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How do you handle changing green speed?

Tadashi70

Tadashi70

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As many of you are doing, I am watching The Open. I heard that the greens sipped has changed through out the day. Pros are good enough to adjust, I think. And I wonder how they deal with it.

I play a lot of early morning rounds when dew is still on the greens. I know once it heats up the speed will quicken and I adjust for it. I wonder how everyone else deals with this. Are you even aware of it?
 
Unless there are really big swings I can't say I notice. Never make conscious adjustments.
 
I'm usually pretty aware of it, typically it just means my shoulder rock is going to get smaller as things speed up. Key is to not let myself get timid while shortening the stroke, still have to be committed, struggled with that a bit last weekend actually.
 
I don't usually find a huge difference here during a round. It does however vary greatly from course to course however.

I try and do warmups before a round on the green with 3 distances in mind: 2 feet short, 2 feet long, and regular distance. I try and get a bit of a feel for a stroke I would need for each, and it usually lets me adjust pretty quickly mid round..... What it doesn't fix are the brain farts where I leave one 10 feet short, or hammer one past though. Keep my head down, and finish the stroke. Those are the main things I try and keep in mind though.
 
I can usually tell the difference, but that may just be because putting is the only thing im actually decent at. Its usually going from slower to faster and I tend to just try to put a little more on each putt and try not to leave em short
 
If it the greens are getting faster due to drying out, I can adjust fairly well with a shorter back stroke and staying with a confident through stroke. If it varies from green to green, one faster, the next slower, faster again, then I struggle a lot more.
 
Jman said:
I'm usually pretty aware of it, typically it just means my shoulder rock is going to get smaller as things speed up. Key is to not let myself get timid while shortening the stroke, still have to be committed, struggled with that a bit last weekend actually.
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I usually struggle with the early holes - not taking a big enough shoulder rock when the greens are wet. I just need to be a little more agressive early on - I think it might be easier for me to dial it down than up. I think the SPi training helps here to stay consistent.
 
I prefer when the dew is still on the greens--hopefully someone in the earlier groups ahead of me has had a putt from my spot and will show me the line in the dew. As for the greens changing speed, I'm not sure I notice it. I mean, sure, when I whack a putt 6 feet past I'm sure I say "they must be drying out," but it's not like I adjust or anything.

Maybe I should?
 
I just try to stay aware of how much roll out approch shots are getting but i have a hard time adjusting
 
I'm aware of it at my home course. Away from home, I know it WILL speed up as the day goes on, but I don't really factor it in.
"oh, yeah...this looks dryer, must be faster".

At home, I just seem to pay attention more. Greens are pretty hard anyway, so I can watch approaches, chips, other putts and get a feel for it.
Also, there are specific greens that always play a little faster/slower than the rest, and those are just local knowledge.

In general, it's not like I play a hole at 7 and hit the next green at noon.
There's probably a difference, but the increments are so small that I likely unconsiously adjust. And I do know the holes that are outliers.
 
This is something I run into a lot on the courses I play - some of the greens get way more sun than others. For that situation, I will take a more aggressive line on the slower greens, and "respect" the faster ones a bit more.

As for greens drying out over the course of the day, I'm not sure the adjustment is necessarily conscious.
 
The course around here that I play, it's not to big of a noticeable difference. When I've played on good, smooth greens though, I can tell. I think it's as though I have a few putts that start rolling to far by, and my brain kicks in and tells me. Then I make adjustments, as best as I can.
 
Tadashi70 said:
I play a lot of early morning rounds when dew is still on the greens. I know once it heats up the speed will quicken and I adjust for it. I wonder how everyone else deals with this. Are you even aware of it?
Click to expand...

I'm aware of it. especially like you say, when eaerly moroning sun rises, fog lifts, humidity cahnges, and things start changing. But a big problem can be this too -
It does get tricky as the drying up isnt always even or gradual at all. Wind direction, green slope direction, shadows, different sections of the course up on hil or down in vally, more or less vegitation surrounding difffrent green all can lead to both faster and slower drying times for each green instead of a nice consistent gradual drying up. That also causes different speeds on a number of greens as early morning runs into mid morning at least for the front 9. Seen many times all players shaking thier heads as one green was fast but then next slow again and two later fast again. Then usually the second half as that sun really pops up and does its magic it finally gets more cosistent hole by hole.
 
I believe that I'm consistently aware of it throughout a round and can usually adapt okay.

This is one of those things (like putting in general) that is all about feel. And feel is tough as it just really can't be taught.
 
I simply just try to hit the putt taking all the variables into account. I am very visual and feel I can see shifts in regards to greens drying out or becoming a little more grainy throughout the day
 
Like you I play morning rounds often with the dew still on the ground. I just know I need to give it a bit extra on longer puts to get it there. My greens are pretty slow anyway so I get more turned around when I play somewhere with fast greens. I always end up blowing a putt past the hole not thinking.
 
I handle it with a string of 3 putts and beer.
 
I usually play in the afternoon, so the greens go from fast at the start to slowish at the end. Once the shad hits the greens, that's when I start to hit the putt a little harder.
 
It usually takes me a hole or 2 to figure out the change in green speed, but I have pretty good luck figuring it out.
Not always though !
 
Great question.

I think there's only one really practical answer: intuition. We have have both an expert intuition on greens (informed by our years of putting on various greens) and a type of "mechanic's intuition" (knowing the right amount of touch not to strip the screws or mess up some bigger issue with smaller ones).

Intuition is not sufficient to be a great putter. But it is, ultimately, the most influential single factor. So it's important to understand the fundamental essence behind how greens evolve over a day, and in different conditions. It's important to play around with putts and understand how they role differently, or how we see them differently, in different conditions. And when bad misses are more likely than harmless misses. And how to objectively align our bodies and make a fundamentally solid motion with our putts.

But after that it's time to shut the brain off and let intuition do it's work. There are too many variables to consider or to empirically understand. There's no way to actually know if it's 2% break affected by 4% friction due to cross grain with dew as opposed to some other set of dynamics. Those who cannot develop that intuition are doomed to be putters who freeze over the ball, or who never really get putting down and always feel they are putting in 5 units of energy for 1 or 2 units of output.

That mechanic's intuition is what will help us understand how evolving conditions on a green, as a general set of information, changes the general way in which we must interact with them. But that moment of interaction had better be intuition driven.
 
It is definitely something I notice and will adjust as needed. Having a "home course" for the first time this year, I know the more exposed greens are always faster than the others and do adjust for that--when you are away you have to watch your ball and other playing with you to see if the speed changes.
 
I tee off around 6 am and play another at around 10 sometimes. 6am rule is 18 inches past. Come around mid back nine and also second round I just play it to what I normally feel the stroke should be. (Intuition as Good.Shepherd calls it)
 
Tadashi70 said:
As many of you are doing, I am watching The Open. I heard that the greens sipped has changed through out the day. Pros are good enough to adjust, I think. And I wonder how they deal with it.

I play a lot of early morning rounds when dew is still on the greens. I know once it heats up the speed will quicken and I adjust for it. I wonder how everyone else deals with this. Are you even aware of it?
Click to expand...
If they speed up I hit it softer. If they slow down I hit it harder. Rocket science, MIND BLOWN!!!
 
My putting stroke isn't in tune enough to really notice anything but a substantial change in green speeds during a round. Then again, most greens around me run between 8-9, and although it is the same as a 12-13 difference, it's not at the same time.
 
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