Reading greens on hilly courses.

[Buckeyebowman]

The other day a friend and I enjoyed a round at a course we really love. It is built on a site that passes for mountainous in NE Ohio. Basically, a great big hill! Plenty of elevation change, large greens, and the greens have plenty of contour to them. If you looked at just my scorecard you might think I had an awful round overall. Actually I had the best tee to green. ball striking round I've enjoyed this year! My problem was on the greens which are all built into hillsides. I swear that on the front side, every putt I stroked broke in the opposite direction that I thought it would! 

I did a little better on the back 9, but I was far short of good! Still had a ton of 3 jacks! I tried everything I know, including feeling the slope with my feet a la Aimpoint! I guess I'm just lost here!?

[Patch]

2 hours ago, Buckeyebowman said:

The other day a friend and I enjoyed a round at a course we really love. It is built on a site that passes for mountainous in NE Ohio. Basically, a great big hill! Plenty of elevation change, large greens, and the greens have plenty of contour to them. If you looked at just my scorecard you might think I had an awful round overall. Actually I had the best tee to green. ball striking round I've enjoyed this year! My problem was on the greens which are all built into hillsides. I swear that on the front side, every putt I stroked broke in the opposite direction that I thought it would! 

I did a little better on the back 9, but I was far short of good! Still had a ton of 3 jacks! I tried everything I know, including feeling the slope with my feet a la Aimpoint! I guess I'm just lost here!?

Did you try reading the greens from the backside of the hole? The hole being between you and your ball?

Walk a 360* around the hole for a read?

There's a course I sometimes play up in Southern Utah that has hilly greens. To even get close to decent reads, I have to walk around the hole, while looking back at the ball. 

I also take peek at the rim of the hole looking for a high side.

Sometime the flag stick, if it is sticking reasonably straight up, can show the high side of the cup.

I will sometimes putt the ball a little faster when I know there is a latent break involved. The faster rolling of the ball takes some of the break out. 

Hilly, rolling greens are just a tough proposition. You just take your medicine and move on. 

[Vinsk]

10 hours ago, Buckeyebowman said:

The other day a friend and I enjoyed a round at a course we really love. It is built on a site that passes for mountainous in NE Ohio. Basically, a great big hill! Plenty of elevation change, large greens, and the greens have plenty of contour to them. If you looked at just my scorecard you might think I had an awful round overall. Actually I had the best tee to green. ball striking round I've enjoyed this year! My problem was on the greens which are all built into hillsides. I swear that on the front side, every putt I stroked broke in the opposite direction that I thought it would! 

I did a little better on the back 9, but I was far short of good! Still had a ton of 3 jacks! I tried everything I know, including feeling the slope with my feet a la Aimpoint! I guess I'm just lost here!?

Try plumb-bobbing.

[boogielicious]

10 hours ago, Buckeyebowman said:

The other day a friend and I enjoyed a round at a course we really love. It is built on a site that passes for mountainous in NE Ohio. Basically, a great big hill! Plenty of elevation change, large greens, and the greens have plenty of contour to them. If you looked at just my scorecard you might think I had an awful round overall. Actually I had the best tee to green. ball striking round I've enjoyed this year! My problem was on the greens which are all built into hillsides. I swear that on the front side, every putt I stroked broke in the opposite direction that I thought it would! 

I did a little better on the back 9, but I was far short of good! Still had a ton of 3 jacks! I tried everything I know, including feeling the slope with my feet a la Aimpoint! I guess I'm just lost here!?

I think architects can creat more optical illusion on greens on hillier courses. The can set it up to make the high side appear to be in one spot but extending and shaping the green in certain way. The hills also can trick you into thinking the general slope is one way too. This is where AimPoint really shines. Block out what you see and just go with your foot read. Only focus on what is between you and the hole.

[Missouri Swede]

51 minutes ago, Vinsk said:

Try plumb-bobbing.

🤣

[DaveP043]

Aimpoint.  Close your eyes, shut out the visual trickeration, read the green with your feet.  My course is like the one you played, hilly, with some optical illusions.  I used to think some of the putts had tons of grain, now I realize I was just being misled by the background scenery.

[saevel25]

There are times where I don’t trust my feet and it never turns out well.... 😜

[billchao]

22 hours ago, Buckeyebowman said:

I swear that on the front side, every putt I stroked broke in the opposite direction that I thought it would! 

All putts break towards Rae's Creek.

[Vinsk]

I honesty don’t understand how you guys can read these greens with your feet. Unless it’s visually obvious I can’t tell from my feet which way a green is sloping. Sounds like a ‘princess and the pea’ phenomenon to me.

