Fairway / Fringe roll speed in real life?

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Adelade
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Joined: August 27th, 2019, 10:24 am

Fairway / Fringe roll speed in real life?

Post by Adelade »

Im experimenting with custom texture properties for greens and fairways (before you go all - "Please no, I hate custom properties!" - Dont worry! Since it is only fairways and greens, it will only take effect if you as a player actually select to play using the settings "Green Hardness using Course Setting" or "Green Speed using Course Setting", otherwise the course's fairways and greens will always play as you normally expect, so these custom settings are only an opt-in.

However, I feel like I have no particular good idea of how much slower fringes and fairways are in real life compared to greens, and therefore dont really know what I should aim for in terms of my custom fairway settings, and was hoping to get some opinions from people on that before I start experimenting with them.

So my question is this: How much slower do you think fairways and fringes tend to be in real life compared to greens on those same courses? For example, do you think they roll half as fast as greens? a third? even less? or closer to the speed of the greens? I realize that in real life this will vary a lot between different courses, different types of grass and soil and different days with different weather and course maintenance, but if we try to assume some type of average parkland course scenario?
Finished Courses - Main: Amedal (fictional), Nine Bridges (real)
Other: Austin, Sheshan, Kauri Cliffs, Le Golf Nat. Updates: Whirlpool, Royal Lytham, Royal St George's, Chicago, Chambers Bay, Munchen Nord E
Working on: 2 fictional courses + a couple things...
gene_golf
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Re: Fairway / Fringe roll speed in real life?

Post by gene_golf »

My guess would be fringe could be set to be slower by roughly 5 to 10 percent and fairway by 25 or up to 33 percent slower as far as putting something out there. As is now fringe and fairway seem to be equal as putting on greens. Putting from either would depend on factors of how close pin might be set as well as if there is a lot of slope to contend with. I must admit now to chipping on green from say 45 feet with putt up a steep slope and not much distance from slope to hole. A chip shot going say 10 feet beyond is reasonable as then have decent chance of making ensuing putt instead of having to putt uphill still or have putt run out way beyond the hole. Also for say a 75 feet putt even though might be flatter---I seem to wind up closer afterwards using a chip to stop as some putts seem to roll out or come up way short since really tough guaging that long of putt distance as other thoughts regarding short game play.
Last edited by gene_golf on September 1st, 2022, 2:48 am, edited 2 times in total.
derricksummers
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Re: Fairway / Fringe roll speed in real life?

Post by derricksummers »

:dunno: Adelade I think Lez did a post or a Video on all the properties of textures and how to alter them, it was very complex and way over my head, but it might be of interest to you, At the moment I am in limbo, I have just had the tests for Carpul Tunnel and am now waiting for a date to fix it. At the moment my hands and fingers are as much use as a Waterfroof Tea Bag. :wallbash:
Derrick
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Adelade
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Re: Fairway / Fringe roll speed in real life?

Post by Adelade »

I've seen the video you mention a couple times in the past, its a good video, but doesnt cover what Im wondering.
Finished Courses - Main: Amedal (fictional), Nine Bridges (real)
Other: Austin, Sheshan, Kauri Cliffs, Le Golf Nat. Updates: Whirlpool, Royal Lytham, Royal St George's, Chicago, Chambers Bay, Munchen Nord E
Working on: 2 fictional courses + a couple things...
pmgolf
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Location: near Richmond, VA

Re: Fairway / Fringe roll speed in real life?

Post by pmgolf »

Adelade wrote: August 30th, 2022, 5:29 pm So my question is this: How much slower do you think fairways and fringes tend to be in real life compared to greens on those same courses? For example, do you think they roll half as fast as greens? a third? even less? or closer to the speed of the greens?
I play real-life golf regularly, and have for the past 50 years or so. The courses I play are usually in "very good" condition, but no where near the pristine conditions found on the tour.

At best, when putting over fairway grass the ball will roll at a pace that is about half of what the green speed is. Maybe even a little less. The roll is a bit bouncy, too. And the distance the ball has to travel has a severe impact, too. 5 yards - maybe. More than that - really doubtful. And for fringe vs. fairway? There really isn't any difference between the two other than the fringe usually being a 3-4 foot wide area that wouldn't affect the putt any more than a 3-4 foot wide fairway strip. Putting from the rough? Only in a video game.

Sadly, I know nothing about real-life putting on Scottish or Irish links courses. I've not been lucky enough to have that opportunity.

