The intentional 180-degree putt

[D. Kilfara]

I had a really neat experience today which I thought a few of you might get a kick out of. I was playing the 12th at Machrihanish, and the pin was in the swale at the very back of the green (for those of you who may know the green); I hit my approach shot pin high about 20 feet left of the hole, just above and to the left of the swale and in, I thought, a quite difficult position.

The conventional read on my birdie putt was that it went gently uphill at the start, then dove fiercely downhill and to the right in the last 10 feet. It called for exquisite touch and feel, dying the ball over the hump at just the correct point well to the left of the hole and having it trickle down the slope. Unsurprisingly, I didn't have this touch - I under-borrowed, and the putt rolled six feet by and to the right. (I did well to make the comebacker for par.)

I was still intrigued by the putt, so I went back and tried it again, just for fun. This time, I borrowed so much that the ball just about touched the fringe before dying down the slope - it was probably as good a putt as I could hit short of hitting the hole, conventionally speaking, but it still missed the cup and finished three-and-a-half feet past.

Now the part about the putt I'm omitting is that about four feet past the cup was the start of the far slope of the swale in which the hole was located. Still intrigued, I went back to attempt the putt for a third time, but this time, I aimed only half a foot outside the hole, and hit the putt much harder. Sure enough, the ball rolled well past the hole, up the far slope...and then trickled back down to the hole, finishing two feet away. I tried the putt this unconventional way several more times, each time finishing a foot or two from the hole and once even lipping out on the return trip down the far slope.

I was just delighted by this discovery. I've had putts in the past where I banged a ball up a hill near the hole just for fun, knowing it would come back down the slope, just to see if I could make it - but this was the first putt I've ever hit where a 180-degree turn was involved in the *optimal* course of action. I wonder if I'd have had the guts to hit that putt in tournament play. I wonder if anyone else here has faced a similar putt and gone for the intentional 180 the first time around?

I suppose the deeper truth about this discovery says something about why a lot of us love "quirk", for want of a better word. Ultimately, I think the reason we like to see and play different golf courses (instead of sticking with the same old thing, even if that "old thing" is one of the greatest courses in the world) is that there's a thrill implicit in discovering something new. And courses with quirk always offer the chance for new discoveries, no matter how many times you've played them. I wonder, even, if this isn't a good way to judge golf courses in general: once you've played a course 100 or 1,000 times, how many different discoveries along these lines are you likely to have made about it? Such a method would certainly go far in rating a course's "fun factor", and if there's one thing I think golf should be (but often isn't), it's fun.

Cheers,
Darren

[George Pazin]

Darren -

One of the more entertaining aspects of this years US Am at Oakland Hills was the number of shot played around the green where the individual played far away from the hole and used a slope to bring it back to the hole. The winner in particular used this tactic a couple times. I thought it was tremendous. I wonder if he tried it out in a practice round.

I haven't had the opportunity to try this type of putt myself, but it sure sounds cool.

[TEPaul]

Darren:

That's a marvelous story and some wonderful descriptions!

I had a putt that exciting this year at PVGC on the otherworldly 2nd hole and it was in competition, and overtime too. But I only did it on the caddie's advice because I had zero idea what else to do! I never take anybody's advice on putts and I'm a plumb-bobber for years but this one was a 100 times unplumb-bobbable! And I made it too!

But to answer your question about trying stuff like that on my own in competition, basically as Lanny Wadkins sometimes says; "He ain't got the guts!" That's me!

But I do know the feeling you had there and I think if you pull it off well you're as proud of your imagination as anything else.

[Doug Siebert]

Ever since I saw Love's (I think it was him) chip to the 16th green in the Masters a few years ago, when I'm playing around the green and have an extremely difficult shot like yours, I've made sure to examine the opportunities for using slope in this way.  I've played some pretty extraordinary shots this way, though unless I call the shot beforehand or am aiming so far to one side of the pin that's its obvious I have something devious in mind my playing partners tend to believe its just luck :-)

I like hitting shots like that, even if I'm not fully convinced it is the best percentage play, trying for the dramatic shot or impossible shot tends to appeal to me I guess.  Hey, if you figure there is a very good chance you are screwed no matter what you do, you may as well go down with gusto!

[Dave_Miller]

Hole # 16 at Charles River.  The Green is two tiered with the lower tier running front to back on the left side of the green, slopes downhill to the back 1/3 and then uphill in the rest of the green.

