Had this discussion yesterday with a golfer of note. I have some thoughts but want yours first.......

And, has any gca ever written of trying to make greens deceptive to read on purpose, and if so, how?

Lastly, was this site down for a while today, or was it just my server?

Thanks in advance.....

The greens that are most likely to befuddle the folks I play wtih are those that are benched into a hillside. They always break with the hill more than people can see.

They are also typically unable to see the size of the break in a green perched on the top of a hill, especially if there's a false front that drapes onto the upslope.

Now, whether or not those greens are intentionally hard to read is debatable. Both "tricks" are probably related to drainage and efficacy of design as much as anything.

Ken

A really interesting question, and three good posts in a row - thanks.

Jeff - apparently, lot of things make a green hard to read for me. I think a subtle 'spine' that runs through the green can be tough. I'm never quite sure what 'side' I'm of it I'm on -- and neither bright sun nor shade/shadows makes it any easier.

I look forward to hearing your ideas -- I love these kinds of 'tells' from the professionals.

Peter  

... and I couldn't access the discussion board for a while this afternoon either, though I could access some other parts of the site.

Jon:

I don't think that "settling" has nearly the effect on greens that people claim it has.  I think the difference between ODG greens and new ones is that the greens in the 1920's were all hand finished with rakes, which tends to leave a lot more micro-scale contours than going over them with sand pros or box blades or bulldozers.

Subtlety makes greens hard to read.

Big contours are a lot easier to deal with simply because they are so big you cannot really miss the break.  You may misjudge how break a particular putt has, but in general there aren't going to be too many misread putts going up or down a big tier.  However, I think that subtlety is different.

When greens have subtle breaks, it can be extremely hard to gauge the amount of break to play, or even which way a putt breaks.  

I also think that front to back sloping grens are, for the most part, harder to read, and simply because there are a lot more back to front greens where balls break to the front of the green.

Also, greens close to mountains, or large bodies of water, can be difficult to read sometimes, for the fact that you have to equate how much a valley, the water, etc will affect the amount of break in the putt.

Oh, and grainy greens, like Bermuda, are hard to read, at least for me, because as if reading a regular green isn't hard enough, you have to figure out how much the direction of the grass will alter how the ball breaks.

....and let me introduce to Golf Club Atlas:


the next Johnny Miller

I agree with Tom Doak that  "to me what makes a green hard to read is a property which has a significant natural tilt in one direction.  The natural tilt fails to register with golfers, so greens which tilt in the same direction appear to be flatter than they are, and sometimes a green which is held up a bit appears to be tilting sharply the other way even though it isn't."

Even when I become very familiar with a green like this after repeated play, I never ever really get the sense of "seeing" the break, it still "fails to register" and even though I may come to accurately and consistently get the break, it still feels like a wild and lucky guess when the ball tracks to the hole.

I am often fooled by relatively flat greens with putts that break away from the perimeter areas toward the center and also if there is a green side pond that the green slopes away from or a tiered section where the top of the tier is ridged to cause the ball to break away from the slope of the tier.

Flat greens in general I think can be very hard to read. There seemed to be a lot of relatively short, straight putts at Royal Montreal during the President's Cup this weekend that didn't even scare the hole, whereas putts with an obvious gentle break seemd to just pour in.

Hand crafting and subtle interplays of slopes rather than overt contouring.

Whether conscious or not, most golfers "know" or at least they believe they know where the overall uphill is relative to a green. Anything you do to mislead that impression will result in putts that break the "wrong way". I think your typical club golfer is pretty easy to fool in this way because his knowledge of the overall slope is sort of a generalized impression based on the surroundings and what he feels under his feet as he's standing on the green. Better golfers probably do a more explicit inventory of all the visual and cognitive clues available and are therefore harder to mislead.

Dan, I was thinking of Northland as I was reading this thread. Northland (in Duluth, Minn., overlooking Lake Superior) has many greens that perfectly exemplify Tom Doak's point. The rule of thumb at Northland is as basic as can be: everything breaks toward the lake, and sometimes in ways that the first-time player can't believe.

But on the 15th green, built close to a sloping bluff with the lake on your right as you approach the green, the right side of the green is built up high enough that putts on that section of the green break away from the lake. Even members who've played NCC for years don't always get that one right.

Jeff, I get fooled by small contours that are overshadowed by large ones.  I see the big feature and play it but miss the subtle interplay of the smaller contour.  It is a matter of reading the ground between my ball and the hole and not getting caught up in the big features all around.  I've also seen some flat custard pie greens that are unreadable.

Quote from: Jordan Wall on October 01, 2007, 01:01:56 AM

Subtlety makes greens hard to read.

Big contours are a lot easier to deal with simply because they are so big you cannot really miss the break.  You may misjudge how break a particular putt has, but in general there aren't going to be too many misread putts going up or down a big tier.  However, I think that subtlety is different.

When greens have subtle breaks, it can be extremely hard to gauge the amount of break to play, or even which way a putt breaks.  

I also think that front to back sloping grens are, for the most part, harder to read, and simply because there are a lot more back to front greens where balls break to the front of the green.

Also, greens close to mountains, or large bodies of water, can be difficult to read sometimes, for the fact that you have to equate how much a valley, the water, etc will affect the amount of break in the putt.

Oh, and grainy greens, like Bermuda, are hard to read, at least for me, because as if reading a regular green isn't hard enough, you have to figure out how much the direction of the grass will alter how the ball breaks.

....and let me introduce to Golf Club Atlas:


the next Johnny Miller

Ryan,

For a rare instance, I agree with Jordan. If the question had been something like "which greens are hardest to putt", or "which greens are most likely to be three jacked", then I would disagree. But, since we're only talking about reading the green, I think subtlety and grain are two major (minor?) factors.

I was thinking along the lines of hardest to putt, at first. A flattish, subtle green may be hard to read, but one is less likely to the three putt (or more) than on a big green with easy to read slopes...but hard to keep the ball by the hole.

Joe

Mottled greens rather than homogeneous greens.  The modern use of A1/A4 greens in SE Pennsylvania have this uniform look that makes reading the slopes much easier than mottled greens.  Merion East intentionally regrassed with several types of Bent grasses and there usually is a little bit of Poa as well.  The various hues are an aesthetically pleasing look on an old golf course but they also make it more difficult to read.