Pete
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Adelade
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Re: Fairway / Fringe roll speed in real life?

Post by Adelade »

There seems to be a game-breaking bug in the game when using Course Settings :sad: Im unable to figure out any workaround to the problem at the moment, and feel forced to abandon all my plans and attempts with custom properties for fairway and greens. Very sad, because I was getting quite fond of the custom properties I had achieved, they work fine for the fairways and greens. But...

Whenever selecting to play with Course Settings for firmness and speed, the regular Rough, for some reason, becomes much thicker to play out from than standard Deep Rough, it is downright unplayable. Normally I expect to get at least 130-140 meters carry with a well-struck 6 Iron from regular Rough, but on Course Settings I only get around 80 meters carry... And I didnt touch the properties for the regular Rough whatsoever. Either way, selecting a couple entirely different courses, made by other designers, the exact same thing happens, so it ought to be a problem on all courses. I made sure the effect had nothing to do with the mechanic of the ball sometimes getting "hidden"/"plugged" (or whatever you want to call it) in the rough.

:sad: :sad: :sad:

I guess I will just finish the course I was making without these custom properties. Well, then again, I guess I might as well leave them in there... But I wont recommend that anyone tries playing with the Course Settings. Sending out a Beta to a few people today, if anyone wants to help test it please send a PM. The course is supposed to be a little bit of a surprise, so I wont say what it is, it will probably be released as a final in a couple weeks.

P.S. Thanks for the replies Gene and Pete
Finished Courses - Main: Amedal (fictional), Nine Bridges (real)
Other: Austin, Sheshan, Kauri Cliffs, Le Golf Nat. Updates: Whirlpool, Royal Lytham, Royal St George's, Chicago, Chambers Bay, Munchen Nord E
Working on: 2 fictional courses + a couple things...
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MrT
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Re: Fairway / Fringe roll speed in real life?

Post by MrT »

Hello Adelade and thank you for letting me try this course. I never heard of this French golf course before. So I learned something new as well.

I played it twice (full course) in Champ, Difficult Pin Settings, Gusty, once in M/FC (Game 1) and once using your course settings (Game 2).

Game 1; -3
Game 2: -5

I took a few Mulligans, but not always to my advantage as several times I sank the hole with a chip and wanted to test chipping and rolling on greens.

My impressions in casual order

1) the course is overall nice, I like it and some holes are quite beautiful. Narrow fairways are not my favorite feature so, if I say that I liked the course, it is not a small thing.

2) I found the greens on the easy side, I sank nearly every shot from within 10 feet/3 meters and I hit several long ones including a 15 meters (luck, of course), but they felt realistic (greens do not need to look like roller coasters) . It made no difference M/Fc or Course Settings.

3) I find the fairways sort of slow overall.. I kept the count on drives and balls were only traveling 17 meters on average after touching down. That feels short vs. real life. But it is a general issue with Links. Only on hole 1 in Game 2 ball traveled a lot and ended up on rough which made it impossible to hit the green on second shot (that is where I experimented with Mulligans mostly: no club was helping as the balls always stay too low to clear the water)

4) The reason I could score like this on first attempts is very simple. It took me only 3-4 shots in Game 1 to realize it. When approaching the green on second or third shot, one can just really go for the flag because balls do not travel much once they hit the green. So I nearly always gave myself very reasonable putts.

5) chipping from the fringes took one shot to understand how to play them: chipping seems to let balls travel more than expected from what I experience from the straight shots from fairways.

6) "your" greens are big and that means that the slow green when balls lands from second or third shots can be even 20 meters from the hole. Not a welcome type of putts.

7) chipping from rough is tough, nasty even, because basically the balls do not gain much height and I could even use max power and not reach the greens from 15-20 meters. Had to resort to lob shots which is fine by me as I use those lobs often.

8) difficult pins only mean tough business when they are by the water. It is not the putting per se, it is that it is very hard to get a shot that sends the ball near the pin. Although as greens seem slow after the balls landed, I managed better than I thought I could.

9) For me the easiest holes were the par 5 as in 2 rounds (birdied 7 out of 8). Toughest were the par 3s (although keep in mind I had chosen difficult pin settings and in regular games I like to mix the difficulties up a bit)

10) I cannot tell if the course settings are faster or slower than M/Fc. I did not perceive/experience a lot of difference, though. Definitely slower than F/Fc. You invited me to be a bit critic and I will do that. I must say that both the roll after putting or the roll after chipping from the fringes on the greens, did not have a natural feeling. That is true even in M/Fc and not just in course settings. Definitely felt a bit unnatural because I did not have the perception of a real life ball rolling. You mentioned a game breaking bug, but I am not sure if what I experienced is related to it.