When the pin is located in the middle to the back hitting the ball past the hole and up the slope and allowing it to come back down produces a very similar result to the one described by D.Kilfara.  

Unfortunately to even know to try this requires a lot of local knowledge.  First time on the Green I doubt anyone would pickup on this.

Makes for some fun and interesting putts and approach shots at some amazing times.

Cheers,
Dave

[SteveC]

Had the same opportunity on the 18th at Kingsbarns this summer. Having landed my approach just off the fringe beyond and above the hole, I was thinking about how to stop this screamer of a putt that would get started by simply breathing on it. Fortunately, I had a caddie to point out another option - namely, putting slightly back up the hill and away from the hole. Incredibly, this shot stopped within a foot of the hole. Otherwise, I would have ended up off the green and in the burn below. Had a similar experience (surprise!) at No. 11 at The Old Course.

It makes me wonder, Why don't we see more of these types of putts - and more of these types of greens - across the broad range of better golf courses here in the States? They're a hell of a lot of fun. Either our green complexes lean to the mundane, or we don't have the imagination for shotmaking around the green that our counterparts across the pond have. Generally, we tend to try to putt in the general direction of the hole and rely too much on the speed (or lack thereof) to make a good putt, as opposed to thinking outside the box: "Is there another way to make this shot?" As Pat Mucci would say, I could be wrong...that's just my opinion.

[Eric Pevoto]

Don't forget the fifth at Somerset Hills. (Tillie never did!)

If you find your ball to the right of the pesky little ridge (it looks like a coffin buried under the green) that runs N/S and the pin is left, your best putt is up to the back of the green and back down.  

He must have built this one late in the afternoon!    

[A.G._Crockett]

Several years ago, playing alone early in the am at Tobacco Road (first time) I had a putt from an upper level to a lower hole position.  It was a par three; can't remember the hole number.  The guy mowing greens was waiting for me to finish, and told me where to hit the putt; I ended up with my back to the hole, and the putt traveled about twice the distance of a straight line, finishing about a foot away.  I thought it was great fun, even though I would have never, ever figured it out on my own.
Had a similar experience at Auburn University Club this summer, except I was playing with Bill Bergin, the architect of the course.  Bill gave the same advice AFTER I had missed the putt by about 20 feet!

[Rich Goodale (Guest)]

I seem to recall our caddy at NGLA borrowing several balls from us (did he ever return them.......?) on the "Punchbowl" green (13?), chucking them off at all angles of the compass and having most of them settle into a tight circle within 3-5 feet of the pin.  It was quirky, but not, at least to me, an example of great architecture.

Was I misinformed?

[A_Clay_Man]

Rich- Don't you find that the more imaginative YOU are, the better the appreciation of the archie, for giving you the op to play multiple options? ergo GOOD GCA

I also think it says alot about the greens at Machrihanish, which I have never seen. Are these tight swales prevalent there? There are plenty of swales and ridges at my new home course and opportunities abound, depending on the pin.


Darren- I always learn from the things i should've done. And one of the re-occuring awarness problems I seem to have is when I don't micro-recognize the proximity of the slope(s) to the adjouning influence (other slope). And one of the mistakes alot of competitors make is that they forget to have fun. Attempting a putt such as yours in a match or comp. can only emphasis your desire to have fun and the results will ultimately reflect that.

[TEPaul]

Rich:

You don't find what the caddie did with the golf balls he borrowed from you at NGLA great architecture? Good Lord, man--what are you looking for in great architecture?

EricP:

The 5th green at Somerset Hills is something else, isn't it? We played the course late in the fall and since (luckily) there was no one behind us we stayed on that green a good long time trying all those unbelievable "transition" putts! It was wonderful! I just hope that Somerset Hills has enough pinnable green space left at this point!

DougS:

The chip of Davis Love's is a great example of the highly imaginative golf shot!! One of the best I've ever seen and that fact it went in was unbelievable--and in the last round of the Masters too. Davis Love is certainly not particularly animated but I've never seen him that excited! It was great stuff--and made better by the fact that he even saw it and attempted it!

[D. Kilfara]

Adam - I suppose there's always the worry in tournament play if you haven't tried the reverse-180 before that the far slope won't be quite steep enough to bring the ball back down. I'd feel like a complete idiot if I tried the unconventional putt and wound up leaving myself a glassy 12-footer coming back!

