At the Belleair club in Florida, architects Jason Straka and Dana Fry recently completed a remarkable restoration of Donald Ross’s original design (read more in the April 2023 issue of GCA). Belleair’s new greens are, by modern standards, very slopey, and if the club were to get them running at 12 feet on the Stimp, which it could fairly easily do, they would be unplayable. But, in conjunction with the architects, the club has resolved to keep the greens at a lower speed, though still high by classic era standards. This allowed the architects to be more creative – and a little truer to Ross’s original design – in their work there. “The majority of the greens prior to the restoration were raised pedestals,” says Straka. “They were very much a modern-day design, which looked nothing like the historic Ross greens. The hole locations weren’t any more or less sloped than they are now. But the greens were faster pre-restoration because the transition areas between hole locations by and large weren’t as complex as they are now.” “Before the restoration, our greens averaged between 10-12.5 feet on the Stimpmeter,” says Belleair member Connor Lewis, founder of the Society of Golf Historians. “When he discussed the restoration plans with us, Jason was very specific: he said that if he was going to restore Ross’s slope and features to these greens then we, as a club, should try to keep the green speeds under 11 feet. “I have been told that the Florida State Golf Association rates greens between one, the flattest, and seven, the most severe. When the Association toured Belleair, they rated 11 greens at seven! Now, those 11 greens would be near ridiculous if the green speeds were 12 or 13 feet but at 10, I would argue they are among the best in the state. And yet, the truth is that many of the slopes within these restored greens are still less than what Ross designed: that is just a product of modern green speeds. If it were up to me, I wouldn’t even post that day’s greens speed. Most people don’t even know how it’s calculated: they just know that the US Open is somewhere between 12 and 13.” Straka says: “As complex as the greens are now, the height of many of the internal mounds and contours are Edward Stimpson invented his measuring device after watching players grapple with Oakmont’s fast greens at the 1935 US Open Photo: unknown/Courtesy USGA Museum Augusta National.........................7ft 11in Congresssional ..............................6ft 4in Cypress Point ................................7ft 8in Harbour Town ..............................5ft 1in Medinah .........................................7ft 8in Merion.............................................6ft 4in Oakland Hills.................................8ft 5in Oakmont ........................................9ft 8in Pine Valley......................................7ft 4in Pinehurst #2 ................................6ft 10in San Francisco GC .........................7ft 2in Shinnecock Hills ...........................7ft 2in Winged Foot ..................................7ft 5in Golf’s fast forward Green speeds at top US clubs, as measured by the USGA in 1977. In contrast, greens at Los Angeles CC were running at around 13ft during the 2023 US Open. 41
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