045 – How golf courses change over time

045 – How golf courses change over time

[Music] welcome back Badgers We’re back in the in the laser the laser caravan in the grounds of Royal Liverpool Golf Club Green Keeper Sheds with my good friend Sam Cooper Hello Budge Hello Badges How has everyone been i hope you’ve all enjoyed the first uh the first couple episodes We’ve really enjoyed coming back and we’ve had some nice feedback from people who have missed it and I think I’ve missed it as well because uh I feel Yeah I feel a bit elated that we’re back Oh you don’t sound very You don’t even look very elated I’m full of hay fever Hay fever season is back Oh Uh and Jen did say to me “Make sure before you’re podcasting to get plenty of stuff into you.” So I’m quite sniffly and and and tired and grumpy Could you podcast as a hay fever sufferer could you have picked a worse career probably not No My as a as a as a youth working on the farm uh my eyes used to completely close when stacking bales Uh it was ridiculous And my mother will probably listen to this and she’ll remember because they would completely close Uh and I know that a lot of green keepers listening to this will have the same problem and we’ll be on our our pills or stuff that goes up our nose and the eye drops And I’m actually I’ve been trying a new one out It’s like a powder They go and it powders up your nose makes your eyes water as well but it’s illegal powder Yes And it’s not shipped over directly from Columbia No but it’s uh you know I always find uh the stuff that you get from boots behind the counter as good as anything that I’ve had over the years I’ve had spent a lot of money on prescriptions That’s exactly the same gear as a doctor gives you So well there you go the public service element of uh golf badges is is back and maybe we should find an expert on on um home remedies and being a witch doctor and and ways of dealing with uh with hay fever I have some friends that get the injection and that is super super effective the steroid injection So yeah that’s that’s the best way but I think uh it’s difficult to get your paws on down in England I think it’s Well there there you go I didn’t even know that that was uh that was an option Fortunately I’ve always avoided extreme sufferers That’s affliction But um but yeah welcome back everyone My name is Sam Cooper I’m a golf course architect and um the person who’s been suffering from hay fever You’ve just been hearing the green keeper Why don’t you reintroduce yourself i’m James Bledgeman links manager at Royal Liverpool Golf Club Excellent Well today we thought that we would discuss uh sort of the topics that or start to discuss some of the topics where we we find crossover in my life as a golf course architect and life as as a course manager And you know I think sometimes there might be a bit of a almost a bit of a a myth or misconception that the life of a course manager and an architect they’re sort of at one another and and trying to advocate for things that’s not in each other’s interests And I I would say that’s just complete complete rubbish You know if you if you do you know there will be examples out there where people design things that guys on your side of the industry bleed just they can’t maintain it And naturally what’s going to happen is it’s not going to last You know all the good architects are the ones that listen to the green keepers and and they work together because there’s no point in building something that’s unmaintainable No it is a maintenance nightmare Simply won’t last And and you know as as Harry C used to say that’s the measure of a a good golf course or a good design Uh so we thought one of the first ways we could explore that as a topic is is looking at greens and greenside bunkers and um you know what what sort of the architect might look at and and the objectives and how they might be at odds with uh maintenance and and balancing the issue really So that’s going to be the bulk of today’s conversation But before we start talking about that pledge uh we had a couple of interesting days uh down just south of Birmingham didn’t we so it might be worth talking about a wonderful days at the Blackwell Forsomes Yeah I’ve had a I’ve had a really racy week actually So on Wednesday night as I was down uh I had the pleasure of speaking at the Royal Singort’s London dinner in the cut Cutler’s Hall which is like a really really fancy livery uh in the center of London and uh it looked like something from um Hogwarts that yeah it was it was I’ve never I’ve done loads of public speaking as you know and I’ve been really lucky to do that but I’ve never had the honor of doing that one I mean or anything of that ilk It was there was people there with OB’s MBs Lords Ladies Dames uh and Andrew Reynolds professional the the most aristocratic of the of the lot He was he was in top form H and yes there was 150 deal members there Uh and our very own James Hornsby Is it Hick member i it’s it’s um I can’t think of many other golf clubs that would have a dinner like that Stson George Georges does and that’s I think they they’ve kind of be careful and then and then S ports have followed suit I think it’s been exchanged because the fact that they don’t have a summer ball anymore They’re doing a London dinner Okay I get that impression but I might be wrong But the captain Simon Barton he’s a fantastic guy H asked me to be the guest speaker H I spoke for half an hour I I’ve never been as petrified I don’t think I’m I I kind of don’t get nervous anymore when I’m public speaking I’m I’m at ease with it But my comfort blanket of any sort of media was taken away from me where it wasn’t the kind of place that you would have screens you know play videos or show pictures It just wasn’t that vibe So I decided to raw dog it and just go like a best man speech with Q cards Uh it was difficult but it was it was really