The most annoying thing in golf, and it's not pace of play

[playit]

15 hours ago, Shilgy said:

Most courses the hole cutter knows little about golf. So stupid positions happen. I asked our super one day why they don’t move the tees around a bit. Save wear and tear on the tee boxes. I asked if they could keep same relative yardage but have one tee, an example, moved up 20 yards and a couple moved back 10 yards to balance it out. He laughed and said for the guys cutting tees that would be well above their abilities.

  Same with the pin positions. If they’re not told to not put a pin in certain spots how would they know better?  Ideally every course the hole cutter would have some golf experience.

 

Why doesn't the pro or the greenskeeper, golf superintendant, whatever you call them, visit each hole as part of his job and mark where the hole should be cut? I have no idea, just makes sense to me that somebody who is a golfer needs to do this.

 

Also, do they cut new holes daily or how often on most courses?

[knock it close]

15 minutes ago, playit said:

 

Why doesn't the pro or the greenskeeper, golf superintendant, whatever you call them, visit each hole as part of his job and mark where the hole should be cut? I have no idea, just makes sense to me that somebody who is a golfer needs to do this.

 

Also, do they cut new holes daily or how often on most courses?

Time, money, allocation of resources. My club has some green map software and and assistant pro uses that to set pin locations each day. Sup can also set guidelines for pinable locations on the green and areas they want to use/avoid. 

[Ferguson]

Stopping for food on the turn.  

Not raking bunkers, correctly.

People carrying multiple towels.

Dropping the flag on the green. 

[Double Mocha Man]

2 hours ago, playit said:

 

Why doesn't the pro or the greenskeeper, golf superintendant, whatever you call them, visit each hole as part of his job and mark where the hole should be cut? I have no idea, just makes sense to me that somebody who is a golfer needs to do this.

 

Also, do they cut new holes daily or how often on most courses?

 

I'm pretty sure our course superintendent gives his hole cutters a paper map showing the shape of each green and where the hole should go.

 

 

 

Edited November 4, 2024 by Double Mocha Man

[larrybud]

1 hour ago, knock it close said:

Time, money, allocation of resources. My club has some green map software and and assistant pro uses that to set pin locations each day. Sup can also set guidelines for pinable locations on the green and areas they want to use/avoid. 

 

do you know what the software is?

[596]

1 hour ago, playit said:

 

Why doesn't the pro or the greenskeeper, golf superintendant, whatever you call them, visit each hole as part of his job and mark where the hole should be cut? I have no idea, just makes sense to me that somebody who is a golfer needs to do this.

 

Also, do they cut new holes daily or how often on most courses?

Most courses cut daily. Ours is 4 days a week.  Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday.   Our greens are too small for 7 holes each week. 

 

Most maintenance staff here do not play golf.  It would be near impossible to find all staff that plays.  You'd never get fully staffed.  Correct training is the only answer.

[Liquifire]

I've been a superintendent and currently cut cups at my local course part time.  I'll echo what others have said here:  it comes down to training.  Ultimately it falls to the superintendent to follow behind the crew before play goes out and QC the setup.   

 

At a minimum a guy will be given a cup cutter and an explanation of a grid system (front, middle, back or a numbered grid) and turned loose.   I wouldn't let anyone cut cups without working with them for at least a week or two.  Discussing green slopes, pin difficulty, pace of play, etc... 

 

This season we cut cups on Tues, Thurs, Sat and Sun.  On weekdays, I cut 7 easy pins, 2 medium pins, and 1 hard pin a side. On weekends, everything almost in the middle to keep pace of play as fast as possible.  We also move tee markers up on weekends. 

 

 

[knock it close]

1 hour ago, larrybud said:

 

do you know what the software is?

I do not, but I can probably reach out. 

[jda]

Even if a course cannot move cups every day, I would like them recut.  Don't want a 3.75 inch cup that is 2 days old in peak growing season.

[MountainKing]

I don't mind a tough pin, or even what many would call an "unfair" pin, but for the love of god can we save those for the days when the courses aren't as crowded? 

[Shilgy]

6 hours ago, playit said:

 

Why doesn't the pro or the greenskeeper, golf superintendant, whatever you call them, visit each hole as part of his job and mark where the hole should be cut? I have no idea, just makes sense to me that somebody who is a golfer needs to do this.

 

Also, do they cut new holes daily or how often on most courses?

We don’t have an issue with the pins…just(imo) the lack of imagination with the tees.

[596]

A lot of this comes back to golf course design.  Lots of greens that are way too fast for the slopes.  Lots of greens that have just too much slope to begin with, period.  The vast majority of any green should be able to handle a pin location.  Many greens now a days are too sloped and too fast.  When you have a green with only a few locations to set a pin, something is wrong.

 

 

[596]

4 hours ago, jda said:

Even if a course cannot move cups every day, I would like them recut.  Don't want a 3.75 inch cup that is 2 days old in peak growing season.

There is no such animal as recutting a hole.  You either leave it or cut a new one somewhere else.  

[James the Hogan Fan]

18 hours ago, jda said:

Even if a course cannot move cups every day, I would like them recut.  Don't want a 3.75 inch cup that is 2 days old in peak growing season.

 

If you send someone out there with the hole cutter) and the cup puller, a trowel, a set of different colored flags, and a bucket), it's as much work to cut the hole in the same place as it is to find a new one. At the most optimistic it takes over an hour to change all the holes; (any amount of time times 18 greens + driving the cart between them.) 

 

One of my least favorite things, particularly for courses I play frequently, is when greens are zoned such that a front left pin on 1 automatically implies a middle right pin on 2 and so on. I don't want to play to the same hole locations and especially not the same sequence of 18 hole locations every time I play. (This happens when a course divides each green into 7 sectors and rotates through them daily)

 

When I would set, my basic rules were:

1. 6 front/6 middle/6 back (ideally 3/3/3 per 9 but not always)

2. Not in the same F/M/B as yesterday (except some greens had a single zone large enough to support multiple locations)

2. No more than 2 in a row of the same F/M/B

3. We had 3 par 3's, one would be gettable, one would be tucked, one would be average. (Same for the 3 par 5's).

 

(For corporate tournaments I would set all 3 par 3s as easy/funneling as I could. Hole-in-ones are good for business. I would also typically set the two shortest par 4s (310, 285 uphill) front edge clear of bunkers to tempt people into going for the green. (Again making the course as fun as possible.))

 

Lastly if I knew I would be playing in the afternoon, I'd set whatever challenge I wanted if any for that round; it's good to be the king. 

 

[jda]

The little par 3 course that I worked at in HS had small greens with few hole locations.  We moved holes three times a week and recut the same ones on the other day.  Maybe it is a lost art since the 1990s like MTV, acid washed jeans and everybody knowing how to drive a manual transmission.

 

What is nuts is that the courses around me that do this have large greens and are just lazy... which they will admit to.

[596]

I always set in F/M/B unless there were extenuating circumstances.  We have 3 flag colors for FMB.  No need to change the flag on the pin. Just pick up the pin and take it to the next hole.  

[mshills]

On 11/3/2024 at 9:31 AM, larrybud said:

I will die on this hill: Dumb/poor pin positions.

 

5th hole at my club yesterday, pin is so close to the false front and green speeds so high, that balls cannot stay on the green. One playing partner had a putt, BARELY missed it on the HIGH side (if the green were flat he would have ended a foot from the hole), and it rolled off the front of the green. Balls impossible to stop when going down hill.

 

Every pin setter should get the bubble level app on their phone, and measure 3' around the hole in 4 spots and make sure it doesn't go over a certain percent grade (that value depending on their green speeds). At our club, anything > 2% and the ball will not stop going downhill.

 

Putting the pin there does NOTHING for the quality of play, and in fact only slows things down.

 

I’m with you on this one. Our place is not usually too bad but occasionally there’s a couple that are “c’mon man!” time.

 

I have two more of the most annoying things in golf:

 

1. Complaining about slow play. 

2. Blind tee shot that reveals this fairway. 😯 And it slopes towards white stakes. 😡 Good luck holding that! You like that one? 

 

[Double Mocha Man]

23 minutes ago, mshills said:

I’m with you on this one. Our place is not usually too bad but occasionally there’s a couple that are “c’mon man!” time.

 

I have two more of the most annoying things in golf:

 

1. Complaining about slow play. 

2. Blind tee shot that reveals this fairway. 😯 And it slopes towards white stakes. 😡 Good luck holding that! You like that one? 

 

 

That's insane.  You have to land your drive in the left rough to hopefully stay in the fairway.

[mshills]

39 minutes ago, Double Mocha Man said:

That's insane.  You have to land your drive in the left rough to hopefully stay in the fairway.

I don’t think you can hit that fairway! I am looking back from the green there. Even a straight up slice from the tee….might stay there but it will just as likely come to a near stop then roll down the hill. I hit like a couple yard draw and my ball was out of bounds, not even close. 😡

[Double Mocha Man]

1 hour ago, mshills said:

I’m with you on this one. Our place is not usually too bad but occasionally there’s a couple that are “c’mon man!” time.

