Reclaiming lost green surfaces

By Jeff Mingay

Back in 1927, in his landmark book titled Golf Architecture in America, legendary golf architect George Thomas declared the strategy of the golf course to be the very soul of the game.

The world's very best golf courses, including Thomas' own Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles, are indeed strategic. In other words, they present more than a test of physical skill. By presenting optional routes of play, strategic layouts require golfers to think their way around the course; to play each shot with the next in mind.

The green complex dictates the strategy of a well-designed hole. The predominated slope, contour, and general orientation of the putting surface combine with surrounding hazards to suggest a favourable angle from which to approach. Those golfers able to determine that position from the tee, and then execute the required stroke are usually rewarded with a relatively unimpeded path to the hole; a simpler shot, if you will.

In Thomas' day - an era affectionately referred to as The Golden Age of Golf Design - green surfaces were often laid-out in irregular shapes. Some of the most interesting greens from yesteryear, for example, featured lobes of putting surface jutting behind and between hazards that forced golfers to play strategic angles.

Sadly, we more often find round, non-descript greens on aged layouts today. Why? Many classical greens have shrunken significantly in size over the years. In fact, without astute attention to detail, entire golf courses generally tend to become progressively smaller in scale as times passes. Trees grow to narrow corridors of play. Fairways, in turn, become thinner. And green surfaces nearly undetectably retreat toward their centres.

Maintenance workers take care not to scalp green collars in the process of mowing each day. Thus, a typical green can be expected to lose about one-eighth of an inch of surface area per year. That might not seem like much, but multiply one-eighth of an inch annually by twenty, forty, or eighty years and the dramatic nature of this phenomenon is evident.

As greens shrink, the most thought-provoking hole locations on their outer edges of putting surfaces disappear. And, with that, nearly all golf courses lose their original strategic character as they age.

With the assistance of classically minded golf architects, a legion of golf course superintendents are today reclaiming lost green surface area on their aged courses. Armed with original plans and historical photos, some have surprisingly discovered a total loss of more than an acre of green surface area over a period of fifty years and more.

Depending on the prevalent grass types, and the extent of loss, green surface reclamation might be as simple as gradually mowing out to the original dimensions again, and aerating, topdressing, and over-seeding those areas. If not, stripping and re-sodding might be required.

For the record, I know of a few enterprising golf course superintendents who, in preparation for such a project, started sod nurseries with green aeration cores to ensure those soon-to-be expanded areas will match their existing putting surfaces identically.

In order for a green surface reclamation project to be ultimately successful, favourable angles from which to approach re-introduced hole locations must be re-introduced as well. This may require some adjustment/expansion to existing fairways, which inevitably leads to two common concerns about such a project: 1) Will course maintenance costs increase significantly? and, 2) Will the course become "too easy"?

With more manicured turf to look after, maintenance costs will likely increase slightly. But, in most cases, additional costs could be offset. Cultivating more natural areas, which require much less intensive maintenance and also add greatly to the aesthetic value of the course, might do the trick for example. And maybe some previously unforeseen cost savings will also be realized with more green surface area over which to spread wear-and-tear.

As for the playability of the course, it's interesting that green and fairway expansion caters perfectly to all calibers of golfers. With the re-introduction of a course's most strategic and challenging hole locations, the level of difficultly potentially increases for better golfers. At the same time, high handicappers are provided more room to get around. If as a result, the average player shoots 95 more often than 100, the game of golf is better for it.

In fact, it's quite simple to make a golf course play difficult. On the other hand, it takes research, thought, and planning to return strategic interest to an aged layout. Investigating the potential for green surface reclamation and related improvements to fairway patterns is the first step toward re-introducing some strategy and excitement to your golf course.

Appears in the September 2001 issue of GreenMaster magazine