Mountains, Bodies of Water and Low Points

[Sven Nilsen]

A recent conversation has me questioning the old adage that putts always break towards the water, or to be specific, that putts can be influenced by the natural drainage patterns on a property.

There seem to be two ways in which this "effect" is manifested:

1.  The golfer sense of flatness is distorted by the overall slope of a property.  A slight left to right contour on an area that in general runs from right to left may appear to be flat due to a distortion created by its place in its surrounds.

2.  The drainage patterns actually influence the grain of the grass.  To determine the drainage pattern for a particular section of a green, you have to look at how the drainage works in general in the surrounding area.  Therefore, the grain in a green can run in a manner that appears to be counter-intuitive.

Does the combination of the two accentuate what might be a minute influence into a greater effect? 

How important is the type of grass to this analysis?  Does alignment to the sun play into this at all?  Do faster green speeds more than incrementally accentuate the breaks?

Are there any concrete studies out there on this effect?  The limited search I've done hasn't turned up much.

[Tom_Doak]

There isn't much grain on greens anymore.  A little bit on bermudagrass, maybe, but everything now is cut so short it isn't enough to make a putt break uphill.

The phenomenon you describe is all about the eye being fooled by the general tilt of the ground, and reading that as flat.  Thus, most putts will break toward the lowest point on the property [i.e. Rae's Creek, the ocean, or the valley in front of the 7th green at Crystal Downs] a bit more than what your eye reads. 

Of course, if the designer wants to, he can make a green break back away from that low point.  But such a green will probably look like it pitches back that way even harder than it really does, since it's going against the grain of the land -- so you are not likely to be deceived.

The faster the greens, the more the putts break.

[Kalen Braley]

The concept of "uphill putts" is encapsulated in the concept called "gravity hills".

Here is a list of several known spots.  There is also a spot in Utah where I saw this illusion as well, its very weird to the mind to see these kinds of tricks being played on it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gravity_hills

http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2006/0609-the_mysterious_gravity_hill.htm

[Patrick_Mucci]

Let's not forget "drainage"

Baltusrol "upper" provides some terrific deception.
The course is essentially cut into the side of a pronounced hill.

[Tom Dunne]

Rustic Canyon is great for this stuff, too, with its various combinations of uphill-downhill and up-canyon down-canyon putts. This would seem to fit into the first of Sven's points--it's easy to forget sometimes that the entire property is tilted toward the ocean.