ABSTRACT
This chapter considers which aspects of playing quality are relevant to a variety of sports, methods of quantifying playing quality, and how playing quality measurements can be interpreted. Measurement techniques are restricted to those used for natural turf surfaces, although it is acknowledged that in the future certain methods developed for artificial turf surfaces may also be incorporated in testing programs for natural turf areas. The performance of sports surfaces in terms of quantitative measurements of factors such as ball bounce, ball roll, grip and surface hardness and have criteria by which measurements of playing quality can be interpreted. Testing playing quality should be an important component of research on sports turf areas as it is useful to be able to assess how different construction methods or management practices affect the sports player. In addition, performance specifications are now being developed for the construction and particularly the maintenance of sports turf: again it is important that the playing quality.