Not all of the greens at Machrihanish are like this, but there are a few with similar features. The 2nd has all sorts of slopes which can be used in imaginative ways; the 3rd is long, thin and nestled in something of a swale (I've had a number of 40-footers up or down the green where on the same putt I could have aimed five feet left or eight feet right of the hole); the 5th, 6th, 10th, 12th, 13th and 14th also feature crazy slopes which might produce large swings (more right-angles than 180-degree turns) if the pin is in the right place and you hit the right shot. Unsurprisingly, the greens I've named in this paragraph and the list of my favorite greens on the course are almost identical.

Now that I think about it, I should also mention that the Ladies' Putting Course in St. Andrews (aka the Himalayas) features any number of putts along these lines - you usually see one or two putts every time you play the course which virtually demand playing the 180-degree shot. Which is why it's so much fun, of course - hitting putts more or less straight at the hole (give or take a few feet to each side) is what we do at least 99% of the time, but variety is really the spice of both golf and life, isn't it?

Cheers,
Darren

(And yeah, I remember Love's chip shot at Augusta, too...that was indeed fanstastic, wasn't it?)

[Rich Goodale (Guest)]

Tom

.....something more than a toilet bowl of a green where anything hit into 25 feet or so, in any direction, rolls around the edges inexorably towards the hole.  Of course, I've only played it once.  Was I misinformed?  If so, please educate me.

PS--I too that that DLIII's putt at the 16th at ANGC was one of the greatest moments in the history of our sport.

[THuckaby2]

Rich - you really are typing quickly this morning... lots of typos that I'm waiting for Dan Kelly to pounce on...but that's ok... However, I must ask:  unless I am completely losing memory, wasn't DLIII's shot a CHIP?  Start from the bank long and left, up the slope, back down, in the jar.  In any case you are right it was among the great moments in the history of our great sport... what HUEVOS MAXIMOS it took to even try that... but that was the only way he was gonna make it...

As for NGLA, the slowness of the aerified greens that day took the "sting" out of our caddie's demonstration, didn't it?

TH

[Dan Kelly]

I'd feel like a complete idiot if I tried the unconventional putt and wound up leaving myself a glassy 12-footer coming back!

Feeling like a complete idiot is part of the fun of the game -- no? It is when I play!

In the immortal words of Jeff McDowell: Uff-da!

[TEPaul]

Rich:

You must be talking about #16!

Actually, in my opinion, that particular green (you're right a punchbowl where the ball definitely collects from the sides toward the middle and even the back filtering back down the green if the greens are fast enough) just may be MacD's most brilliant conception on all of NGLA, in my opinion!!

The reason for a green like that at the end of a hole like that is no matter what you do on your tee shot the entire green and green-end is ENTIRELY BLIND! So obviously MacD's concept gave the golfer a good deal of latitude (side to side with the punchbowl green) to COMPENSATE for that kind of total and inherent approach shot blindness no matter what the golfer did on his tee shot!

Frankly, I think combining those totally blind fairway bowls with the BLIND bowl green is one of the most aesthetically and functionally (for golf and golf shots) brilliant design offerings I've ever seen anywhere! And I'm certainly assuming too that #16 is to a very large degree (topograhically) a "found" golf hole--not really an architecturally "made" or architecturally "conceived" one! I think MacD just used in a wonderful way a very unique landform almost "as was" for a golf hole!

Also #16 for the architecturally unaware is undoutably the most memorable hole at NGLA. Having not been there in over 35 years (from when I was a young teenager) it was the only hole I remembered with real clarity!

[redanman]

#17 at Inniscrone

Many putts on that green with about 5 options. (Slight exaggeration)    

There are several possible where you can just hit it directly away from the hole, let it die and run to the hole.

[Paul_Turner]

How about the 10th at Yale if your on the upper level with a front right pin position?  A boomerang putt!  And the only way of keeping the ball on the green, the direct route just won't work.

[D. Kilfara]

That's a good one, Paul. I'd imagine that a higher percentage of Raynor/Macdonald greens are well-suited for roundabout approach putts like this than those of any other architect(s).

[A_Clay_Man]

I don't know if it was the influence of this thread... but, I went out yesterday to golf nine holes and was immediatly joined up with the threesome on ten. I had no practice swings or putts and when I was eventually putting for my par I hit what must've been more than 90 degrees away from the hole. Only to watch it take the break perfectly and roll in. I blame it on Darren, Thanx.