playability

Here are some common questions about turfgrass management: how much fertilizer should I be adding at this time of year? how often should I topdress with sand? how often should I be verticutting?

This is a difficult problem—pitch mark scars—and the only long term solution I know of is firmer surfaces. I was reminded of that this week when I saw balls bouncing on the greens at a tournament in Japan (see videos below).

David Bataller organized a seminar in the VIP tent behind the 18th green on Thursday morning during the Catalunya Championship. Measuring air temperature, humidity, and wind speed on the 18th green just after sunrise.

Chris Tritabaugh has been writing an extraordinarily interesting series of blog posts. The topic, broadly, is putting green management and putting green performance. That’s a big topic, obviously. Chris, on his blog, has been taking a route through it that describes what he’s been doing and what he’s been measuring.

Chris Tritabaugh and I met to review the OM246 test results from samples collected in October 2021 at Hazeltine National Golf Club. We did this as a livestream episode of ATC Office Hours, which is available for watching or listening at your leisure.

I’ve used many different methods to assess the quality of ball roll on putting greens. This is not the distance the ball rolls—that measurement is commonly called the speed of the greens.

That’s the question I was asking myself leading into the ＫＢＣオーガスタ tournament. Because it wasn’t just playing any kind of golf. It was professional golf, televised golf, and it also happened to rain 827 mm (32 inches) from the start of August until Friday morning of tournament week (August 27).

This chart shows almost a full season of bobble test measurements from Hazeltine National GC. I discussed measurements of smoothness and trueness of ball roll in this video, and I mentioned that I use and recommend the bobble test as a way to make these measurements.

When Cam Shaw wrote with a question about measuring smoothness and trueness, he mentioned that he’d searched my blog and didn’t find anything. “Wow,” I thought, “have I really written nothing about this?

Zoysia putting greens are common from Japan to Singapore because manilagrass—Zoysia matrella, or korai in Japanese—is tolerant of close mowing in the climate of East and Southeast Asia. The ball roll on zoysia putting greens is distinctive because the grass leaves are so stiff.