Are Shelves and Plateau's a thing of the Past

[TEPaul]

Shoot! I think I still like the little square box and the red X the best.

[TEPaul]

You know what Donnie---even though I can't see much around either green it looks to me like the modern sweeper fits into its surrounding land pretty well and pretty naturally  and the classic tier green fits into its surrounding land pretty well and pretty naturally. Could you show me the surrounding land with the green that's the little square box and the red X? I want to see if it fits into its surrounding land pretty well and pretty naturally.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Doug Siebert,

Don't look at the shelves and plateau issue solely in the context of a six foot putt.

View it in the context of the approach and recovery shot and the link between the two, the preferable side of the miss.

Substantive shelves and/or plateaus puts tremendous  pressure on the approach and recovery because it's unlikely that the golfer will one putt if he's not on the same level as the hole.

The 1st green at NLGA has at least five segregated areas that put the approach, recovery and putting at a premium, despite the fact that the second shot can be from 100 yards or from on the putting surface.

Derek Duncan,

Perhaps they've altered the greens since I last played the Atlanta Athletic Club, or perhaps my recollection is foggy, but, I don't recall any substantive plateaus and shelves on any of the greens.  I do remember touring the golf course prior to a competitive round and setting the hole locations for the next day.

TEPaul,

I don't believe that Karl Olson was involved with creating the foot pad that serves to hold the back left bowl and the back right bowl.   I think those features were there and that he expanded the putting surface to incorporate the old 2nd tee and nearby areas when he rebuilt the new 2nd tee.

Perhaps George Bahto could shed some light on that issue.

[TEPaul]

"TEPaul,
I don't believe that Karl Olson was involved with creating the foot pad that serves to hold the back left bowl and the back right bowl.  I think those features were there and that he expanded the putting surface to incorporate the old 2nd tee and nearby areas when he rebuilt the new 2nd tee."

Pat:

I don't know about that. All I know is being out there one morning with Salinetti and Burrows who said Olsen created the present surface on the back of that green and it probably needed to be altered a bit. I guess they should know as well as anyone.

I'll tell you something else. I saw a real early photo of the front of that green with some players standing on it and it sure didn't look to me that much like the front of that green now. The contour on the front in that photo looked far more radical than it does now.

If that was changed too, who did that? Noone probably knows at this point. It seems that Perry Maxwell did some work there (he generally redesigned greens) but the club refuses to admit anything about Maxwell or anyone else now. Was that green redone in some way by Maxwell? Did Macdonald redo it himself as he redid a number of the original greens out there? Maybe we'll never know the details. It seems that at some point, perhaps in the 1950s or 1960s, NGLA actually trashed some of their records.

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

Take a look at the photo on page 195 of "Scotland's Gift"

The fellow standing with one foot above the other gives you a little perspective for how substantial the elevation changes between shelves and plateaus were.

I'd be curious to know if the false front was always there, or mowed to putting surface after it was put into play.

[TEPaul]

I don't know Pat, that guy in white looks like he's standing on green surface and even if he isn't I don't know that that area is that contoured or sloped now. There's sure a good way to find out though. Look at that guy--his right foot is about two feet ahead of his left foot and his right foot appears to be at least a foot higher than his left. That's STEEP! Do you really think that sharp incline is there now on that side? I don't.

[Brent Hutto]

3) keep your head down until you hear the ball go in  

To all you gurus out there, what happens with #3 if you miss?

Silly boy. If you listen closely enough, you should be able to hear whether it missed high or low.

[JESII]

3) keep your head down until you hear the ball go in  

To all you gurus out there, what happens with #3 if you miss?

Silly boy. If you listen closely enough, you should be able to hear whether it missed high or low.

Good point Brent, maybe that's the problem with my putting; my hearing. My wife referrs to it as ignoring but that's not going to help me make a 6 footer.

[JESII]

JES,

With all due respect, I don't think flat areas on the green lack challenge.  A man (or 15 year old girl for that matter) who can make dead straight six footers all day are going to be able to beat a lot of players of otherwise better abilility who are unable to do so.  If you have such a putt, and KNOW it is flat, it can work on your mind (well, at least it can work on MY mind) making you feel like there is no way you should miss it, so that if you do, it is much worse than missing a slick little downhill right breaking putt of similar length where if you miss it you may be unhappy, but don't feel quite so much like there is no way in hell you should have missed it!