 

I have two more of the most annoying things in golf:

 

1. Complaining about slow play. 

2. Blind tee shot that reveals this fairway. 😯 And it slopes towards white stakes. 😡 Good luck holding that! You like that one? 

 

 

Looks like someone took out their frustration on that dead tree in the background.

[BdaGolfer]

On 11/4/2024 at 12:46 PM, knock it close said:

I do not, but I can probably reach out. 

EZLocator recommends pin positions based on a number of criteria, and the app shows the pins each day.

[No_Catchy_Nickname]

On 11/6/2024 at 9:24 AM, mshills said:

I’m with you on this one. Our place is not usually too bad but occasionally there’s a couple that are “c’mon man!” time.

 

I have two more of the most annoying things in golf:

 

1. Complaining about slow play. 

2. Blind tee shot that reveals this fairway. 😯 And it slopes towards white stakes. 😡 Good luck holding that! You like that one? 

 

 

Yeah, that's bad. How much rough is there between the fairway and the white stakes?

 

And is the rough thick enough to stop the ball...

[joeconn]

Larrybud, I'm with you 100%. The only 2 times I tossed a club this season were due to pin placements. Not proud of that, just being honest. I enjoy hard, fair, pin locations. Close to a ridge is fine for me. We have a few holes (#4, #7, #13, #15) with greens that have a prominent ridge across or diagonal across the green. Occasionally they'll cut one of those cups within 3' of the ridge edge. I'm ok with that because otherwise those greens are all pretty flat, so even if you miss a putt as long as your speed is close you'll end up with a reasonable 2nd putt if you started on the right tier. It also means you have to play a certain way and if you don't any you fail you are penalized. Like #4, a short par 3. if the pin is up front on the lower tier but close to the ridge if you don't play safe off the tee (to the front of the green or short is ok too) and end up on the back part of the green, even a good putt from the back will run 6'-8' by the hole unless it hits the stick/cup. That green has decent depth, around 25 yards, and the hole plays 100 yards from the regular tees and 120 from the tips - big downhill. I think it's a reasonable demand that a player is accurate to within ~12 yards on length from 100 yards to get onto the correct tier.

 

On the other hand, our #2, #3, #6, #16, #17 greens have some locations that can be unfair depending on how fast the greens are and where the pins are cut. #2 and #3, the issue is with front pins if the greens are on the faster side. Both those greens are steeper sloped the front 1/4 and less sloped as you go towards the back. We've all hit good shots into those greens that bounce up and settle back to the front fringe. That's ok. The problem is if the cups are cut in the first 15' of either of those greens any putt that comes up short from below will roll back to the fringe about 50% of the time. The other 50% it will catch something and stick near the cup. Too much chance and variability to be fair. The club rarely cuts cups that close to the front on those holes.

 

#6 and #17 can be flat out unfair. #6 green, the front right is unplayable due to the slope. Any cup within 20' of the front right corner, there is no flatter spot around a hole location to stop the ball. You can hit a putt past the hole that will roll back into the hole. I 7-putted that hole earlier this season!! Tee shot to the front right fringe. Then rolled 7 putts towards the hole. The first 6 came back to my feet, the 7th went past the hole and came back to roll in the top side. I made an 8 and launched my putter towards the next tee. One of my playing partners made a miracle 3 that day - missed the green left, pitched to about 6' above the hole (where it's flatter), downhill putt hit the flagstick and dropped in. My other playing partners made 5 and 6 from near where I was. A par 3 on a public course not in a tournament that plays 10 over for a 4some of single digit handicappers is an issue with course setup. #17 can be similar for cups on the right 1/4 of that green, everything slopes towards the right. But that green is flatter so if you play your approach to favor the right side you have a somewhat reasonable uphill putt. Just don't be left or short on your approach.

[mshills]

10 hours ago, No_Catchy_Nickname said:

 

Yeah, that's bad. How much rough is there between the fairway and the white stakes?

 

And is the rough thick enough to stop the ball...

1. Not enough. 
2. Nope. 

[No_Catchy_Nickname]

45 minutes ago, mshills said:

1. Not enough. 
2. Nope. 

 

Bad design.

 

There's a course nearby here that I have played a lot with a weird par 5 a bit like that. The tee shot isn't blind, but from the elevated tee, the fairway looks wide and inviting, and going to the left side opens up the hole for a chance to get on in two.

 

However, anyone who has played the hole before knows to hit well to the right side of the very wide fairway, as anything landing in the middle of the fairway will kick left and run downhill out of bounds.

 

I've seen good drives (by myself and playing partners) bounce off 40~50 yards to end up out of bounds on this hole.

