I’ve spent some time talking with Padraig Harrington about this for The Renaissance Club. He agrees with the premise that tightly mown areas are too easy to putt from now — because the standard of turf maintenance in those areas is so much tighter than years ago, and because all the little irregularities of real links undulations have been smoothed away.
He’s tried to convince us to put in some “rumble strips” of rough to make putting a lower-percentage recovery!
Honestly, though, when you watch the Tour players, they are so good with every club around the greens, it hardly matters what you make them do.