Ground contours on the Old Course, St. Andrews

It's a grim outlook for ground contours on golf courses if the playing surface doesn't allow the ball to bounce and roll. On Sunday, I'll be talking about this as it relates to tropical Southeast Asia -- if one wants to have surfaces on which a golf ball is going to bounce and roll, what grasses are preferable, and what type of soil conditions do we need?

This is part of the Design, Build, and Maintain: a different way? seminar with Paul Jansen and Pirapon Namatra.

For a preview of my main points, see these two articles:

• Achieving the warm-season links
• Do fairways need a sand cap?

I'll be sharing some recent data, observations, and calculations, but those two articles give a good preview of the case I will make, and if you are attending the seminar, I hope you will read those articles in advance. If you are not attending the seminar, you'll probably like the articles anyway.

Yes, a running sward is quite possible in the tropics -- Plutalaung Royal Thai Navy Golf Course

And this too: