Do Softer Golf Balls Help On Fast Greens?

[Voyager EMH]

I have a similarly obtuse question to players who I see using a reputedly "high spinning" ball, "How often do you make it spin towards the hole?"

 

[cliveb]

I understand why Haste Hill has the higher slope, because it's a lot tighter off some of the tees, and there's way more dense tree areas to lose your ball in. It's much harder tee to green. But once you're on the green there it's usually a doddle, whereas Grims Dyke greens are hellish. Most are on sideslopes and really fast. So while I understand the difference in slope, I feel like 131 to 117 is too big a difference, and maybe they have overlooked green difficulty slightly in the ratings. Just my own feeling on it anyway.

I know Grims Dyke very well - I was a member there for 10 years until I moved to Devon this year.

I suspect many on this forum who haven't played it just cannot appreciate how tricky some (most?) of its greens are. There are some greens (2, 3, 5, 6, 11, 15) that I wouldn't give a 9" downhiller to anyone in the summer - even a scratch player.

More than that, not only are the greens super-tricky, but the semi-rough is very penal despite being quite short - the grass is clumpy and grabby and your ball always ends up sitting down in it. Most other courses have semi-rough that's much more even and is easier to play from.

My strong belief is that the characteristics of Grims Dyke are an outlier, and its course and bogey ratings are far too low (as was its SSS until the WHS kicked in). I don't know for sure, but I suspect that CR and BR are excessively weighted by course length, and the other factors that affect difficulty in scoring are not given enough importance.

(Incidentally, having now moved to a course with more "normal" greens, I discovered that spending 10 years at Grims Dyke meant I never learned whether I could putt straight. Nearly all the time, when you miss a putt at GD, you don't know if you've mis-read it or you failed to hit the ball exactly where you thought you were aiming).

 

[Orikoru]

I know Grims Dyke very well - I was a member there for 10 years until I moved to Devon this year.

I suspect many on this forum who haven't played it just cannot appreciate how tricky some (most?) of its greens are. There are some greens (2, 3, 5, 6, 11, 15) that I wouldn't give a 9" downhiller to anyone in the summer - even a scratch player.

More than that, not only are the greens super-tricky, but the semi-rough is very penal despite being quite short - the grass is clumpy and grabby and your ball always ends up sitting down in it. Most other courses have semi-rough that's much more even and is easier to play from.

My strong belief is that the characteristics of Grims Dyke are an outlier, and its course and bogey ratings are far too low (as was its SSS until the WHS kicked in). I don't know for sure, but I suspect that CR and BR are excessively weighted by course length, and the other factors that affect difficulty in scoring are not given enough importance.

(Incidentally, having now moved to a course with more "normal" greens, I discovered that spending 10 years at Grims Dyke meant I never learned whether I could putt straight. Nearly all the time, when you miss a putt at GD, you don't know if you've mis-read it or you failed to hit the ball exactly where you thought you were aiming).

Those are my thoughts as well. Considering a bogey golfer is (a) likely to miss the greens and very much struggle to chip it close, and (b) three putt several holes on a round (about 3 or 4 usually for me!) I'd expect the slope rating to be a little higher than it is. Maybe they only rated the course in winter, but it feels like an oversight.