In Search of a False Thumbprint

[Mike Hendren]

IMO the front and center thumbprint is a nifty element.  Are there examples out there where the thumbprint features a false front or where the entire thumbprint is not pinable, yielding an effective "toilet seat" putting surface?   It would seem the green would need to be quite large and the thumbprint relatively shallow.  Seen it?

Bogey

[JESII]

11 at Aronimink has some version of this...as speeds have increased, the false front is more prevalent although I doubt is was built as such. The thumb print goes well into the green however...at least half the green.

[Ira Fishman]

The Lester George Old White 18 had some elements. I have not played the Keith Foster version.


Ira

[Bernie Bell]

I think of a thumbprint as being internal, but the par 5 1st hole at Four Streams MD (Smyers) is sort of like what you're describing, if I understand.  Haven't been there in awhile, but as I recall it, the green is oblong and set at an angle to the approach.  Picture a slice of rye bread oriented with long dimension running from about 7:30 to 1:30 on the clock face.  There's a false front, picture a bite out of the bread slice that runs from about 3:00 to 6:00.  Could be considered a thumbprint I suppose.  I don't recall it ever being pinned in the thumbprint, usually up behind the false front.  It might have been possible to leave an approach short left on the front of the green and have a putt down through the false front and then back up the other side, but I don't recall that happening often.  There were pin locations where it was not hard for putts to run back down into the thumbprint from up top.  That I clearly recall!

[Ronald Montesano]

Why the fnck would you want it?


Or, are you digging for mistakes?


HH, Bogey.

[Tom_Doak]

IMO the front and center thumbprint is a nifty element.  Are there examples out there where the thumbprint features a false front or where the entire thumbprint is not pinable, yielding an effective "toilet seat" putting surface?   It would seem the green would need to be quite large and the thumbprint relatively shallow.  Seen it?

Bogey

Jack Nicklaus built a bunch of features like that in the 80's - not right at the front center of the green, but along one side or something.  The Bear at Grand Traverse has a few.  Castle Pines had a lot of them - a couple even took a ball off the green and into a bunker, because Jack liked that feature on the 12th hole at Royal Lytham & St. Annes.

[Mike Hendren]

Tom, now that you mention Nicklaus I remembered he used the thumbprint on the side of the 8th green at Nashville's Richland CC that was indeed built in the 80's.  It was relatively wide and fed down into a short grass chipping area.

I also recalled that the 8th hole at The Home Course in Washington State has three small bunkers at the back of the green, each fed by its own small thumbprint cut into the putting surface.  The three seemed over the top but one, strategically placed would have been ideal, particularly if used at the optimal line of entry into the green.   Anybody have pics?

Mike