Green Speed

SwingsitlikeHogan

SwingsitlikeHogan

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Our greens as prepared for our club championship last weekend were immaculate and measured 10.4 on the stimp-meter. Now for me they were pretty darned fast and I think that's as fast as they have been at our place for a many a year. Putts I thought I knew the line and would normally take a break - didn't (or took a very different one) and ones that wouldn't take a break - did. Thoughts on green speed for normal club golfers? I thought 10.4 was fast enough to really test most handicap golfers without being silly?
 
SwingsitlikeHogan said:
Our greens as prepared for our club championship last weekend were immaculate and measured 10.4 on the stimp-meter. Now for me they were pretty darned fast and I think that's as fast as they have been at our place for a many a year. Putts I thought I knew the line and would normally take a break - didn't (or took a very different one) and ones that wouldn't take a break - did. Thoughts on green speed for normal club golfers? I thought 10.4 was fast enough to really test most handicap golfers without being silly?
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I think it would benefit most club golfers to have slower greens. I think there are stats to back that up too.
 
I don't know if it was on all greens but there was a video of our 9th being measured at 12 on the stimp earlier in the season.

imagejpeg
 
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murphthemog said:
To me, 10.4 is OK, but it's not really fast. Much slower than that and I'm complaint.
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From my reading of things

The USGA recommendations

Speed Length
Slow 4.5 feet (1.4 m)
Medium 6.5 feet (2.0 m)
Fast 8.5 feet (2.6 m)

For the U.S. Open, they recommend:

Speed Length
Slow 6.5 feet (2.0 m)
Medium 8.5 feet (2.6 m)
Fast 10.5 feet (3.2 m)

So as our are 10.4 that suggests that you prefer to play on greens of (US)PGA tournament speed all of the time? Surely they take a heck of an amount of effort to keep that fast? And you arfe often disappointed.

Ours were plenty fast for me and very enjoyable to putt on. Not sure I'd want them very much faster. OK if you are an OK putter - but could be a nightmare for the less experienced member.
 
Robobum said:
Putting on really fast greens is horrible.

10 and running true is perfect for day to day play
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I fully concur with my learned colleague!
Some clubs are obsessed with having fast greens when their greens and members simply can't cope with it.
Fast greens = more 3 putts = longer rounds...
I also don't see the point of speeding up greens for certain events.
It makes it a completely different course.
Keep a constant speed and keep the true - that's all you need
 
I rarely see speed ratings on the courses I play at. Maybe it is not fashionable up here. My home club has slow greens and that makes it hard work. I much prefer medium speed greens, not sure how they would rate, as you can concentrate on a true stroke rather than having to welly it. Uber fast greens, particularly if they are on slopes are just silly.

Without knowing officially how fast the greens are that I play on it is hard to comment but based on the post by SilH I would take medium as the preferred option.
 
Imurg said:
I fully concur with my learned colleague!
Some clubs are obsessed with having fast greens when their greens and members simply can't cope with it.
Fast greens = more 3 putts = longer rounds...
I also don't see the point of speeding up greens for certain events.
It makes it a completely different course.
Keep a constant speed and keep the true - that's all you need
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Same here!

Though I do 'enjoy' the challenge of (somewhat) quicker ones - as long as they are both true and consistent!

I have putted on greens that were (officially) 12.9-13! Fortunately, the pins were not in daft places!
 
You can't look at green speed in isolation.

10.4 is meaningless in the context of play - it's an absolute measured on a flat part of a green.

There are courses where 10.4 would be fine, there are others that would be unplayable (because of the slopes and shapes of the greens). In your area Hindhead tends to have the fastest but most - not all! - of their greens have a single slope and significant flat areas.

It's all about relativity and significantly increasing the speeds for any individual club event is extremely poor behaviour IMO. Even worse for events where some of those elite members who rarely play their home course turn up - and gain an even bigger advantage over those who play all the time.

There's a right speed for every course - the greens staff should be aiming to deliver close to this consistently for as wide a season as possible.
 
I played at a club yesterday with a member and he was saying how the club had employed a new head greenkeeper from a more prestigious club. He had turned the course condition around and the members loved the well manicured nature for a while until the green speed started to get too fast and the members were struggling to play the course well. Going down the 18 yesterday the greenkeeper in question stopped for a chat. The guy I was playing with bought up the green speed issue and said that they were better today,Ie slower and he said its only down to the fact he's short staffed and they were only single cut that morning instead of double cut and ironed. They had the club championship there a few weeks ago and he said the greens were reading 13.4 and only 2 people broke 80 and he found it amusing. I played another course about 3 weeks ago that the stimp Meter reading are recorded on a white board outside the pro shop and they had gone from 9.9 to 12.4 over the course of 6 weeks. They were rapid.
 
drive4show said:
I thought fast greens would speed up play as the ball gets to the hole quicker :D
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Actually it will get there much slower, because you have to strike it much more gently! I don't think that greens should be so fast as you can't get the ball to stop near the hole on downhill putts. I played a match at an away course a couple of weeks ago, and their greens were about two yards faster than ours, so I was often faced with a 6 footer coming back if I missed the hole!
 
delc said:
Actually it will get there much slower, because you have to strike it much more gently! I don't think that greens should be so fast as you can't get the ball to stop near the hole on downhill putts. I played a match at an away course a couple of weeks ago, and their greens were about two yards faster than ours, so I was often faced with a 6 footer coming back if I missed the hole!
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2 yards faster? Really?
Let's say your greens are a slowish 7 on the stimp........that away course was running at 13!!

More poor putting. Time for another daily eureka moment
 
Like them nice and fast. I'm not a hitter of the ball on the green, much more of a stroker. So quick greens let me settle into the rhythm of my stroke rather than how hard I need to hit it.
I also like to dead weight puts so I often play a lot of break, slow greens are much harder to read for break.
 
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