Poorly Kept Course With Perfect Greens Or All-Round Mediocre Course?

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published 18 August 2020

GM regulars Fergus Bisset and Jeremy Ellwood debate whether one key area of greenkeeping excellence trumps an overall standard of mediocrity.

Poorly Kept Course With Perfect Greens Or All-Round Mediocre Course?

There’s something rather depressing about all-round mediocrity in any area of life or experience.

A bland meal, lift music, a motorway hotel… things that are just ok but offer no thrills or excitement, scant variety and not a whole lot to elicit any emotion other than indifference… These things don’t really do it for me.

Walking off a course where you’ve enjoyed pristine putting surfaces, it would be difficult not to feel that, on some level, you’ve had a positive experience.

I’m prepared to forgive quite a bit in other areas if I encounter greens of that sort of quality.

And let’s be realistic: The rest of the course isn’t going to be that bad is it?

As long as there’s grass to play from and some degree of definition, it’s hardly going to be intolerable.

Only a skilled greens team can produce surfaces of the very highest standard, so chances are they’re working towards overall on-course improvements too.

Now I’ve come full circle and am happy to excuse all manner of putting surfaces and general mediocrity if the overall experience is uplifting and worthwhile.

This volte-face is, in some ways, counterintuitive for I’ve also said many times that my putting is all that keeps my handicap where it is, so why would I not crave good greens above all else?

I think I’ve just became a little weary of golf’s obsession with the greens and their speed to the exclusion of everything else a particular course has to offer.

These days I’m looking for golfing memories that go beyond merely the greens and embrace the views, the ambience, the away-from-it-all feel or anything just a little bit different.

Fergus is Golf Monthly's resident expert on the history of the game and has written extensively on that subject. He has also worked with Golf Monthly to produce a podcast series. Called 18 Majors: The Golf History Show it offers new and in-depth perspectives on some of the most important moments in golf's long history. You can find all the details about it here.

He is a golf obsessive and 1-handicapper. Growing up in the North East of Scotland, golf runs through his veins and his passion for the sport was bolstered during his time at St Andrews university studying history. He went on to earn a post graduate diploma from the London School of Journalism. Fergus has worked for Golf Monthly since 2004 and has written two books on the game; "Great Golf Debates" together with Jezz Ellwood of Golf Monthly and the history section of "The Ultimate Golf Book" together with Neil Tappin , also of Golf Monthly.

Fergus once shanked a ball from just over Granny Clark's Wynd on the 18th of the Old Course that struck the St Andrews Golf Club and rebounded into the Valley of Sin, from where he saved par. Who says there's no golfing god?