Scoring with Temporary Greens

[mtsalmela80]

How do you view temporary greens when it comes to scoring a round? Most temporary greens have a white circle around the flag stick, 10-20 foot radius. Whats the proper method, give yourself one or two putts once inside the circle?

[iacas]

How do you view temporary greens when it comes to scoring a round? Most temporary greens have a white circle around the flag stick, 10-20 foot radius. Whats the proper method, give yourself one or two putts once inside the circle?

I give myself one putt once I'm within six feet. It seemed to work pretty well in terms of generating reasonable scores.

[colin007]

6 feet?  why so stingy?  make it 10!!

[iacas]

Originally Posted by colin007

6 feet?  why so stingy?  make it 10!!

Because I still wanted to make myself hit reasonable chips or putts. Ten feet is sloppy and I'd be shooting under par or something.

[Zeph]

Depends on the green and how good of a putter you are. A 6 footer is never a gimmie in real play. Record your total amount of putts in the regular season and on temporary greens to see if they somewhat match up.

[VMAN]

At my old course it was a pretty small circle for the temp green, maybe 1o' radius or so.  It was an automatic two putt, though you gave yourself to make a one putt.  Didn't matter if you chipped to within 3' or closer.  you get one chance and the next is a gimme.

I like it better now...never have to deal with temporaries unless there is work being done.

[Rednax1530]

Its interesting to hear what people do for scoring with the temporary greens.  My home course is undergoing some major renovations. Some of the areas were in pretty rough shape last year and we had a couple temporary greens which are never quite as nice. I like the 6ft rule Iacas, although for myself I might have to make that area smaller. maybe 3 or 4 ft until I become a more experienced golfer. And of course only on the temporary greens.

[ghalfaire]

On temporary greens I putt once and if I don't hole it I pick it up for a 2 putt.  Doesn't seem to change my handicap any but I admit I seldom play a course with more than a couple of temporary greens and in fact don't play many courses with temporary greens at all.

[The_Pharaoh]

Temporary greens is not golf. I will play golf under ANY circumstances except if there are temporary greens.

[Zeph]

In your part of the world, that might work, but for us having a winter, we'd have to stop playing golf for at least 6 months.

[Fourputt]

Originally Posted by The_Pharaoh

Temporary greens is not golf. I will play golf under ANY circumstances except if there are temporary greens.

Originally Posted by Zeph

In your part of the world, that might work, but for us having a winter, we'd have to stop playing golf for at least 6 months.

Here in Colorado we have winter too, but never play temporary greens.  Play is only stopped when snow or ice prevent play.  Cold isn't an issue as long as play is not allowed when there is actual frost on the grass.  When the proper care is taken, cold weather alone shouldn't prevent play on real greens.  Our greens are beautiful in the summer, yet we play on them all winter too, snow cover excepted.  I think that the last time I played on a temp green was more than 20 years ago when my home course got a batch of contaminated fertilizer and 5 greens were killed and had to be razed about 6" down and rebuilt to remove the contamination.  We lost at least half the season that year for those 5 greens, and it wasn't until the next season that they really came back properly.  But that was a special case, not the normal procedure here.

[Zeph]

Play is only stopped when snow or ice prevent play.  Cold isn't an issue as long as play is not allowed when there is actual frost on the grass.  When the proper care is taken, cold weather alone shouldn't prevent play on real greens.

Yeah, that's the issue here. We normally got frost or snow in 6 months. If the ground is not white, it's usually frozen. As far as the care of the greens go, they prefer having a thick layer of snow all winter. It helps isolate the greens and prevent frost damage. My home course's greens suffered some pretty bad frost damage last year. Nothing you can do about the weather of course, but it prevents play on the summer greens, sadly. Not the biggest of issues for me. You lose a part of the game, for sure, but I'm mostly focused on the game tee to green. :-)

[Fourputt]

Originally Posted by Zeph

Yeah, that's the issue here. We normally got frost or snow in 6 months. If the ground is not white, it's usually frozen. As far as the care of the greens go, they prefer having a thick layer of snow all winter. It helps isolate the greens and prevent frost damage. My home course's greens suffered some pretty bad frost damage last year. Nothing you can do about the weather of course, but it prevents play on the summer greens, sadly.

Not the biggest of issues for me. You lose a part of the game, for sure, but I'm mostly focused on the game tee to green.

The ground freezes here too.  In the winter you have to play a completely different game.  You can't stick a tee in the ground and the fairways and greens are like lightly padded concrete.  The smart players have learned to adapt with low running shots, leaving the wedges and short irons in the bag most of the time. I will often play an entire round using nothing shorter than an 8I.

[Ruler]

Dave suggested that a new thread should be created so here we are.

In the original thread Dave wrote this:

'In my mind, I'd treat a hole with a temporary green as a hole not played.  For Handicap Purposes, that means you'd record par plus any handicap strokes to be applied.'

In my country there are two issues in the WHS about temporary greens that regulate whether a score is postable or not (may be different in the US):

- only 1 TG per 9 holes, i.e. max 2 per 18 holes

- the measure of the course must not be less than 100 meters from the nominal value

If those two conditions are met the round is postable in my country.

[DrvFrShow]

If I'm within 30' of the hole, I give myself an auto 2-putt. 

[WillieT]

Temp greens - the course I play most frequently has a couple temp greens in place.  They have the grass cut pretty close, a cup hole cut.  Still have wondered how to best score it - land in the mowed area and take 2 ansd move on or to try to putt it out taking the risk that it may be a 3 putt or worse.  Guess it becomes a personal choice.  

[DCCarpenter]

I played 9 holes with the temporary greens for the first time Saturday and had no idea how to score it, I actually chipped really well to within 10' of the hole or less several times but the grass was so course the putting was impossible.

 

I could have 2 putted if not maybe made a couple putts right from my chip if it was a regular green so it was quite frustrating. I end up calling all of them a 2 putt for the sake of writing something down.

[Swindon]

I take the same approach on newly cored greens - it isn't real putting so auto 2 putt once you're on the surface.