"Taking a Lifetime to Learn...."

[Jeff_Brauer]

On the hotly debated (well, at least I hotly debated it...... ) internal green contours thread, someone mentioned the greatness of greens that take a lifetime to learn.

Fair enough. My question is, how much of that is design, and how much is playing it in different seasons, under shade or sun, if applicable, after aerifiying, or any of a variety of natural or maintenance conditions?

How much of it is the variety the gca puts in other greens - ie presuming that there is contour variety and not all are designed based on, say 2% swales.

How much is attributable to moving the pins around and putting from a naturally occuring variety of angles to those pins based on your different approach shots?

And, if there are internal contours, such as a ridge or a tier that show up between your ball and the pin, can you ever really judge those, or do you learn that it will likely just take your ball away from the hole (or does it just seem that way, like always feeling like you got in the slow lane at the supermarket or toll booth?)

Which leaves the last question, how much is actually attributable to the architecture, and what specific examples can you give that are truly the architecture requiring the lifetime of learning, even for those who are not green reading challenged?

[Andy Troeger]

Jeff,
  I'm surprised no one responded to your post. I am green-reading challenged so its a difficult topic for me to answer because every green with a contour takes a long time for me to figure out
  That said, it would seem a larger green would take longer to figure out due to the variety in possible pin placements. I'm not sure that would make it a better green necessarily, just more variety. It MIGHT be better...or might not.

[Tom_Doak]

Jeff:

The kinds of contours that take a lifetime to learn are not the general tilts or stuff that shows up on any plan ... it is the little wrinkly stuff, or the place where the grade changes almost imperceptibly from one way to the other.

The best example I can think of is the 17th green at Augusta.  Guys go through there for years and years misjudging putts and missing ten-footers that they should be able to make.  The only guys who ever hole a big putt there are the veterans who just know the green.  Crenshaw told me one year (and this was after he had played in at least 7 or 8 Masters) that he went out and watched the maintenance guys mow that green so he could see how the mowing reels tilted as they went over key spots!

[PThomas]

Jeff - I want to hear you answer your own questions!

I have another one:  do greens settle after awhile, thereby creating more subtle contours than were planned?

[Tom_Doak]

Paul:

My experience is that some greens might settle a little bit right after they are built, if they haven't been well watered in and/or they are built on fill.  But after that, they don't settle unless the soil is really unstable which is very rare.

I've had several clubs swear to me that the front of a particular green has settled and now it's too severe, but I believe all of them can be explained by higher green speeds.

Subtle changes in contour do happen over the years, but that's from topdressing or from sand exploded out onto the green from bunkers.

[ed_getka]

I would say #6 at Crystal Downs is a good example. It may not take a lifetime to learn, but I certainly haven't seen it enough after 10 rounds to even begin to know it.
    As long as there are long flowing slopes, well-defined ridges, etc... those types don't take much to figure out usually. One exception to that was at the recently much-maligned Longaberger. I am generally pretty good at reading greens, and I had two different greens where I was fooled by 6ft and 10ft on putts that had good speed.
   #17 at Pasatiempo seems to defy gravity so that one also defies my generalization above.
   Most of TOC from 150 yards in I could see taking 100 rounds or so to begin to figure out many of the possible permutations. This refers to the interesting parts of the greens and the run ups to them. There are of course flat areas where there isn't much to consider. #2 TOC has that incredible area leading into and onto the green, and #12 is one of my favorites there. So between green contour, approach contour, wind variations, and position you are playing your approach from there is a veritable lifetime of calculus involved in my estimation.

[Jason Topp]

Jeff - these pictures do not show it real well, but our eighth green is set into a hillside that slopes left to right.  What makes the green so challenging is that there are several very small slopes in the green that make the ball break the opposite way.  Thus, when reading the green you need to account for the general slope and then judge whether the counterslope you see will be enough to make the ball break less or be enough to make the ball break the opposite direction.  

From the Left


From the fairway


From the right:



I assume much of the interest associated with this green has to do with the architecture as well as settling that has occurred in the 45 years since this one was built.

[TEPaul]

JeffB:

If one is interested and spends the time there isn't a golf green on earth that takes a lifetime to learn unless of course it's dramatically changed every other year.  

The thing that really changes the complexity of getting to know an interesting green is when its speed is taken to the 10-11 range on the stimpmeter. In that differential the green can take on a whole new meaning. Essentially it can come alive in ways that one who's known it for years at lower speeds did not imagine.