No such thing as TMI

I like knowing things about golf courses I visit and write about. It helps me to understand the site-specific character of the place. Often, I’ll go on Google Maps beforehand to determine the high and lows points of a course and the elevation change involved. Or when I’m writing up an assessment, I’ll count the balance of fairway bunkers and greenside bunkers to get a fix on how the hazards function.

Climate data are also helpful and readily available online, including prevailing wind speeds and direction by month, average precipitation rates across the calendar, and monthly averages of high/low temperatures.

At some point in my data collection, however, I must rely upon the superintendent for details like the average square footage of greens or which putting surfaces are the largest and smallest. Equally revealing would be the square footage of bunkers, acreage of fairways, heights of various turf cuts and average Stimpmeter reads in season.

In the decades since the 1990s, when I started gathering such data for my reviews, these information points are getting much easier to obtain. That’s not only a function of enhanced web-based searches, but also because superintendents today are generally far more sophisticated in monitoring and measuring their properties. That’s evident in the widespread use of GPS-generated area tracking — a tool, for instance, that is vital to construction management budgeting and billing.

There might be a certain old-world charm embedded in the soles of a greenkeeper’s shoes as they are used to determine if a certain spot is squishy or dry. And back in the late 19th century, when Old Tom Morris’ topdressing program consisted of telling his lone assistant, “mere sand, Honeyman,” the overworked underling did not respond by asking about the precise application rate per 1,000 square feet.

Too much measurement and management can become counterproductive. There’s an old adage in management and engineering, to the effect that “you cannot control what you cannot measure.” This was a popular saying in the 1950s and ’60s, but soon gave way to criticism from within the corps of business that there is such a thing as measuring for the sake of measuring or pursuing information to unproductive ends.

Consider the infamous example of the Stimpmeter, a device initially developed in the 1930s to help greenkeepers achieve consistency in green speeds. Within decades it fell into the hands of green chairmen and tournament managers who weaponize it against superintendents in the pursuit of speed for its own sake. Information is not the problem; the issue arises when the data fall into the wrong hands.

Moisture-level monitors and firmness-measuring devices are helpful when it comes to making decisions about irrigation, drainage and topdressing practices. But if deployed as indices of preferred standards of excellence in their right — as happened with green speeds — they end up contributing to wasteful practices of over maintenance.

A good example of measuring usefully can be seen in the case of labor. By tracking hours spent on various tasks — like mowing greens, raking bunkers and picking up leaves — most superintendents have a pretty good idea of how their work budget is expended. Likewise, when it comes to the cost of plant protectant applications per square foot. That’s how they can anticipate the additional cost of a renovation or restoration project that might add bunker square footage and short-grass mowing while simultaneously introducing expanded greens with more hole locations that will reduce wear and tear and thus reduce disease susceptibility. The result is a multivariate equation of anticipated cost outcomes.

I still remember the amazement I felt some two decades ago listening to Bob Randquist, CGCS, when he spoke at a GCSAA conference and showed that the average cost of maintenance per square foot of bunkering was equivalent to what was spent on putting surfaces. From a benefit-cost standpoint, considering dollar spent for shot played, it struck me as a crazy waste of resources. Which was exactly Randquist’s point. He would not have known it without careful measurement.

We are rapidly approaching an era of data management in which we will have access to a digital whiteboard of work. Savvy superintendents will be able to develop marginal utility curves for each potential new configuration of the golf course. The next time a greenkeeper is asked to amp up the average speed on the greens, it will be known what the cost is for each additional foot on the Stimpmeter.

There’s nothing artificial about that intelligence.