Golf Greens: Some Things To Think About

Tom Simpson, the controversial golf course architect, once likened a golf hole to a comet. The head of the comet was the green and the fairway the tail, fading off to nothing at the tee. Such is the importance that he placed on greens in golf course architecture as a whole. They dictate all that comes before them if the holes are to be mastered. Any golf course architect worth his salt understands the need to have interesting greens, although, thankfully, opinions vary on what constitutes a good green. That is what makes golf different from virtually every other sport: its infinite variety.

Over the years, some architects have famously taken risks in their green designs. My namesake, the great Dr. Alister, became infamous for his roller-coaster 18th green at Sitwell Park, but this experimentation led to his legacy at Augusta. It is the greens there that have protected the course more than anything else. It is a general trend that the courses that have stood the test of time, especially the recent ravaging effects of new clubs and balls, are those with more testing greens. If the Old Course greens were flat, it would have been ploughed under long ago.

Donald Ross designed some exciting and relatively extreme greens in his day and many of his courses remain recognised classics in the history of golf design, but all is not as it seems. Greens in his day were slow by today’s standards, with a stimpmeter reading of perhaps 6 or 7 feet. Since then, of course, green speeds have accelerated and, although many of his greens are still superb and sensible tests of golf, there are some that simply do not make sense any more. What I am saying is that playing any of Ross’s original greens today is a different experience from what he ever intended. I would contest that the considerable increase in difficulty brought about by the greater green speeds is usually appropriate and has helped to counter-balance the malign effects of the new clubs on the game. What would Donald Ross think? Would he agree or insist that that was not what he intended?

The dilemma for golf course architects comes when they are faced with greens that were once on the difficult side that have now become that little bit too difficult. It only takes an extra foot of speed for that change to happen. Once it has happened, what does a club do? The first answer is usually to pretend that nothing is wrong. One club in Boston has a green that is so steep that, if you end up behind the flag when greens are at full speed, it is impossible to stay on the green and your ball finally comes to rest 60 or 70 yards back down the fairway. But, at what point does a club decide enough is enough?

The answer may be when the usable areas of green become so small that the turf cannot be kept in good condition in those areas. Once a decision has been made to rebuild (the easy bit), the next big decision is what shape to use. Do you simply mellow it off a little so that it remains extreme? That may work well for a few years, but if the green speeds increase again, another reconstruction may be necessary quite soon. But if the green becomes too mellow, the hole may well have lost its recently discovered venom and the project can backfire. On some of Ross’s courses, all of the greens have become very severe and this becomes difficult to decide.

I feel that times have changed since many of the great courses were built and the added difficulty is appropriate. Many courses have little scope to extend and green reconstruction is intended to last for decades. Past experience says that further advances in clubs and balls is inevitable, so greens are a course’s best defence. Boldness but not rashness is the key. It is a cardinal sin to rebuild greens that are too small or too heavily contoured to sustain good turf, so a concentration of creative green surrounds is a priority. Interesting and challenging bunkers and surrounds shaping makes all of the difference and places a premium on strategic ball placement. Good surrounds should be those where any variety of recovery shots, not the monotony of lob wedge play. This approach is faithful to the approach of our forefathers and is appropriate to the challenges facing today’s game.

This article originally appeared in Golf Course Architecture October 2005. Click here for further information.