11) This course is one that can be tamed by any player who 1) avoids roughs and 2) learns how to exploit the mentioned fact that second/third shots to the green do not travel much and there is hardly a risk to see balls rolling 20-30 meters past the greens. Avoiding roughs, in particular on holes with water that require shots with a certain amount of height, is paramount.

12) I only went in sand once in 2 games. Sand is a good place for me as I use it to slow down shots when I need to hit hard. I am quite good at getting out of sand. In that occasion, I notice the flat green and I knew that I needed to put the ball on it reducing the horse power and I almost sank it, missing by just 5-6 cm.

All in all, this is definitely a nice course. As for the course settings I am curious to learn what their stimp should be. In general, green speed was fine and I would not even mind if they were a tad faster, but not F/Fc faster. These greens are playable at that speed, but I doubt that chips would be, given what I saw. I would have hoped for a bit more firmness and responsiveness from greens in particular on balls landing when approaching the greens on 2nd or 3rd shots.

That is all I have for now. I did not encounter any evident technical issues, but I only played it twice. Colors are overall nice. Not the most exciting perhaps, but more than adequate. Never had trouble to distinguish fringes from greens, something that one cannot always take for granted in Links.

Finally, as for your question about fringes speeds, I am afraid that I am not your best option. I played real golf but mostly locally on the same courses which, with the exception of TPC Twin Cities or Hazeltine, were quite easy compared to the names here and thus my visual impressions would not mean much, if anything at all. Some of "my" fringes were nearly as fast as greens as the grass was very short, I would say 10-15% slower. A few were much slower as they were meant to be an in between rough and fairway. Or just the management wanted to save money and not cut the grass too often! I played on public courses and not the $300,000 membership private clubs.
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Adelade
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Re: Fairway / Fringe roll speed in real life?

Post by Adelade »

Thank you for your testing and observations (even if some things are quite off-topic here). About greens and fairways, my response needs to be clearly split between the round of M/Fc and the round on the custom Course Settings.

For M/Fc, everything will work exactly as they do on any other course. You wont get much bounce and roll on any course with M/Fc, though it always depends a lot on outside factors like wind, club used, lie elevation, shot setup and power, and the slope of the landing area (many of the greens slope from back to front, but that same thing can also be said for the majority of real greens around the world). If you think I am wrong in that, you'll have to provide some evidence/examples. I have playtested a full round on M/Fc too and, while I didnt make any thorough investigation, I found the conditions to play identical to any other course on M/Fc.

For the custom settings it is a completely different thing. Like I wrote in the Beta message, because of the bug, using custom settings is not recommended (and I know you're already aware of that and that you just wanted to test anyway). One thing I will say though, is that the custom greens were not meant to be particularly firm, the place in real life will never be as firm as linksland courses on sandy soil tend to be for example (unless maybe if there is some kind of major drought). Likewise, I didnt want to make the fairways too firm (see my comment about player rage in the other thread). All shots on the custom settings from rough are bugged (probably without any solution).

As for stimp, the custom greens were 12.4 and fairways 6.2 (and that is with reference to the most recent chart of "true stimps" I posted in the other thread a few days ago).

To me, it sounds like you would enjoy the course on F/Fc. In terms of chipping, I suspect you might just need more practice with it (sorry if it sounds rude, I could be wrong. Im certainly not pretending to be good at chipping myself. I find chipping on any course quite difficult on F/Fc. From the rough (and Classic+Champ) it is an absolute nightmare. I will say though, that the pros in real life seem to frequently have trouble chipping as well, with the fast green speeds they're playing at, so I try to see it as a very tough but fun and possibly realistic challenge.)

Off-topic:
Colors are overall nice. Not the most exciting perhaps, but more than adequate.
I like receiving opinions like these, because they tend to be hard to come by. Can you describe in what way they could use changing in order to hit more exciting levels for you personally? (Feel free to reply in a PM)
Finished Courses - Main: Amedal (fictional), Nine Bridges (real)
Other: Austin, Sheshan, Kauri Cliffs, Le Golf Nat. Updates: Whirlpool, Royal Lytham, Royal St George's, Chicago, Chambers Bay, Munchen Nord E
Working on: 2 fictional courses + a couple things...
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