Hardest Greens to Read?

[Jeff_Brauer]

It would be interesting to see how the typical Raynor greens changed to reflect the contours.  Maybe the Redan is really flat to look sloped back left, or the back tier of a Biarizts or Double plateau are actually level or below the front their?  Played there, but seriously can't recall.

Lester,

See above about any recall of that day with ASGCA.  My best memory is playing with Ress (always a treat) in his first round back from shoulder surgery.  On the first tee, waxing eloquent about how great it is to be back, how great golf is......misses a 3 footer for par on the first green and blurts out "I HATE this game!"  How typical of all of us.  I think it was half serious and half in jest, but it was a funny contrast, and I have used it often.....sometimes without the ongoing set up from the first tee on.

Back on topic, we have discussed this before, and I touched on it above, but sans a steep slope to mess up perspective, on flatland ground the hardest green to read is one that has some short of up or down change of slope/grade midway on a putt.  They are easier to account for right as the ball leaves the putter, or dies near the hole, but are pretty darned hard to judge speed if midway through a decent length putt.

Tripp Davis and Justin Leonard feel so strongly about this that at Old American, they told me most greens have spines almost cutting an "X" through the green at some angle.  Unless you are in the right quadrant, you have a change of grade somewhere in your putt, accentuating the need to get close for birdie. 

Frankly, I have always thought gently rolling throughout creates the mythical "proportional" challenge of making a 20 foot put about twice as hard to make as a 10 foot putt.  I would think on average, the mid grade theory would make the challenge substantially greater, and I wonder if it really needs to be?

[Jim Lipstate]

Hardest greens for me to read are at Bandon Dunes and Pacific Dunes. The fescue greens create a camo pattern to the greens that I find adds to the difficulty of reading the breaks. I kept thinking there had to be some pull towards the ocean but found that to be unreliable amongst the dunes. I remember playing Makena in Maui and the assistant pro pointed out ot us before the round that all putts break to Molokini Atoll. He was invariably correct. Whenever someone asks me my opinion as to the break on their putt I usually still reply that it breaks toward Molokini. Yes - I usually get at best an eyeroll in response.

[Doug Siebert]

Visually, a flat green looks like it breaks toward the mountain. Even a green sloping a normal 2-3% in the natural downhill direction may look canted the other way.  And, in most cases, the hillier the site, the more the side slope to then natural downhill slope is.  I have used my digital level to measure such slopes, and inevitably, what looks like a 2% slope to the right can end up being 6-7%.

So, even when you get the direction right, you usually vastly underestimate the break.

I think the reason I haven't had such problems in hilly/mountain courses is because I plumb bob everything. While I'm the first to admit that technique is not without its limitations, without a doubt it quickly exposes that sort of visual deception. Can also be useful to do from the side if you aren't sure of the amount of downhill/uphill slope that is present.

One downside is that I've been doing it so long it has become ingrained as a habit. It isn't part of my preshot routine, as I usually do it before it is my turn to putt - basically the same as everyone else crouching down behind the ball to read the green. Something just feels 'off' if I putt without having done it so I have to do a quick token plumb bob even for putts where I'm certain of the line, such as if someone has just putted the exact same putt before me. 

[David Kelly]

The hardest time I think I ever had reading greens was at Rock Creek Cattle Company. It got to the point where I wasn't even sure on what the 4 footers would do.   If I remember correctly the way putts broke often were not in relation to the general lay of the land - or at least that was what I thought while trying to figure them out.