stimpmeter

I brought my measuring tools to Fukuoka Raizan Golf Club last week. I measured green speed before and after tournament play with the stimpmeter, among other measurements. Here are some of the observations I made during the JLPGA’s Sky RKB Ladies Classic tournament.

A question came in about green speed. I paraphrase it here: If our peak season target is 10. What is a reasonable deviation from that? We would then aim to hit that 80% of the time to account for weather and cultural practices.

I really enjoyed listening to Rodney Lingle on the USGA Green Section Podcast. This is a podcast I recommend you all put in your listening queue. Host John Petrovsky leads the conversation in all the directions you’d want it to go.

If you want to have control of green speed, you need to have the growth rate under control. When fewer clippings are being removed from the greens at each mow, the green speed measured by the stimpmeter will be faster.

The 50th KBC Augusta tournament was played from August 24 to 27 at Keya Golf Club in Fukuoka, Japan. This was my ninth KBC Augusta tournament, and during each of these tournaments I’ve shared photos, ideas, and measurements related to the course maintenance work.

Many podcasts go on for hours. Mine often do. But this one is only 20 minutes, and for information density—a lot of useful insight in a short time—this particular episode is hard to beat.

Korai (Zoysia) putting greens have a distinctive roll because of the stiff leaf blades. One consequence of this is a slower green speed than bermudagrass when given the same maintenance.

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.

You won’t find these at every golf course in Japan, but it is common to see a green condition (グリーンコンディション) information board prominently displayed at the clubhouse. The Facebook page for Monthly Golf Management magazine (月刊ゴルフマネジメント) shared a beautiful photo gallery with representative examples of these green condition boards.