good spoke for half an hour and got a stand in ovation at the end and loads of nice things said So it was it was it was pretty what a buzz Oh fantastic And great that um that you’re not necessarily any green keeper far from it but um but that is a big apicious event for Royal Stink Ports you know one of the great historic clubs of of England And um you’re you’re a lot more than a former course manager down there the sort of esteem you’re held in But I guess it’s nice that um 150 members of of of a club like that are willing to spend half an hour listening to um to all of the things that you are passionate about And because it probably you roll back maybe even 10 but certainly 20 30 years ago and it probably would have just been not on people’s radar that um it would be the course manager irrespective of the esteem they were held in that would um that would sort of be asked to give a such a big speech like that I think it’s a huge kind of milestone for our industry I would say whether it was me or not but any green keeper that’s been given the kind of honor to speak at something like that is huge It’s never happened before I don’t think as as far as I know Uh and it’s a great kind of a great point of which we can kind of push on to now We’re not no longer grass cutters We’re we’re we’re scientists biologists do physics HR you know it would do everything you know and it’s uh we can get up and talk about that and public speaking with someone that keepers never ever did So I hope that I’ve kind of started something here and and I mean it’s been amazing that Simon Barton kind of had the faith in me to do something like that cuz if I’d got up there and and froze or stalled or stuttered or stammered that could have been a disaster and quite embarrassing for him So I’m I’m I’m grateful for the opportunity and hopefully more green keepers can do things things like that in the future Well after the highs of uh your successes on Wednesday night we were brought crashing back to reality weren’t we on a it it was probably one of those you know if the um many years ago the the big sort of mid- amateur golfing events were often covered by someone like Bernard Darwin in in the uh in the Times or or or you know one of the news the the sort of great news writers of the of the day would cover an event I wonder what the headlines would have been if they’d covered our uh consecutive five and four dubbings I think that’s probably the first time in in history But to be fair I mean the the guys playing in Blackwell Forsomes it’s a it’s quite a good event You know it’s a it’s a a hell of a standard The boys the Dutch roots Sam and I were Let’s set the scene here Blackwell in Bronze Grove south of Birmingham my favorite part Golf Course of which you’re a member Yes 180 members Yeah It’s it’s it’s an extraordinary place We need to do a a whole uh episode on uh Blackwell actually cuz I think there’s an episode to be done on Parkland Golf in general and some slightly dubious quotes as I remember reading quite recently that it’s someone said it’s almost impossible to have a good Parkland course in I just sort of you know rolled my eyes and and moved on But it’s something that’s probably worth tackling uh the the sort of the the you know what makes a good Parkland and often I think it’s sort of as soon as you say Parkland it’s it’s sort of people will turn their nose up perhaps or or or look down on uh on it and and it’s just so far from the truth you you know there are complications that come from heavier soils and of course all the things that we can talk about in in an episode on the subject but um I adore Blackwell for many reasons the club and and the membership uh top of the list but I I’d love to do an episode Blair John definitely could do that the rooting and the green complexes and Tom Simpson and the absolute alchemy that he was able to perform getting such an amazing golf course not a bad hole on it and it’s on 96 6 acres of land two nines returning to the clubhouse It’s it’s extraordinary It’s uh one of the I if if we were to write a textbook on rooting for golf course architecture I’d absolutely throw Blackwell’s rooting into the mix for for one that I think people should study cuz it’s great changes in direction great variance of length and holes dog legging left and right great bunker shapes We should get on to that one on another occasion episode Yeah But um but the event the Forsomes event that we played in for a few years now Um that was your first first first outing First and last But um Hoy Lake we managed to scrape a win in this a few years ago and then I think basically lost every subsequent match in the years that followed But um the standard is so high with Forsome’s Club of Holland Um Port Monik have a team deal have a team uh the Wigorns Oxen Cambridge you know the moles it’s it’s such moles was our best result Uh two two lovely guys from Royal St George’s and uh I thought we had them on the ninth hole when Sam hit a beautiful shot over the pin to 5 ft spun it back H had a lovely little trickly downhill putt which I fancied Uh and then Sam or the guys we’re playing against Alec H stood up and hit it straight in the hole He spun it back straight in the hole Nine iron Yeah that was um the writing was very much on the wall at that point wasn’t it seven bottles of champagne So more more full him But the the uh we only got beat two and one there So I think we we kind of redeemed ourselves a little bit But the it’s it’s a you know there was a good saying someone said to me we like a drink we don’t do drunk and then there’s no one that’s like falling about drunk but there’s a lot of drink I mean the barb bill was high It’s just a um it’s just a really social event but you know take the golf seriously but the social element is is key and and what I’ve loved playing in it for a few years now is um you know sometimes you play in