[mshills]

1 hour ago, No_Catchy_Nickname said:

 

Bad design.

 

Agreed. My first tee ball was OB, no chance, as the shot was blind. No one else out there so I went back and hit again. I don’t hit a big draw, it’s basically the dreaded straight ball or a small draw. OB again no chance. I think a push slice is the only way to keep it in play on that goofy hole. 

[LBB]

I've only seen a really dumb pin position once in my life.  It was on the 18th hole, and it was so cruel that all the early groups in the club were sticking around the green to watch the later groups suffer the same carnage of 4/5/6 or even 8 putting.  

 

Other than that one time...I've seen tough pin positions, but there was always an area you could play to below the hole that left a reasonable up and down chance.  The thing for most amateurs is that we hit our approach shots without knowing all the details of the pin position and the penalty of certain areas until after we hit our approach shot and walk to the green.  If I had a caddie telling me from 110 yards away that no mater what, do not go long right...it's better to be on the front left fringe with a 35 foot putt than to be 15 feet from the pin and be well above the hole where you can't stop the downhill putt...then I would treat the area of the green above the hole like a hazard.

 

My example above that was the dumb pin placement...there was nowhere to miss that left you a good chance at an up and down.  Even if you left your approach below the hole...it meant you were 25 feet away where the hole was 2 feet above ball level.  Which meant you had to commit to hitting it 6 feet past to avoid it coming back to your feet.  And when you're 6 feet past and putting back down the hill, you just lagged it short so you have a 1 foot tap in.  If you go for the hole and miss...you're 25 feet away again.  It was brutal...but I have to toot my own horn that I was the only one in the entire club to 1 putt...as I somehow sank the 25 foot putt up the hill as it slammed the back of the hole, popped up, and went in.  Had it missed...probably a 3 putt at best.

[Pepperturbo]

On 11/3/2024 at 10:43 AM, 596 said:

^^^ this

 

Not only that but if the green had a bad spot I would set a pin so most of the traffic would probably avoid that spot. I could place pins to direct golfers away from where I wanted less traffic.  Also, if a lot of low caps were playing in a money game that day I'd set tough pins and move the markers back.

Both @596 and @caniac6 have it right.  Unfortunately, here in SOCA, MOST of the guys setting public course pins at 5am are hourly, many from south of the border, just doing a job, don't play golf, so lack pin reasoning.

 

I miss pvt club play, fast greens & fairways and high-quality bunkers and well-trained staff.

Edited November 8, 2024 by Pepperturbo

[Dan Drake]

One of my favorite projects as I was going through my PGM was when we got a new cart fleet with new GPS units.  I went through every pin location (large greens, so 5x18) and rated them from 1-5 based on difficulty.  I then went through and created 5 different sets of locations, each with 6 front/middle/back and 6 left/middle/right.  Amazingly enough, 4 of the 5 sets were virtually identical on the difficulty rating and 1 was just a smidge tougher (we wouldn't use this one on weekends during the busy season, if at all possible).  Then the Turfcare crew were given the maps for the hole locations for the day and life was good.  There actually was only one hole (#18 ironically, which you could see from the golf shop windows) where one of those pin locations could be just a hair too close to a slope, and when it was, we would catch a little grief in the shop about it.  But since it was #18, it didn't mess with pace of play.  

 

It was a blast working on this project, and I hope that the club is still using some version of that setup.  

[Double Mocha Man]

12 minutes ago, Dan Drake said:

One of my favorite projects as I was going through my PGM was when we got a new cart fleet with new GPS units.  I went through every pin location (large greens, so 5x18) and rated them from 1-5 based on difficulty.  I then went through and created 5 different sets of locations, each with 6 front/middle/back and 6 left/middle/right.  Amazingly enough, 4 of the 5 sets were virtually identical on the difficulty rating and 1 was just a smidge tougher (we wouldn't use this one on weekends during the busy season, if at all possible).  Then the Turfcare crew were given the maps for the hole locations for the day and life was good.  There actually was only one hole (#18 ironically, which you could see from the golf shop windows) where one of those pin locations could be just a hair too close to a slope, and when it was, we would catch a little grief in the shop about it.  But since it was #18, it didn't mess with pace of play.  

 

It was a blast working on this project, and I hope that the club is still using some version of that setup.  

 

Good work. I tend not to think of course superintendents, in general, as this innovative or detailed. I've known many of them personally and played golf with many... great guys everyone of them.  Many with agronomy or turf management degrees but none of them this involved.

 

 

 

Edited November 8, 2024 by Double Mocha Man