Re: Alternative to a Stimpmeter

Douglas Siebert wrote: 
Mike Dalecki <mike@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:


What I wish is that we could buy a stimpmeter. How expensive can they be? They're a piece of angle iron with a notch in it. You wouldn't even need the notch if you simply created something to hold it in the air at a particular angle to the ground, and a gate that would let a ball go.



Curious why you would want to own a stimpmeter? What are you going to
do with it, measure your course's greens 

You've got it!

> and complain that they should
be faster, or say they are too fast now?

No. But I could measure our practice green, and other greens, and get a sense of what fast means and slow means. Since our greens can vary greatly based on a number of factors, it seems to me it might be useful to know.

> Go play other courses and
keep track of how fast their greens are? 

Wouldn't it be useful to know?

Greenskeepers already get too
much pressure from their members who want their greens to be fast so
they can brag to the guys at the next club over, but who don't fully
grasp what it is like to play greens that stimp at 12 or 13.  They see
their greens fast one day and find a few holes where their downhill
putts just keep going until they go off the green and just say "damn,
this must be what its like to play greens at 13!"  If its an older course
with some real slope to the greens (like 5% - 8% grades) the ball may do
that on a green that's like 9.5, but try and tell them their greens are
only 9.5 when they hear about pros playing greens at 13 and they won't
believe you.


I don't care about any of that stuff.

<snip> 
If you are still determined to build a stimpmeter, why not just build
one?  It has GOT to be a lot easier than building your own spine finder,
right?

Is it? I don't know. You need the notch the ball sits in to be a very specific shape, so the ball always releases as the stimpmeter passes through a specific angle to the green.

Doesn't sound easy to me.

Mike

PS:  Spinefinders are easy.








--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mike Dalecki     GCA Accredited Clubmaker      http://clubdoctor.com
RSG-Wisconsin 2005 Pics:   http://dalecki.net/rsgwis2005/pics/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
.