things of that ilk and you’ll see a few of the same faces if you go back the next year or or whatever But um this is probably and the greatest testament to the event really is that um it it’s it’s now like dead man dead man shoes to to get in because everyone loves it so much and and it means that as soon as there’s the prospect of returning the following year it’s it’s uh yeah absolutely there’ll be one space going but I think my funniest kind of point at the dinner the black tie dinner on the on the on the first night because it’s two-day event Uh and looking in front of me I had red wine white wine port and brandy Guinness kumal and tonic and water There’s more than the port and brandy were in the same port And there was also port as well There was a port jug getting passed about Well there you go And and it’s so it’s this a wonder that we performed much better the following day after we did after um we seem to get our acting Yeah But um Bledge quickly you then went and and played in another event which um perhaps is even boozier still if possible Tell us about um tell us about Royal uh Royal Norton Golf Club RNG So yeah Joe Joe McDonald who who was on our last podcast uh picked me up and drove us down to Devon all the way down to Devon Thanks for that Joe being a chauffeer I couldn’t know where I could have driven and turned up at Dan Davies’s back garden So Dan Davies who’s a good friend of yours as well Uh I met Dan probably about 3 years ago at Urban Golf in London and uh kind of dropped quite a few hints in getting into his event and got the invite master style invite this year So have you you’ve played in RNG i played in this a few years ago and it’s just it’s sensational Dan for many years ran this event called the Mini Masters Uh and I think it grew arms and legs and got bigger and it was sort of a charitable thing We need we absolutely need to get Dan on the podcast because Yeah Well the intention was to get him on the podcast when I was down but let’s just say that no one was coherent enough to even think about Does not surprise me It wouldn’t have been it would have been a mess Well we’ll save Dan’s incredible backstory for for him to tell him to himself But um but safe to say you had a good few days Yeah it was it was incredible I mean just to kind of give you a kind of quick set scene of it it’s a it’s a 9-hole golf course that’s 60 yard long holes set out in an orchard with greens that are the size of a a table Some of them some of them are square greens like 100 square meter would be probably your well 50 square meter would be be your biggest probably Some are on a 45° slope and and he shaved down banks into burns And hang on I think you’ve over overe that there There are some that would be less than 10 square meters cuz you think like they’re not five paces by two paces I’m thinking there’s a the square green up in up in the up in the tops The biggest one bell green and and but uh if you miss the green it’s like 3 foot long bund and but you have spotters that go out uh with pin flags so you always find your ball and you can fashion a lie But the best thing about it is fancy dress So uh we had uh some what did we have some Elton John’s We had Katy Perry Uh I saw her Susan Bole Susan Bole was my absolute favorite She was unbelievable And uh and Kylie won the best dress He kicked about in the rain uh with this gold hot pants on What an effort and everyone takes it seriously which I think is testament to uh to Dan because it it’s what a labor of love it is to you know to fashion a golf course out in your back garden And Dan’s got a busy life He’s got a you know he’s got young family and very tolerant family I should imagine but um you know really successful journalist writer um I I guess TV career now in recent years as well But anyway we’re jumping ahead We need to get Dan on stat to talk about Yeah we we definitely will He’s he said they’ll come on but it’s uh yeah it was there’s not many golf championships that finish at 10 to midnight with Katy Perry hole in the park to win Uh which was which was hilarious But I you’ll see if you look on on my Instagram or whatever you’ll see all the photographs I put up from Blackwell Forsomes and RNG So uh I think Bledge we should park the stories of our frivolities and golfing travels even though we could definitely go on at at length about them and maybe talk about the meat of today’s issue or today’s podcast rather uh which is sort of starting to frame and and and really get into the weeds about how the role of a golf course architect how a course manager how I’d say our respective roles We don’t work together on any uh projects but how uh the the role of of both sides of it sort of can complement each other and you know I’ve always talked about how much I’ve learned from you Bledge and and how that helps me I I I hope be a better golf course architect as a result Um because it’s it’s essential for all the reasons we’ve talked about before But one of the first ones I thought we could talk about is is greens And specifically greens and bunkers And it needn’t be bunkers It could be um runoffs It could be um any any kind of of hazard or or or feature to to a green complex But the way I was thinking about this we were walking around Joe and I as a uh client during the week and we were talking about the subject specifically of bunkers And this is a golf course not at all uh sort of uh unique in in the uh issue of having quite a distance between the edge of their putting surfaces and the edge of the bunkers And the bunkers would be pretty small The greens would be pretty small may maybe on average bledge something like 450 square meters I’d guess at at this course Um but when we did uh an historical desktop analysis sort of looking at old plans old aerials and I’ll talk about why we do that cuz it’s probably for a different reason than most people think But when we looked at it you know these were maybe not the 9 hectares of fairway that they have nowadays They probably would have had 20 something hectares of fairway 100 years ago The greens which were probably under a hectare in total nowadays probably would have been 1.6 1.7 hectares total 100 years ago Uh and the bunkers which were historically incredibly varied in their scale and their size and their shape nowadays would be pretty consistently small round and as I say I I’m going to use the word disjointed from the greens And I I I thought maybe to talk about why from a course architecture point of view I think it’s really important to have and this is a generalization There are plenty of times when it’s not the case but if you’ll en indulge the generalization I’d say often this is better for them to be closer And I I’d say that one of the things we always try and do when we’re laying out a course is to find a way of challenging the best players in the club So if you are a scratch player plus handicap player if it’s a course that hosts top amateur events county events or or open championships or whatever level that may be you’re constantly looking for ways to make it as hard as possible for the best players whilst also at the same time making it playable for absolutely everyone And that sort of feels like a contradiction in terms like how can you have both how can you have a an enjoyable engaging fun members golf course and at the same time challenge the very best players whatever standard you know up the many many layers of of great golfers And I I at all don’t think they’re mutually exclusive things I think it’s entirely possible And a close bunker and green edge interaction is a good example So we we were stood and and we sort of said okay imagine you were here shortsided you shortsided yourself and the pin is on the near side just on the other side of the bunker Well these greens which are all pretty round um would have maybe as many as six yards between the edge of the green and the edge of the bunker on a pretty often pretty flat landscape And the point I was making there is there’s no benefit from one side to the other where you’ve hit your drive or at least not coming from the bunkers from being shortsided on that side You know what you don’t need to worry about just carrying the lip of the bunker if you’re trying to really have a fiddly shot that leaves you a short per to um because you know what you can land it in the perfect place and it just releases and you don’t have to think about it So for the scratch player in that instance it’s pretty straightforward to get up and down For the bogey player it’s just as difficult as it ever would be because the difficulty for the higher handicapper might simply come from hitting a chip or a pit shot over the bunker So the the whole premise is is if if you if you have that edge of the bunker and the edge of the green as close as possible and it maybe gets to the point where four paces from the edge of a bunker you could actually have the pin which would be what they can achieve And the gold standard of this which might be the Melbourne sandbelt you know you think of those awning uh yawning bunkers just cutting into the the green itself it seems at times And it means that if you are shortsided there the best that you can ever really hope for no matter how good you are is a chip that’s gone 10 15 20 ft past the hole on the other side and a long put back But for the bogey player the shot hasn’t become any more difficult because the fundamental difficulty of a good contact on the club and getting onto the green in the first place Maybe they will have a 20 or a 30ft putt rather than a 15 or a 20 foot putt but fundamentally it hasn’t become much more difficult for the for the bogey player but it’s become way more fiddly way trickier for the for the scratch player So it’s a good example of one of the ways we can achieve that fundamental objective But I know bledge it’s not as simple as rebuilding everything so that we in Britain or in other parts of the world could achieve the same effect of a bunker cut almost ex almost entirely almost into the green itself So I thought you’d be the perfect person to ask on what are some of the limitations in achieving that practically Well why what to take it back a bit Why do we think these bunkers have are so far away is were the greens right up to at one point and the green keepers have just over time cuz I I know for a fact that every now and then we need to remark out greens and we need to red dot greens and push them a little bit back out cuz green keepers uh they do tend and just oh I don’t want you eat too much into the collar Scared of can I scalp it into the collar too much the surround from a 4 mil cut into a seven Uh and then over time over the year it’s probably moved in maybe an inch and then over 10 years it might be it might be it could be as much as half a meter and then you know and that that’s a small example Uh so yeah defin that’s that’s that’s a kind of definitely a big issue Uh I also think uh I we’re looking at sandsplash and talking about sandsplash Uh that has a a big effect on on surrounds you know from from surrounds burning off years and years of uh shots being taken out And I mean every single morning we blow sand off We switch sand in uh and with that accumulating depending on what kind of sand it is If you’ve certain golf courses have really bright white quartzy sand that essentially are like billions of little magnifying glasses you know and when it’s when it’s sunny they really heat up the grass and and they burn it So that all needs dealt with as well Uh I’ve I’ve seen great examples of sand splash and on surrounds over the years when lifting turf I mean you’re talking inches inches of this stuff What about bunkers getting um further away from the from the from the the edge of the greens themselves and sort of migrating backwards i’m thinking of revetted bunkers and when you come not necessarily you specifically bledge but when uh course managers and green keepers through many many many years renew the the the revetments around bunkers Um is there a tendency for for bunkers or or or an opportunity perhaps for bunkers to um very very slowly sort of migrate around a little no definitely Everyone knows that builds bunkers is uh the hardest thing about building a bunker is actually digging it out You know it’s back breaking and sometimes it might be a case of oh you know you don’t have to dig out quite as much We can we can dig out half half as much and then lay the revet inside it And I mean it’s it could be argued whether it’s a a an element of laziness possibly and seen it myself many a time where where they just the the the face off the bunker and just laid the bunker the first revetting inside revetting widths could change Uh so if there if it’s you’re if you’re using a a reveting a slice of turf cut into three and then maybe the next the next year you might be doing it two or you might even be trying a a full width for more stability I know I know Simon at Ganton he’s had great results through putting full widths of turf Uh we’ll we’ll tend to cut our turfs in two and at deal we used to cut them in three really thin slices uh you know what I mean by that don’t you yeah I I think it’s probably worth just briefly um sort of talking about all of those three sort of forces at play there You know we talked about the greens getting smaller themselves which naturally will mean that the edge of the green is getting further away from the bunker We we talk about the bunkers maybe getting smaller or or migrating around because of Revetment’s sort of um carving them back out to make sure that you compensate for that natural drift is is is difficult and requires sort of real conscious effort that um I wouldn’t call it laziness It’s it’s just sort of uh the way you described cutting the greens I thought was interesting No one I think would get I want to say bollock but that’s not the right word No one would get in trouble No one would get pulled up on if if you’re a a green keeper and you’re out there and and it’s dark and it’s early in the morning maybe and I do it myself and and you sort of you can’t quite see the very very edge where because links cuz your surrounds are so so good and you know what is the height of cut difference between your aprons and your and your greens but 3 and 1/2 mil 3 and 1/2 mil of difference so you know it’s so hard to actually see exactly And if you’re on the back of a uh a ride-on if you’re on you know triples rather than hand mowing them as it’s probably even harder to see again um where that edge is And I’m guessing that at certain times of the year it’s probably going to be a bit more obvious But if you were to go a little over and say cut you know half an inch beyond the edge of the um the thing would would it might you see it if it’s Yeah you’d see you’d see it a little bit Yeah it wouldn’t be It’s not like it would die off or go brown or anything like that Just a lighter color Agree But it might be a little lighter And I do intentionally quite often Uh I mean for that exact reason if the lads have kind of just been too careful and coming inside and shrinking the green by a matter of millimeters then like I’m I’m cutting we’re hand cutting greens tomorrow morning for example and there’s a good chance of kind of reset them by nipping them back out It’s It’s good to do every now and then but before the open came we went round uh with Grant Moyer and we pushed loads of greens out to get extra pin positions and somewhere by about by a meter cuz I think this is sort of getting to the nub of the issue Uh perhaps there’ll be another episode and we can talk about greens more specifically or or or mowing lines more generally perhaps Um and what I mean by mowing lines is from my side of things on the architect side of things I’d always say golf is more interesting to the edges of the holes So what I mean by that is on the fairway you know everyone just thinks oh I say everyone lots of people would just sort of say straight down the middle that’s the best place to hit any shot And you know I think most architects would say “Yeah to a point but often the most interesting holes are actually it could be you want to go down the left or down the right.” And there will be a reason as to why you’d want to do one or the other And there will likely or there should be sort of this tradeoff or almost a a sort of a sliding tariff of difficulty So that if the easy approach is from the right hand side that should be the hardest place to drive to and vice versa So it means that it is the peripheries of the fairways that often yield the most interesting source of strategy for the whole So when things shrink and get narrower and narrower and the middle is the only part that remains untouched then that’s when I would argue the courses become less interesting uh strategically Now there’s a million caveats to that not least that very very few places would have the resource to actually mow out well that’s why things have shrunk isn’t it essentially uh labor time green keepers are under more time pressure than ever I mean we have three fairway mos and and even then sometimes we could find if the first tea times out flying up our backside and we’re try to box uh it can become difficult so I think we keep our own to make things easier Let me put something something back to you though Pledge because um I I completely agree but maybe the problem isn’t um isn’t time or or um or or that It’s it’s expectation on the part of the golfer because it certainly used to be the case You know if you look at the the width and and the sort of the size of the greens at courses that were laid out by Colt or Mackenzie or Simpson or whatever you know 