For all the talk of slowing down greens and adding contours, with which I generally agreed, I had a blast yesterday playing in a member guest at Lochinvar CC, a JN designed exclusive club in Houston with flattish greens rolling, according to my host at 12.5. They were double cut when I arrived, and I noticed another pass with the greens mowers as I ate lunch.......they may have been faster.
How flat were the greens? For the most part, flatter than the demand for full size SUV's with gas over $2 per gallon. I had exactly two putts all day with breaks outside two cup widths. The entire group may have had 4 more. The 8th is a modest partial Biaritz, the 10th had a partial shelf.
The reason for the fun? The greens were so good that I knew if I got it on line, I could make it. Also, it took just a little shoulder rock to get the ball moving, so the stroke was generally a lot easier. On our first hole, I made 25 footer, it got my confidence up, and I made four more bombs all day. I only three putted when our team format encouraged me to be aggressive and I overshot the hole. (that is unusual for me!)
Summary: Golf can be just as much fun with "flat and fast" as you imagine it is with slow and rolling.
JN's design took advantage of what he knew would be fast greens with some great greens that put the fear of God in ya. For example, the 12th had a pond left, and the right half of the green was almost dead flat, while the pond side was all graded at a 2% slope right to the pond (which looked steep for that course) and which was scary if you were putting down hill after playing safe.
The 14th was a short par 4 with a large, block shaped green that had roll offs front right and back left, so the effective target was an hourglass shape. In essence, the green contours replaced the surrounding bunkers as hazards on that one.
Several other greens had subtle roll offs a la Pinehurst on one side. With the speeds, and some club grabbing rough, it was imperative to hit chips right to the edge of the top of bank - just short and the ball rolled back to your feet (or the rough line) and long risked going over the green.
BTW, the course is a great routing, changing direction on every hole with triangulation. Its on a flat Houston site, and the bunkers aren't deep at all, either because of water table, or because JN knew that the proposed membership didn't want them too deep. The course is JN circa 1980, so it has some of those steep bank fw dividers, which I feel dated the place and more importantly, didn't add like they might. For one thing, they are only 1 foot high. For another, the shadows are lost in the shadows of the Houston pines.
To relate it back to the "Do contoured greens favor bad putters" I know that flat, perfectly maintained greens made a poor putter (me) better for one day. If Tour pros play greens that good and that flat each week, I think the greens themselves explain some of their putting success.
Overall, it was fun mostly because of the chance to play fast, true, and flat green, which gave me confidence in putting. Confident in putting? I don't care who you are, you gotta like that!