green sizes

[Philip Gawith]

Playing Dornoch last weekend I was truck again by how large some of the greens are. If memory serves from the pin sheet, the 5th is 55 yards long and 4, 11, 16 and 17 are all around 50 yards long, and hardly narrow ( 4 and 17 feel especially large). Are there many courses with greens this size? I can’t recall too many.


Philip

[Ally Mcintosh]

If we are talking old school links courses, then Portmarnock probably has the largest greens in Ireland though it doesn’t have 5 greens that extend to 50 yards on one diameter.


County Louth has the smallest although Lahinch’s redesigned greens are hardly huge.


Good question, Philip. Trying to think of the British links courses with the largest greens. One or two of the Open tracks must come close.


I suspect a couple of modern links may also come close.

[Sean_A]

Beau Desert


Ciao

[Ben Stephens]

Carnoustie has large flattish greens with subtle contouring - the 2nd and 5th is almost 60 yards long

[David McIntosh]

Immediately thought that TOC had to have the largest greens but it seemed too obvious. Then remembered I’d have to factor in that almost all of those massive surfaces cater for two holes! Still, if you’re at one end of the green and the flag is at the other you’d still have to putt it quite some distance.

Good shout on Carnoustie Ben - staying on the double greens theme, their 4th/14th green is huge too. The 10th is also pretty long whilst the 12th is very wide.

[Ally Mcintosh]

TOC goes without saying, even taking the double greens in to consideration. For instance, 5 & 13 is 4,200m2 combined, about 6 times the size of an average “large” green.

[Lou_Duran]

Not uncommon in America, especially in the modern era.  Champions- Cypress Creek has huge greens with not a lot of internal contouring, but difficult to read subtle breaks.  My home course has large greens with humps and ridges, favoring the long hitters who can approach the proper sections with short irons.  Small greens and a busy tee sheet do not work well together.  Of the two new courses in our area, both have large greens with tons of movement.


Thoughts on R. Dornoch and the greens?

[Thomas Dai]

Many an original MacKenzie designed green had tongues and the like which have subsequently disappeared but were once part of the putting surface. To what extent they were pinable though is maybe another question but they would originally have contributed to the sq footage of the green calculation.
Atb

[David_Tepper]

Philip -

Yes, those five greens you mention at Dornoch are quite large. You can hit 3 different clubs into those greens, depending on where the hole is located.

The long, relatively narrow, diagonal green on #5 makes it a very, very good short par-4. If the flagstick is up front, you can hit your tee shot down the right side of the fairway. But if the flagstick is way back, you really want to be down the left side of the fairway, so that you have a much better angle to hit into the green.

DT