100 years ago I’m talking about then they would by and large have fairways that were 20 hectares of of area and and that would be a course that’s a lot shorter as well So you know effectively it would be even uh sort of uh an even greater change if they were stretched out to today’s full yardage Um because you know a par five might have only been 460 yards whereas now it’s 550 or whatever So it’s um but the when I say expectation I mean the pro the golfers of yesterday year probably would have been much happier without seeing perfection And you know because of the strides of you and your peers in the industry and the quality of surfaces that we are spoiled with as as golfers and you know the turf coverage and yes it means that the cost per unit shall we say you know per square meter of turf is probably way way way more expensive in 2025 than it was you know just for inflation in 1925 when Maybe they were cut with a gang mower or they didn’t have well they certainly didn’t have uh wedding agents on them because wedding agents weren’t there and a lot of the chemicals and things were sort of byproducts of of the second world war and and first world war as well probably but you know they came in laterally then and but it’s maybe finding that sort of balance between the the two um But specifically for for golf courses it’s it’s no wonder at all that they get narrower And do you think that nowadays when you are mowing and you’re hand mowing or or or maybe you’re mowing um with with triples there there isn’t a limitation in terms of the ability to cut nowadays But perhaps when those machines first started to come in they didn’t have intricate turning circles to the same degree And if things were cut by hand 100 years ago 50 years ago or 40 years ago when the first rideons were were coming on it probably was a lot harder to actually get into those this little tight corners of greens which I would argue might have yielded some of the most interesting pin positions But if you can only sort of if you have a reduced turning circle because of the limitations of the machinery it’s almost inevitable that you end up with a more circular 100% Yeah I mean if you think if you’re going out with a gang more I mean you can’t turn tight with a gang more you know you have that’s why the fairies would have been huge and and it just be you know like like just cutting cutting a range doesn’t take long if you’re just hammering in one direction And the the good thing about a gang more is actually like the faster you go the faster the the blades go as well Oh is that right uh I mean if you were if you were just kind of starting off we used to I used to gang mo uh fairways at Dumpries and Gallery Golf Club Believe it or not I think when I first started off I think it’s probably worth a very quick quick sidebar to say like what is a gang mower when we talk So a gang mo essentially is uh five moors trailed behind a tractor that are or or before a tractor a horse Uh it would be Yes Yeah And then powered by uh what’s the word I’m looking for so naturally just like no hydraulics but just the wheel a a gear effect of of the wheels turning driving the the the the um the cutting block cylinder Yeah And and it’s quite often I mean ransoms were the if you put ransoms gang mode into Google you’ll see uh the early ones and they were quite often had spikes in the tires as well Uh and I quite often remember if you if you were mowing the fairies and you didn’t see a stick and it jammed between the cylinder and the sole plate that would essentially stop the tire from turning Uh the metal tire it was a metal tire as well not not and you can still buy these gang mos In fact I I would think if we didn’t have robots for the uh for the range I mean a gang would be fantastic just to hook it up and just drive off and cut But if you had a stick and it jammed in you’d basically it would stop the wheel from turning and you get a big skid mark right down the fairway and you get Keith McCartney coming out shouting bledge But this is this is a perfect example of um you know things are better nowadays let’s say and that the quality of cut has improved but it’s come at a cost of of efficiency and and and I would sort of make the argument that a lot of courses are slightly less interesting because they’re narrower because um and the strategy is evolved Now don’t get me wrong there are a lot of in fact I would say the majority of courses wouldn’t actually benefit from being moan any wider than they are You know don’t don’t get me wrong I think that there is a bit of nuance to be applied here There are certain courses let’s say you know you had the capacity to increase fairways by 50% you know you you have you you could have 50% more fairway grass on on on a typical golf course It would be the biggest waste in the world to just make your fairways in the shape that they currently are which for most courses would be a parallel cut You know they’ll be the same width pretty much from the start of the fairway all of the way up the hole It would be the biggest waste in the world to just make them 50% larger but the same shape You know when it becomes more interesting is working with an architect to work out well what’s what’s the best place to come into the green from let’s put a bit more short grass over here and get it closer to the to the fairway bunker that’s in the right place that you know and and it’s sort of doing a proper audit so that you don’t just end up with masses of short grass and you’re mowing for the sake of mowing But um I I think in going back to the sort of the bunkers and the greens it’s it’s probably unsurprising then There’s a lot of greens historically which may have been longer angular I I’d say the ubiquitous shape of a green nowadays is is some kind of circle or oval you know squash sort of circle um which it sort of makes a lot of sense for the limitations