Golf
“ A Double Green
“With that in mind, it’d be good for me to point out that we’re just in the process of
It still grabs me now. It has its tricky moments and, at times, I ask myself what the hell I am doing driving 50-odd miles down the M6 to work
and had a lot explained to him. This ignited a minor interest in turf.
Then, when he took a trip to play Pebble Beach Golf Links in California (which now costs a figure quickly approaching $1,000 per round), he thought “I fancy a bit of this.” But, realising he wasn’t talented enough to become a professional, he turned his attention to the maintenance of courses instead. “It grabbed me”, he said. “And it still grabs me now. It has its tricky moments and, at times, I ask myself what the hell I am doing driving 50‐odd miles down the M6 to work.”
He still lives in Northwich, which is close to his home town. “I’m not quite as northern as you [Jake is from Wigan], but I am northern compared to this lot,” he joked. “But a big part of my continuing love for it is that I’m lucky to be at a club where, within limits, I’m allowed to do what I want to do with the course.”
developing a double green as well.” This is a feature of the course that Tim has been pushing for some time, and membership has been able to see its benefits due to the club’s interaction.
The 11th and 17th greens, which are separated by a roughly 15‐metre, ridged rough patch, are being planed off, with the resulting dual green becoming a very large surface.
“Currently, players are in a position where they have a green behind a green. When playing to the 11th, the 17th is immediately behind it.”
“This means that players who are safety conscious have to wait until play has finished on the 17th to take their approach shots.” “What we are doing is moving the tee shot on the par 3 11th, which off‐sets the angle of approach dramatically, making it far less likely that errant shots impede on the potential for play from the two holes to cross paths.”
“It’s a bit of a bottleneck, and we’ve worked out that, through this change, we make the area a lot safer for the golfers.”
“We’ve done a bit of rerouting of paths and traversable areas to encourage players to follow the safest route when walking around the new layout.”
This will mean that players to either flag can potentially be left with a 40ft+ putt to finish out the hole, which will be a rare challenge and opportunity for players of an inland course.
Greens of this type are significantly more common on links courses; the prototypical St. Andrew’s Old Course, for example, having only four unshared putting surfaces. Tim said: “I’ve managed one before, the 3rd and 6th at Wilmslow, and to be honest looked at the potential for the same here and just though it would be quite cool.” “We’re not necessarily going to use the flags on the new bit [the area that had been the rough separating the greens], but the thought of overhitting on a par 3 to leave yourself with a daunting 30ft putt is quite cool, I think.”
“The club have said we’ll see how it goes and, if the experiment fails, we can just let the rough area grow back and there’ll have been no harm done.”
I asked him whether it would require a bell to alert approaching players. He said: “The reality is that it’s no different to how it is now in that respect, because the two greens are staying where they are.” “All we’re doing is reducing the banking at the back of the 11th and side of the 17th, and cutting it out. So, in theory, if someone’s aiming for the green and they know nobody’s on there, it should follow the same principle.”
“Now, if you’re on the 17th green, it doesn’t have to stop people playing to the 11th. Nothing’s different there. We’re only stopping people walking between them when someone is playing to either of them. We’re eliminating that risk.”
“The politics at the club sneaked out of the woodwork a little on this issue, but with a few notices on tables and pin boards, it
34 I PC FEBRUARY/MARCH 2018
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156
