Why no first cut?

[adx321]

A pet peeve of mine is finding a great course that obviously had a ton of skill and effort put into it, only to find there not being a first cut of rough.

Do people do this to create difficulty or is it just because it takes more time or is it a look you're going for?

I played a popular release from this week last night and there's deep rough 1" off the green.  If I encountered that irl I'd want my money back.   

[fargo]

Some people like to use light rough as an additional background texture. For example using a brown light rough texture (like texture number 5) as a base for burnt out grass / fescue look between the holes and off-course.

I used to dislike using light rough as it's not much of a penalty, 94% and almost full spin? It's hardly rough. I've started using it again though.

If a course has no light rough I just imagine in my head that the heavy rough is actually the first cut / light rough, and the planted out areas are the deep stuff.

[boynsy]

I prefer not to use a first cut of rough and instead just make the fairways a yard or so wider. I think it looks cleaner, and also reflects on my experience of how I feel about maintenance of real golf courses.

[adx321]

Dec 30, 2022 20:05:51 GMT -5 boynsy said:

I prefer not to use a first cut of rough and instead just make the fairways a yard or so wider. I think it looks cleaner, and also reflects on my experience of how I feel about maintenance of real golf courses.

I've never been on a golf course that doesn't have a strip of light rough between fairway and the deep stuff.  Superintendents use it as a "cleanup" strip.

So you have no fringe around greens where you play?  missing by 1" means 3" deep grass?

[boynsy]

Dec 31, 2022 8:41:40 GMT -5 adx321 said:

Dec 30, 2022 20:05:51 GMT -5 boynsy said:

I prefer not to use a first cut of rough and instead just make the fairways a yard or so wider. I think it looks cleaner, and also reflects on my experience of how I feel about maintenance of real golf courses.

I've never been on a golf course that doesn't have a strip of light rough between fairway and the deep stuff.  Superintendents use it as a "cleanup" strip.

So you have no fringe around greens where you play?  missing by 1" means 3" deep grass?

The exit lap can adequately be done at the same height as the fairway cut. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not sure that I’ve ever worked at a club that didn’t have a first cut strip around the fairways but it adds to the list of jobs that need doing for very little gain - I’m not sure how you can complain about being in the rough as punishment for missing the fairway though.

And a green surround is different to a first cut of rough - I took a lot of pride in my green surrounds! Favourite job on the course.

[b101]

There are a few cases where it’s not there for good reason. Historically - for courses prior to 2K21 - light rough was an absolute pain due to the awful squiggly line bug. So older courses often did away with light rough as it literally added about 10-20mins per hole. Horrific stuff.

With Sandbelt courses, having auto light rough interferes with the transitions if you cut bunkers directly into greens or fairways. It can be added, but as they’re generally very wide, it’s typically avoided.

As others have mentioned, sometimes the extra texture is saved for elsewhere. Personally, I think if you can have it, do. Most real life courses do and it massively helps playability - you don’t really want a potential 50% lie difference within half a yard if you can help it. Also worth noting that real life courses that can have ‘heavy’ rough just off the fairway can vary the heights and control lie % in a way we just can’t. I’d love a feature where we could assign more and less penal spots of heavy rough, but could see it being a pain to implement.

[Deleted]

Dec 31, 2022 10:59:47 GMT -5 b101 said:

There are a few cases where it’s not there for good reason. Historically - for courses prior to 2K21 - light rough was an absolute pain due to the awful squiggly line bug. So older courses often did away with light rough as it literally added about 10-20mins per hole. Horrific stuff.

With Sandbelt courses, having auto light rough interferes with the transitions if you cut bunkers directly into greens or fairways. It can be added, but as they’re generally very wide, it’s typically avoided.

As others have mentioned, sometimes the extra texture is saved for elsewhere. Personally, I think if you can have it, do. Most real life courses do and it massively helps playability - you don’t really want a potential 50% lie difference within half a yard if you can help it. Also worth noting that real life courses that can have ‘heavy’ rough just off the fairway can vary the heights and control lie % in a way we just can’t. I’d love a feature where we could assign more and less penal spots of heavy rough, but could see it being a pain to implement.

I wish you could physically set the height of the heavy rough as a feature on the designer.

[bubbadave]

Dec 31, 2022 9:53:28 GMT -5 boynsy said:

The exit lap can adequately be done at the same height as the fairway cut. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not sure that I’ve ever worked at a club that didn’t have a first cut strip around the fairways but it adds to the list of jobs that need doing for very little gain - I’m not sure how you can complain about being in the rough as punishment for missing the fairway though.

Well on courses like East Lake and TPC San Antonio, a lot of very good tee shots end up in the light rough due to the nature of their severely cantered fairways. Without that buffer, those courses might be completely unplayable. Truthfully, I think designers should do what they want. My only pet peeve are greens that match fairways and a dark filter is on the course. It's very difficult to tell the difference for these aging eyes.

[Violinguy69]

On most courses, the best players (in this game I mean) should miss no more than one fairway per round, if that. Yeah, there are a few courses with crazy sculpting that gives bad bounces, but for the most part, a good drive stays in the fairway. No light rough is often a designer's only defense against players violating the course for -17 or worse. I do hate that a ball can just roll into the rough and give you a 40% lie. That's absurd. Bunkers are the same way. If a ball rolls to rest in a bunker, you should almost always have 80%-ish lie.

[adx321]

Jan 10, 2023 15:42:08 GMT -5 Violinguy69 said:

On most courses, the best players (in this game I mean) should miss no more than one fairway per round, if that. Yeah, there are a few courses with crazy sculpting that gives bad bounces, but for the most part, a good drive stays in the fairway. No light rough is often a designer's only defense against players violating the course for -17 or worse. I do hate that a ball can just roll into the rough and give you a 40% lie. That's absurd. Bunkers are the same way. If a ball rolls to rest in a bunker, you should almost always have 80%-ish lie.

Designing with the goal of protecting par in a video game seems silly to me.  The only way you can do it is to create artificial difficulty