of the technology mowing technology when um you know sort of square greens well little stone square greens used to have square greens Oakmont in the Victorian era they were square more often than not Oakmont 18th is square is it not but if you look at Oakmont 30 years ago it was exactly the same they had a lot of the greens that we’ve we will have seen over the last few days um on the US Open which are I think they’re sort of 850 square meter greens on average but they are long they are angular and when they are angular it means they have a long axis that can be tilted to have a beneficial approach you know left side or right side if if you are roughly circular or ovular then there isn’t a benefit from approaching one side or another the only benefit becomes um getting as close to it as possible so that you have the you know the shortest club with the maximum loft in your in your hand Um but it it’s clear so there’s there’s that as a technological limitation perhaps historically not relevant anymore I think probably any modern mower that you could get nowadays Bledge would have a really intricate sort of tight and and so much so that when uh when you are turning that that one side of the uh I know some of the Toro machines well I’m pretty sure this is the case or maybe it’s just rumblings of a madman after a heavy weekend but I’m pretty sure it could be uh one of the John Deere electric machines that when you are turning uh just say you were turning uh clockwise the outside units would be have a faster clip rate than the inside if you get me Yeah Uh because they’re obviously going a little bit slower on the on the inside Slip slip diff for um for going around a corner basically And hence the reason why you would never spray I mean you see I’ve seen it before I’ve seen I’ve I’ve played golf courses where people have went out and sprayed a green and sprayed around the green you know you’re always spraying straight lines because if you’re like spraying and turning a corner if you’re doing it on a fairway where the turn’s very slight over time fine no problem But if you’re going uh spraying around a green then doing the middle and I have seen it before on courses uh then you’re spraying like if you’re going clockwise you’re spraying twice as much on the inside than the outside Cuz you think about the way the sprayer is moving moving it’s moving faster on the left side than it is the right That is but this is this is the perfect embodiment of uh you know the technology has caught up in terms of it’s no longer the limiting factor and the reason that often you end up with rounder greens but you know let’s let’s just I’m going to pull up quickly another thing that I think speaks to the improved or perceived pro improved quality of of playing surfaces which is irrigation and um irrigation And you know of course we talked about it in in not last week but the week before Bledge when we were talking about uh drought and managing water and the importance of being able to keep your fine grasses alive in in drought conditions But um but often it was when perhaps the irrigation the first irrigation systems were actually fitted to a golf course they would almost lock in the smaller more circular greens because the heads would be on the edges of the greens And so often you know go to places and the greens are a circle within a wider or larger green pad as it was originally shaped And in order to push it back out it’s the irrigation heads being fixed and and static that become the limiting factor to actually do that And it it that then really shows how um Green’s edges and the bunkers have have sort of moved in I mean you’ve seen when we’ve we’ve put a lot of effort in this last year to move some of the fairways out Let’s take our second fairway Hoy Lake for example completely inaccessible from the right hand side but the left hand side was rough So we’ve pushed it right the way out given us a lot more width I mean how many meters probably about five or six mters maybe A lot I mean an extra we’ve gathered an extra hectare of fairways last winter That’s one of the biggest jobs we’ve done H trying to grow them out of long rough And it’s made the course a hell of a lot more playable Yeah But uh I mean this is exactly it you kind of if you want to see how big your fairways used to be or the greens and it all goes by the old irrigation heads you know cuz they were designed around that But I’ll tell you one thing that you’ll find really interesting Uh another way of doing that is in golf course construction is putting a cable around the green where the architect sets it So then you can and the cable would run into the irrigation valve box and then uh you can clip a clamp on it and and find it exactly what it used to be with the cat and Jenny So you can walk around and beep and and nowadays you know with RTK and super accurate GPS you can do it with drones and sprayers and and um and all of these sort of the the technology is sort of hopefully starting to get out of the way in the way that I I’ve sort of posited it there But um but Bledge we’re we’re at danger of sort of getting further and further down the rabbit hole So I think maybe we should park the conversation for now and we can talk about some of the other ways that um courses have changed through the through the years and and how balancing um the the sort of the maybe quote unquote optimum um with the most practical and pragmatic balance uh can be achieved with our respective sort of sides of the of the industry But um it’s maybe a good way to finish up because talking about technology talking about greens and putting surfaces you’ve got another toy in the last few weeks haven’t you yes Uh the GS3 ball uh which is probably an episode in itself as well but we could we can uh we can quickly go over it The It landed a couple of weeks ago Uh it looks like a golden snitch from Harry Potter without the wings I got a couple of them Yeah Uh and uh fun fact from from that that was telling the school kids last week that blew their mind In Harry Potter the guy who taught Harry how to play Quidditch is my friend Sean Bigger Staff and I used to be his guitar tech at Tea in the Park and other gigs So he’s pretty cool But uh he won’t listen to this podcast cuz he’s tough He’s too cool Far too cool Uh but yeah I’ve enjoyed using that What is it what is it so it’s basically it’s a gyroscope inside a ball that looks like a golf ball Okay Kind of Well doesn’t it looks like a Quidditch ball but uh Yeah And it it tells you smoothness which is deflection up and down Tress which is deflection left to right and speed And it’s rolled off a stint meter Okay So you literally you stick it on a stint meter put it on stroll three times one direction three times the other direction and it comes up in your phone uh on a flat surface uh on on your green So I had a board meeting last night uh which is quite humorous cuz I took up the tools and uh we stamped the boardroom the the JB library carpet And what was the uh cover guess it’s quite a thick pile I don’t know whether that’s um I mean I I don’t know I don’t think it’s mega I’d say nine 12′ 11 Really 121 Not even oak It was it was uh it was really really good uh uh smoothness and trness It was I mean we need to pull up the JB Library car park and get it get it on them greens but I don’t think that would have collected very well the uh No it would be soft and and and going on to that there also has a a drop tester as well Really so you and a moisture meter Bloody hell So we have we’ve got the full shebang now The the Pogo as good as the Pogo was I mean I really loved the Pogo I loved the mapping in the Pogo It was fantastic Uh very quickly I think I think uh we need to do an episode We need to do an let’s do an episode on this toys green keeping green keeping toys and data collection There’s too much to go over here and it’s really interesting but I’ll give you maybe that’s we could do in our next what next podcast or should we do that should we leave hanging so they’ve got to you know with with that it’s almost like an East Enders style cliffhanger But um we’ll we’ll come back to the toys but your latest one this GS3 ball ledge it’s a uh game changer I would say So yeah Yeah And uh we can see how I mean God we can go on to start talking about clipv I’ve been my friend Darn at Turnbury has been helping me get really into clip volumes and and uh so we can start to manage every green differently Great thing about green keepers we all speak to each other We all help each other out It’s one big kind of happy family and I learn a load off of these guys Uh and I I feel I’m get a better green keeper every every year as the years go on with technology and we’re just getting help from everyone So uh really into that just now and you’ll hopefully see our second fifth and 15th greens are a lot more consistent with the rest of the course now Okay Well um I think yet another episode there to talk about why um they might not have previously been as as consistent and there I I I know there are very obvious and and logical reasons but probably an episode that we could talk about their pledge but why don’t we do that why don’t we ask um green keepers um people in the industry architects perhaps uh what are the sort of what is the piece of technology that has um let’s do both sides What’s been the biggest help to to the job to the presentation why don’t we get them to email or comment on the badgers and then uh we can if you want to talk about anything we’ll talk about because there’s pretty much I know most of the technology we can we can chat about So what’s the email address and the social s i’m thinking if you send into [email protected] um then it would be uh it would be the perfect opportunity to say you know what is it that maybe it is a piece of technology maybe it’s something that you think like me has historically uh been counterproductive It may have improved quality of something but uh has had an unintended consequence uh on a different uh a different level If you’ve got any sorts of ideas or things that you think are worth talking about then maybe that could be the topic of our next debate pledge and we could cover some of those Um but also don’t limit it to that It can be any question that um that you have about anything greening architecture We’re going to do some question and answer episodes So by all means feel free to disaster stories was something that was chucked up there If anyone’s got any funny stories of disasters I’ve got a few myself Confessions of a green keeper Oh that’s uh the green keeper honey We can turn the caravan into a confession chamber We can uh we we can draw draw a curtain across and sit on either side And no I think um there is actually you say that but there is a screen We can do that Well maybe maybe we’ve we’ve got um a few months before we have to get into into the the dark secrets of Greenkeeper life But um until then I think thank you everyone for listening and please do start sending in So that’s [email protected] We’d love to have your questions and and maybe for our next debate on technology you’ll be able to come up with something that uh that we haven’t thought of and we’d be really grateful And your Instagram Sam links in the road is it i’m links from the road from the road And are you @ James Bledge yeah Simple as that BL G much more straightforward But um thank you everyone for listening and speak to you next time Thank you very much

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Sam & Bledge sit down to reflect on their latest adventures at the Blackwell Foursomes and RNGC. They explore how golf course architecture — from bunkering to subtle design shifts — continues to evolve, challenging both everyday golfers and the game’s elite.