Measuring greens performance

The greens on any golf course are probably the most discussed area for golfers, we aim to provide greens that are the best we can within our budget. Differing elements have to be taken in to consideration, such as weather, amount of play, maintenance practices and other course maintenance. To help understand the way the greens are playing, interacting to balls pitching on them and roll we have a couple of gadgets at our disposal. The stimp meter, moisture meter and the prism gauge, a stimp meter is used to measure the speed of ball roll across the turf, the moisture meter speaks for its self and a prism gauge is used to measure the height of the grass plant accurately.
Currently with the weather being dry the greens are not as dense as they normally are at this time of the year, this is making them a little inconsistent with smoothness of roll as the different grasses are growing at different rates, they are however fast due to the lack of growth. Our greens are fairly sloping across the course so very fast greens can cause problems, we like to ensure they are fast throughout the season without causing undue stress to the turf. After they were cut but before rolling this morning they were running at 9'4'' after rolling they were running at 10'6''.

When taking a stimp reading it is done in two directions of a relatively flat area to take an average of the two figures. The stimp meter is simply a length of shaped metal with a hole to place a ball, the meter is then lifted until the ball rolls down and the measurement is taken from the end of the stimp meter to where the ball comes to rest.
The prism gauge is simple a way of measuring the actual height of cut on the greens, when setting up a greens mower the 'bench setting' or height the machine is adjusted to can sometimes not be the same as the height they cut on the greens, due to the actual greens firmness and type of rollers on each machine.

Some blades of grass are slightly longer than others but the average height is approximately 3.5mm.
These tools are not used that frequently but give an agronomic understanding and provide specific data to then adjust maintenance accordingly. Having said this I think the best way to understand the greens is to play on them regularly, seeing them from a golfers point of view. Unfortunately I have no one to blame when I hit a bad putt !
Else where on the course we have seeded and watered more badger damage on the 6th, seeded and watered the old hedgerow on the 18th/19th, cut tee sides, cut in tree lines, groomed surrounds and sprayed them with fertiliser and iron, finished cutting semi rough and tidied up some branches on the course. We will be cutting tees again tomorrow and the normal greens regime will continue over the weekend.

Sprinkler in action on 18th