While watching Doral today I came away with the following thought/s.

The golf ball is not only longer, it's constructed better, stays rounder, and thus putts better.

Faster, flatter greens offer no challenge.

One of the only ways to challenge the better golfers is to dramatically return contouring to putting greens.

Today, Johnny Miller and another announcer were declaring how hard it was to read a particular putt.  The putt was about 8 feet in length on what appeared to be a green without any contouring in that area.  Naturally, the Pro holed it.

More greens like # 1, # 3 and # 6 at NGLA need to be built.

The create the following problems.

Difficult to approach
Difficult to recover to
Difficult to read
Difficult to gage distance/feel
Difficult to putt.

The answer isn't flatter faster greens as they offer no challenge on the approach, recovery or putt, and if they get a little wet or soft, it's like throwing darts at the pins.

But, highly contoured greens remain a challenge if they're wet or soft on the approach, recovery and putt.

Flat greens equal boring golf.

Ross understood the vitality of their character, so did MacDonald, Raynor, Banks, Flynn, Tillinghast, MacKenzie and Maxwell, so why doesn't everybody else ?

Patrick,
   I agree completely. Somewhere along the line someone decided that faster/harder greens would be the best way to challenge these guys. And now they've taken that to the point that they are advocating that courses decrease the contours in their greens. So even though I agree with your assessment, apparently the powers that be think the complete opposite.

Our greens were renovated about 10 days ago.  They are recoevring, but are slower now (about 8 feet) than normal (10 feet, up to 12 feet when growth is minmal).

The greens staff were a little more creative with a few pin spots this week, really affecting where the ideal play was.  Great fun, if you 'got it'.

Most clubs go through similar 'speed of green' cycles every year.  Why not use this annual cycle to advantadge by varing the difficulty of pin positions with the movement in green speeds?  Better variety of golf results.

Mike McGuire,

If you saw Tiger cut the dogleg, carry his ball about 340, landing about 25 feet from the pin on the par 4, 16th at Doral today, you would realize that that strategy isn't working.

Paul: "but how do you get people to slow their greens down so you can build more slope"

on a new course you could build considerably larger (huge) greens with dramatic transitions, keep the "swift" green speeds and you will have all the dramatic putting you had "yesteryear"

with these very large greens these dramatic transition areas would segment the greens into "smaller greens" which would (re-)create all the things Patrick was wishing for:

* Difficult to approach
* Difficult to recover to
* Difficult to read
* Difficult to gage distance/feel
* Difficult to putt.

........   this is where I want to go!!!!  now go read the putts guys

I strongly believe this to be an answer on a NEW course.

gb

Doral was the first "Top 100" course that I played when I was 13 or 14. I will always remember hitting driver, 5 wood and 2 putts for Par on 18. Those Doral-like courses were set up to force the player to hit long shots into flatter greens. I watched Tiger hit driver yesterday on 16 green ? with a 320 carry. It landed like a 7 iron. Phil was pin high left! It is time for some sort of Tour ball at least.

Mike - I think you hit it on the head...most people want to see birdies, and longer drives  -- no matter where they land cause there is no rough with any teeth --leave shorter approach shots which leave shorter birdie putts which can be made more often on flat greens = MORE BIRDIES!!

GCAers are probably in the majority of those who tire of seeing 20+ under win every week...I'm sure the ratings will probably be very good today since Tiger and Phil are paired together....at least they will HAVE to play better than they did as a team at the Ryder Cup, cause they both can't play that bad again, can they.....

drive/wedge/driver/wedge/driver/wedge/driver/wedge/snore...........................................................

RIP Shotmaking!!??!?!

Patrick -- on thre contrary, the opposite!

The pros would destroy par at NGLA if the green speeds were 8-9.

Maybe that's why: RYDER CUP = EUROPE

look at last year 18th at Oakland Hills:
All week stats were like:
USA drives in the fairway: 2/12 (probably Fred Funk)
Europe drives in the fairway: 10/12

Shaping the ball on the PGA TOUR, why bother...
that's probably the difference between Tiger, Ernie, Retief, Phil, Vijay and the rest, they can shape the ball a little more...

rgkeller,

Would you say that the 1st, 3rd and 6th greens at NGLA reward precise shot placement, adept recovery and skillful putting ?

When driver's and 3-woods are holding greens like 9-irons, something is wrong.

What challenges did the greens at Doral present to putting and recoveries ?

rgkeller

I agree with your comments about Doral (see my comments on the Mickelson/Doral thread) and the need for the course to identify the best player.  Par is less relevant.

I think the Australian Open in November 2004 at the Australian saw a number of holes where good and bad shots ended up in the same place.  Firm and flat greens, with pins placed behind bunkers that straddle the front of the green, sometimes downwind.  On some par 3's, the outcome is effectively a practice hit tee-shot, then a par 2 from the back fringe/rough.  Yawn!

At least thats what it looked like on 'hospital' TV.  If I got it wrong at this event - my apologies.  I wasn't myself that week.

I would object to green complexes and green speeds that send mediocore shots and excellent shots to the same places.

rg

This is an important point.  To me, great green complexes will send excellent shots--hit from different places--to the "same" place, and will relatively penalise mediocre shots, not matter from which place they are struck.