Golf
Fine Golf’s Lorne Smith is a proponent of a return to a more traditional running form of golf, citing American ‘target golf’ as the creator of many of today’s woes. In this article, he invites Master Greenkeeper, Norbert Lischka, to offer his thoughts on the need for speed
Green speed
The need for speed?
I
t was in the 1970s that the question of green speed entered the conversations of golfers. Previously, most leading Great Britain and Ireland golf courses had fine fescue/browntop bent grassed greens
that ran true and were fast when dry and slower when wet. With the introduction of automatic
irrigation systems and a ‘target-golf’ philosophy from America - encouraged by the likes of South African four times Open Champion and brilliant putter Bobby Locke - many of our finest courses’ greens changed to the weed annual meadow grass (Poa annua) with all of its attendant non- conservationist problems.
38 I PC OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2016 The issue of having a consistency of speed,
irrespective of weather conditions, became sought after by those building a plethora of newly bulldozed, conurbation-located, hotel- affiliated courses created during the golf boom of the eighties and nineties, often utilising lush farmland. More recently, since the advent of some
greenkeepers managing their Poa annua weed grass greens by shaving them down to 2mm, the question of green speeds has risen again to be an important topic of conservation. I recently played on some 2mm Poa
greens that, luckily, were predominantly flat as the speed was over twelve on the stimp.
The primary challenge to scoring a low medal round on this flat ‘target-golf’ course revolved around not three putting! So I felt it was time to get some facts into the discussion I invited Master Greenkeeper, Norbert
Lischka - The Turf Fox, to offer advice, following his outstanding work, particularly at Hamburg Golf Club in Falkenstein, Germany and ‘Le Pines’ Hardelot Golf Club in France. His logo emphasises the need for mutual respect between golfers and greenkeepers; a concept fully endorsed by FineGolf.
Norbert writes: “The PGA recommends a putting speed of between eight or nine feet
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