David in my lone trip to Ireland I didn't experience what you are talking about . Perhaps I'm not explaining it well. We have poa bent greens here at my home club which we greatly enjoy 12 months a a year . I'm not talking bumps or playing conditions that aren't perfect . I'm talking deliberately constructing greens to have micro breaks that in my mind take away some of the skill in putting . They make you play it straight and smash it thru these mini breaks . Akin to playing hold em vs gin .
Archie, thanks. No I totally understand what you mean and I'm with you. Just these types of micro contours in my limited experience only exist when the greens are running fast which was my point, that rarely happens here in Continental Europe. I think you missed that key word, Continental in my slightly sarcastic reply. So I was purposely excluding UK and Ireland which of course aren't part of the continent but little islands that have defected (read broken off/separated) for a better way of life and to avoid largely having to deal with the French and Germans (Dutch and Belgians). There are a couple solid courses here in The Netherlands, I'm thinking of Hilversumsche Golf Club that has hosted the KLM Open for several years and when they speed up those old greens they are full of micro contours as you mention and a 3 ft putt really could break a couple different ways. I think that's mainly because the greens are so old and they have continued to settle unequally over the past let's say 100 years.
Have you ever experience new build greens that are full of these micro contours? I don't think I have. I also don't think they are noticeable in most cases until greens start rolling at around 10-11 ft min. So at 8 ft, 9 ft etc you would not really notice them.