. 


One important point to make about false fronts is that this aspect of design is one that has definitely changed over time because of maintenance practices.  What is a false front now may not have been when the course was first built.  Remember grass selection and height of cut has everything to do with how big and how false your false front really is.  Back when Donald Ross for example built his “false front” greens, some might have been more for visual purposes because he wanted the golfer to see the front edge of the green vs always having the ball roll off the front when it ended up there. Some of those false front slopes might have been pinnable (or at least much more of that area) because many greens were rolling back then at 4 or 5 and not 10 or 11.  The ball would stay on most of the slope vs roll off as it would today with modern grasses and maintenance.   


So one could argue would the original architect still want as much “false front” which is a non pinnable area as there is today?  We just rebuilt a green where 3/4 of the green was effectively “false front” because none of that area was pinnable anymore because the green was so steeply sloped.  If they kept the greens at 5 or 6 all would be fine but who does that anymore.

[Thomas Dai]

Mark,

I omitted to mention equipment in my earlier post …… niblicks and mashies and jiggers back in time too. No lofted wedges with milled grooves back then. Indeed the overall trajectory that the game is played to has changed sooo much over time.
Atb

[Carl Johnson]

I'll comment on a false front feature.  Ross course, but "renovated."  One false front green has a small ledge (10/12") with a much lesser slope right before the fairway drops off significantly.  If the ball coming back toward the fairway has momentum from the false front slope, it will tootle  on down the fairway.  However, it's also possible for a ball to come to rest on the little ledge if it just barely makes the green.  I don't think of this as a strategic feature as much as adding a little fun quirk that's significant when the pin is located in the dreaded position just beyond the false front.

[Mark_Fine]

Carl,
Do you know that little ledge on the front of your green (especially if it is part of the green surface) was probably not original and is a result of years of top dressing or suspect restoration.  And if it is just in front of the green surface it was likely added “for fairness” to keep some balls from rolling too far    I learned that 20+ years ago from Gil Hanse.  Soil probes would likely help confirm things.  But as you say, some like yourself might like the added/changed feature.  Others might think it changes the original design intent.  Then again, back when Ross built that green and the green surface was rolling at say 5 and the approach 2, how far would that ball really roll down the fairway??

[Carl Johnson]

Mark, as best I can recall, and it is only that, the "shelf" was not part of the prior version of the green as I had played it before 2008, the date of the new work.  However, the architect who "redid, restored, renewed" the course, Kris Spence, did make a effort to recover the original outlines of the greens, which had become substantially smaller over time.  So, your suggestions are all reasonable.   We have several other false front greens that do not include this feature.  In those cases the slope of the green continues directly into the fairway.

[Mark_Fine]

Carl,
Thanks for the response.  Kris might have purposely added that small shelf to keep some balls from a worse fate.  As I said on the thread about runoffs, back when greens were rolling at 5 and fairways and approaches at 2 or 3, the ball wouldn’t often roll that far in those areas (at least not nearly as far as it would today) so maybe Kris took that into consideration. 


This has nothing to do with false fronts, but on the left side of our first green at Lehigh, there is a fairly steep fall off. Beyond that fall off is one of the tees for our 18th hole. A shelf was added between that tee and the 1st green to help keep some balls that bounce off the slope from ending up on the tee.  I had a guest once tell me that was really clever of Flynn to add that feature.  I had to tell him it was added years ago by the superintendent . 

[Tim Liddy]

A false front is an excellent example of using contour as a strategic defense, especially for front hole locations. And they do not have to be at the front. Look at the roll-offs at Memorial Park showcased this past week. Excellent examples of using contours as a fun strategic defense.

[Jeff_Brauer]

I am quite confident that both of you are better architects than Donald Ross.


Ira

Ira, I hate to derail Mark's nice "conceptual design thread" which I always find to be the most stimulating type of discussion here, over access, ranking, or specific course/hole threads.


That said, part of my new role is to stay in touch with many architects.  Many of them say they don't believe they could do any better than Ross (or another famous gca) and I always ask, "Why not?"  Frankly, the ego needed to be successful in this biz makes it unlikely, to me, that any practitioner doesn't really believe that he/she is better than Ross, etc.  As a profession, I think any design profession takes the best of the past and blends and builds on it, then applies those ideas to new conditions and site specific designs.  If we are building, then naturally our top tier architects should be as good or better than the old guys.


That is not to say we don't recognize all the great things they have done, often with more limited resources, and yes, there are many holes we shouldn't change, but many more that we probably should.


The only real question (to bring it back to Mark's point) is to consider why a false front makes sense or doesn't in the particular case the architect is facing.  So, I gave you the considerations I would take into account in design....others gave you a few instances where particular examples of false fronts were either good or bad.  Again, neither general rules or specific examples given would be the final say in whether most professional architects would use an FF in any particular situation.


No problem, though.......I am sure you think you are a better poster than any professional architect here.....so we're even!

[Ira Fishman]

Jeff,


Lol and fair enough.


Ira

[Mark_Fine]

As Tim said these run off areas (on the sides and backs) can be a great design feature.  We added a bunch of them recently throughout the golf course on an old William Gordon design.  Gordon, like Flynn, who Gordon worked under for many years, liked to do what I call “pull ups” where he lifted up the edge of the green and “roll offs” where he rolled the edge of the green over and balls in this area would roll off the green surface.  In the case of this particular course we were not doing pure restoration so we had liberties in our design.  I enjoy these closely mown areas and felt they would work well at this golf course and add more variety.  We didn’t have an enormous budget and used low mow blue grass in some of these roll off (closely mown) areas vs a more expensive tightly cut bent grass which would have carried the ball much farther away. You do what you can given the budget and resources available.  The fairways were not bent grass so the low mow blue matched up better as well.

[Kalen Braley]

I'm mildly surprised the following hasn't come up:

If the data really is true that the vast majority of lesser players' misses will be short, it would seem false fronts are mostly just adding insult to injury for said group.  Being one of those high cap golfers myself, I don't mind them as long as they are used like other penal features...sparingly.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Kalen,


Good point.  I have redesigned some older greens with false fronts.  Where the club wanted to keep them, they did like the idea of raising the frontal approach so that at least the ball didn't roll too far down and away from the green.

[Ken Moum]

Mark,

I omitted to mention equipment in my earlier post …… niblicks and mashies and jiggers back in time too. No lofted wedges with milled grooves back then. Indeed the overall trajectory that the game is played to has changed sooo much over time.
Atb

Are you sure about that?  The Bak-Spin mashie niblick might have a comment.

[Mark_Fine]

Jeff,
We have sometimes been asked to do the same especially where we are modifying an entire green.  As you well know, to soften a green that is for example pitched back to front at 6-8% or more, you don't just adjust the contour of the green area.  You have to make adjustments well out into the approach to get everything to tie in together seamlessly (or at least that is how we do it).  The area of disturbance can be quite large but this gives us if we want, the option to soften the approach so balls don't roll as far off the false front down into that area.


Again, as much as it is a cool feature, having a five foot putt for par that turns into a 50 yard approach shot for bogie can get old.  Like anything, all good if used in moderation.