Today we measured green speed, surface firmness and soil moisture on a “dry” putting green and a “normal moisture” putting green. The measurements were similar from the data collected on September 4th class, but we did use the “Firmness Meter” in place of the USGA TruFirm. The results are listed below.
After looking at the data can you make any conclusions with regard to differences if any in green speed, or which firmness meter do you think is more consistent, or (for those who were taking data) do you think the moisture levels on the dry green are too low based on putting green appearance.
Location 1: Putting green that appeared to have adequate moisture
| Group | Green Speed | Firmness (Field Scout TruFirm) | Firmness (Firmness Meter) | Soil Moisture (percent) |
| Zager, Averman, Smith | 7 feet | 607 | 0.403 | 36.4 |
| Folck, Turner, Kifer, Bok | 9 feet 4 inches | 541 | 0.356 | 38.5 |
| Laux, Haynes | 8 feet 3 inches | 617 | 0.425 | 39.5 |
| Sharp, Stroud, Martin | 8 feet 8 inches | 605 | 0.371 | 36.7 |
Location 2: Dry putting green
| Group | Green Speed | Firmness (Field Scout TruFirm) | Firmness (Firmness Meter) | Soil Moisture (percent) |
| Zager, Averman, Smith | 8 feet 5 inches | 491 | 0.557 | 7.6 |
| Folck, Turner, Kifer, Bok | 8 feet 5 inches | 436 | 0.579 | 8.7 |
| Laux, Haynes | 8 feet 8 inches | 560 | 0.550 | 9.9 |
| Sharp, Stroud, Martin | 8 feet 8 inches | 396 | 0.629 | 10 |
Dr. Danneberger,
After looking at the data for location 1, the green speed has quite a difference between the groups. From my experience in my sports turf class, I feel the reasoning behind that difference could be a couple different things. One of them could be how the group lifted the ball. Maybe the group that had 9 feet 4 inches lifted the ball too fast, causing it to jump up and roll down the ramp faster than normal. Another reason there could be such a difference is the location on the green. Did group two not have as flat of an area measured as the first group did, causing the ball to roll down hill? Just a couple questions in the data that I saw. Thanks.
The Scout TruFirm seems to be more consistent for location one, but for location two the firmness meter seems more consistent. When you average the numbers, the wet putting green seems to be the fastest. But on the other hand, location one seems to have the most discrepancies because the numbers are so far apart. So I don’t think you could accurately determine which one is faster or slower.
Seems like there are some differences in the firmness of the individual greens. I wonder if that is contributed to either how much parts of the wet green were watered that day or if different parts of the dry green weren’t as dry as other parts depending on where we took our samples from.