How Green Maintenance Affects Your Putting

Something that golfers do not have any control over that can absolutely affect your score is the maintenance of the greens at the course. The way greens are mowed and are taken care of can play a huge role on your handicap if you play the same course a lot. Speed is the major factor that comes in to play when discussing greens and green maintenance. A lot of players prefer a fast green, they do not want much friction or anything interfering with their shot. Misjudging the green speed will almost certainly lead to extra strokes on your score card. Thinking the green is much slower than it is can lead to some trouble as you might actually hit the ball off the green. Usually thinking it is faster than it is will just leave your ball short of the hole, but at least you will still be on the green!

The green speed of the putting green is actually referring to the distance the ball travels when hit at a constant speed, not the balls speed. So green speed is technically a misleading term. There is a measuring tool called a stimpmeter that is used to measure this distance. Greens where the ball rolls a long distance according to the stimpmeter are called fast greens and greens where the ball rolls a relatively shorter distance are called slow greens.

The only thing that slows your ball down after putting is the friction between the ball and the grass, so you can see how the maintenance of the grass plays a huge role in determining how far your ball is going to roll. Different types of grass are used on courses for when the grounds crew is trying to make the holes more or less difficult. There are even scientists that create new breeds of grass specifically for use on golf courses. Some scientists are working on a cure for cancer and others are working on better grass for golf courses, it is a fascinating world we live in...

There are other factors besides the type of grass or cut of the grass that can cause your ball to roll slower or faster on the green. Environmental variables like humidity can cause the friction between your ball and the grass to change. If you are playing in high humidity the green speed is going to increase, so if it is hot and humid make sure you take that into account when you are putting, expect your ball to roll faster. The soil used in the greens can also affect the green speed, greens made up of mostly clay soil will be faster than sandier soils. This will not affect the green speed much, but is just another piece of information for you to know as a golfer.

The factor that plays the most in changing green speed is the maintenance. Just cutting the grass one sixteenth of an inch shorter can change your ball roll from six to ten inches. Doing a second cut of the grass perpendicular to the first can cause your ball to roll twelve inches instead of six. How well the green is water plays a large part in green speed as well, drier greens are going to be faster than wet greens. Some golf courses will roll their greens, which will make them must faster. Next time you go golfing try to take into account some of the things I have talked about here to figure out how fast your green is going to be.