[dennyjones]

6 minutes ago, Vinsk said:

Sounds like a ‘princess and the pea’ phenomenon to me.

I've never been referred to as a princess.   Not sure how I feel about that but as I age I do have to pee more often.

[Double Mocha Man]

I am always surprised at how many full-time golfers cannot read the grain, nor care to.  The grain can account for a loss or increase of roughly 3 feet in a 20 foot putt.  And it can push a putt sideways as if there was a big slope there.  Grain/grass reaches out toward/leans toward the nearest water.  Shiny when you are with the grain, darker, more of a matte finish, when you're against the grain.  And you won't know unless you look at the putt from both sides... the shading is relative.

[iacas]

16 minutes ago, Double Mocha Man said:

And it can push a putt sideways as if there was a big slope there.  

No it cannot.

17 minutes ago, Double Mocha Man said:

Grain/grass reaches out toward/leans toward the nearest water.

No. It almost always goes downhill. That’s why the same green with multiple slopes will have grain going multiple directions despite the “nearest water” being in one direction.

[Double Mocha Man]

2 minutes ago, iacas said:

No it cannot.  And it can push a putt sideways as if there was a big slope there.

No. It almost always goes downhill. That’s why the same green with multiple slopes will have grain going multiple directions despite the “nearest water” being in one direction.

I stand corrected.  And it can push a putt sideways as if there was a LITTLE slope there.

On your second item I will need to do more research.  I rarely look at where the water is, preferring to just look at the grain direction.  Everything being equal I give the water a bit of credence.

[iacas]

Just now, Double Mocha Man said:

I stand corrected.  And it can push a putt sideways as if there was a LITTLE slope there.

On your second item I will need to do more research.  I rarely look at where the water is, preferring to just look at the grain direction.  Everything being equal I give the water a bit of credence.

It moves a ball, at most, an inch or so over 20’. Water has no effect on a ball. Only gravity.

[dennyjones]

1 minute ago, Double Mocha Man said:

Everything being equal I give the water a bit of credence.

Give credence to where water would flow if poured out of a glass.    

[Double Mocha Man]

2 minutes ago, dennyjones said:

Give credence to where water would flow if poured out of a glass.    

I'd give it more credence if it was wine pouring out of a glass...

[Buckeyebowman]

48 minutes ago, Vinsk said:

I honesty don’t understand how you guys can read these greens with your feet. Unless it’s visually obvious I can’t tell from my feet which way a green is sloping. Sounds like a ‘princess and the pea’ phenomenon to me.

I discovered this quite some time ago. I'd make my read and settle in for the putt. I'd feel my weight settle toward my heels, or toward the balls of my feet if the slope was enough to cause that. I can also feel my weight lean toward the right or left foot. For whatever reason I have very sensitive feet. I can begin to step on something, and pull my foot away before crushing it. 

19 minutes ago, Double Mocha Man said:

I am always surprised at how many full-time golfers cannot read the grain, nor care to.  The grain can account for a loss or increase of roughly 3 feet in a 20 foot putt.  And it can push a putt sideways as if there was a big slope there.  Grain/grass reaches out toward/leans toward the nearest water.  Shiny when you are with the grain, darker, more of a matte finish, when you're against the grain.  And you won't know unless you look at the putt from both sides... the shading is relative.

Well, the greens on this course are quite grainy! On one par 5, as we came up on the green it looked lush and dark. I had hit my approach just over the green, about 2 feet past the fringe. When i got back there to size up my shot, that green shone like a mirror! I thought I hit a perfect chip, a little bloop lob that landed about halfway through the fringe so it could just trundle onto the green. It still wound up 15' below the pin! 

[Buckeyebowman]

18 minutes ago, iacas said:

 

No. It almost always goes downhill. That’s why the same green with multiple slopes will have grain going multiple directions despite the “nearest water” being in one direction.

Reminds me of a David Feherty essay about playing in the Bob Hope Desert Classic where a bag room geek advised him that all the putts "break toward Indio!" Feherty wrote that after a couple of practice rounds he was convinced that the word Indio was Native American for THE REST OF THE WORLD! He said the same thing you did, gravity and slope govern the line of a putt, with grain a minor consideration.

But I am interested in grain. I play some courses where the greens seem to exhibit no graininess at all, while the course I'm talking about here has a ton of it! I don't know what type of grass is in their greens. I don't think it Poa Annua, because I've looked at it closely and can't spot the tiny, little seed heads in there. This stuff grows almost sideways, and always downhill! Any ideas?