I have to disagree with those who say that shelves and plateaus should be a thing of the past, however.  If anything, they should be more in use today because for many reasons, true shotmaking is more and more of a lost art.  If you have a lot of holes these days where better players are approaching with a short iron or wedge, giving them 3 30' deep plateaus versus a 90' deep green of relatively continuous slope from front to back is going to produce a lot of discomfort.  A lot of good players today can't skip it up from the lower to upper tiers and thus having to get the distance just right to land and avoid spinning off the correct tier will make their "simple" wedge shot a lot more difficult than a similiar shot might have been for good players 50 years ago.

Now I'm certainly not as good as the "good" players I'm talking about here (plus handicaps to pros) but since I certainly can't play that shot either I can point out that I sometimes play some fairly odd strategies when faced with such a hole.  Sometimes I'll play a middle iron off the tee to be left with a longer shot into the green, sometimes I deliberately play into the rough to take the spin off my approach, sometimes I'll play a half shot with a less lofted club as if I was playing into a 40 mph headwind.  That's all because of a tiered green where I don't feel like (or know from experience) that I can't reliably hit an approach with the correct distance and proper spin to keep it on the correct tier and being on the wrong tier is a serious enough penalty that I'm inclined to do something out of the ordinary to avoid it.

If a green was, for instance, tiered from right to left obviously this wouldn't affect me the same way because while I might stil want to try to end up on the correct tier, I've got a lot fewer options in my bag to try to "force" hitting it the correct direction than I do trying to control the amount of spin/roll my ball takes after landing.

Doug,

There was a very long thread some 6 or 9 months ago about fast versus slow greens and which one would represent the least difference between really good putters and poor putters. If I'm not mistaken, Tom Huckaby was very strong in that the faster the greens, the greater advantage the better putter has   .

I think the same principles hold true here, when there are more variables to consider the challenge increases and the more accomplished individual has the advantage. With dead straight putts you can almost completely eliminate one VEERRRY important aspect of putting; SPEED.

As to Donnie's original point, I am not suggesting that shelves and plateau's are bad, merely that dead flat areas are. He seemed to want less sidehill putts and I simply cannot understand that sentiment.

One of my favorite greens is the 8th at Huntingdon Valley which has four distinct "greens within the green" without being overly large. Each section leaves a fairly-to-very difficult two putt to any of the other sections, but none of them would be considered flat.

All of my posts here are founded in that principal of FLAT AREAS HAVE NO PLACE ON A GREEN!

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

Yes, it's still there.

They locate the hole in that bowl on many occassions.

The spine that runs through the center of the green remains at about a two to three, and perhaps even a four foot elevation above the bottom of some of those bowls.

Given the small nature of that green those changes are dramatic.

As I said to you a few years ago, getting to the back left bowl has to be one of the most challenging approaches in all of golf, despite the fact that the golfer can be anywhere from 0 to 100 yards from the green.

I've seen the hole cut at the top of the spine and I've seen golfers have an exceedingly difficult time putting to that position.  While it's difficult from the flanking positions, it's almost impossible from the front and rear positions.

I also believe that there is a fast speed that optimizes the challenge without entering the realm of goofy golf.
I can't tell you what it is, but, I know it when I play it.

[Doug Siebert]

JES II,

I'm not arguing that flat areas don't make for easier putting.  But when you said they "lack challenge", I took issue with that.  I would have ignored it if you said they "reduced challenge"

And just because a green has some flat areas, it doesn't mean the pin is going to be there all the time or even very often.  Putting from a flat area to a sloped area, or from a sloped area to a flat area, produces its own set of complications and make for harder putts that one that is fairly consistently sloped throughout the whole putt.  You argue that better putters have an advantage over worse putters on fast greens (I agree with that) and on flat putts (I agree with that as well)  Save for greens that have just had 3/4" cores taken out that morning or have been used for wedge practice from 100 yards by 144 PGA pros, I can't think of any cases where a better putter doesn't have an advantage over lesser ones.