USGA, R&A Limit Green Reading Materials

[Alx]

1 minute ago, iacas said:

Under the current rules, they are not.

I wasn't making any reference to the rules. Rules can say what ever they still serve the same purpose. Give information that is more difficult to see with the naked eye.

It just comes down to preference really and where they want to take the game.

 

17 minutes ago, iacas said:

discussion they're having is not about yardage books

No but they serve a similar purpose so it's relevant.

[iacas]

3 hours ago, Alx said:

I wasn't making any reference to the rules. Rules can say what ever they still serve the same purpose. Give information that is more difficult to see with the naked eye.

It just comes down to preference really and where they want to take the game.

No but they serve a similar purpose so it's relevant.

I don't agree that they serve the same purpose unless you only speak or consider the very broad sense of looking at a book.  Yardage is public information and are on scorecards, Tee markers, bushes in fairways, sprinkler heads, etc. 

[Alx]

2 hours ago, iacas said:

Yardage is public information and are on scorecards, Tee markers, bushes in fairways, sprinkler heads, etc. 

General yardage sure. 

Yardage books contain way more measurements than that general information. Not everything on a course has a distance plaque on it. A yardage book is much more accurate like mapped greens.

Knowing elevation changes etc. on the fairway is significant.

Exact same thing.

[iacas]

1 hour ago, Alx said:

General yardage sure. 

Yardage books contain way more measurements than that general information. Not everything on a course has a distance plaque on it. A yardage book is much more accurate like mapped greens.

Knowing elevation changes etc. on the fairway is significant.

Exact same thing.

I disagree. I understand what you're saying, but try to understand the subtle differences between them as I'm pointing out.

You can pace off yardages. Or even measure with your club. You can't get slope that way.

One is public general info. The other is not. They're looking to ban green mapping books perhaps, not yardage books.

I'm most interested in how they could possibly legislate that.

[NCGolfer]

On 5/7/2017 at 3:24 PM, iacas said:

I'm most interested in how they could possibly legislate that.

Exactly.  I'm not saying this is a dumb or bad application of a rule like the flagstick rule.  It just seems that the USGA is throwing stuff against the wall to see what will stick...without any thought on how to implement said rules.

Both of these are intended to speed play up.  How about enforcing pace of play rules that are in place?

[iacas]

Mike Davis was just on TV talking about this.

He said the fear is that players will just read a book and not actually read the putt. They're afraid that just by looking at a book they'll be able to say "stimp is 12, putt distance is 14 feet, my ball is here and the hole is here, play the ball 2" to the left."

Never mind that with the original AimPoint charts you could do exactly that.

I still have no idea how they're going to outlaw green reading books without outlawing yardage books or any other pre-printed material.

---

Then again… maybe they could just define "green reading materials" and then say they're not legal. None of them. Hand-written, copied, computer-produced… none of 'em. They can say that they can contain shapes, yardages, and basic arrows, but no numbers or codes (shading, colors), etc.

Maybe that's the solution.

Not that they care, but I'd be okay with that.

[saevel25]

I could see them outlawing certain types of measurements like slope % or degrees. I wouldn't mind it. 

 

[MRR]

17 hours ago, iacas said:

 

He said the fear is that players will just read a book and not actually read the putt. They're afraid that just by looking at a book they'll be able to say "stimp is 12, putt distance is 14 feet, my ball is here and the hole is here, play the ball 2" to the left."

Seems like a silly fear.  I have trouble believing that someone can sink even a five foot putt if all they have to go by is numbers.

 

17 hours ago, iacas said:

I still have no idea how they're going to outlaw green reading books without outlawing yardage books or any other pre-printed material.

Trying to state a reason to ban green reading books without outlawing yardage books might be hard.  But simply outlawing them without giving a reason is easy.  And, according to many people in the "dress code" forum, banning without lengthy explanations is preferred.

"Green reading books are outlawed".  Done.  Anyone who whips out a book while on the green sure seems to be in violation of that.  Anyone looking at a book prior to getting to the green is most likely not getting specific enough information for it to matter.

The problem with allowing books without numbers (or anything else that allows for looking at printed material on the green while only a particular type is outlawed) is that now people can still look at books on the green.  At some point, certain golfers will start adding codes to show all the "illegal" information, but it will be difficult to prove.

[MRR]

EDIT: 

One other point; "He said the fear is that players will just read a book and not actually read the putt."  Seems to not be a good reason.  (Again, I think "we get to make the rules" is a fine enough reason and trying to explain things introduces more problems, but anyway).

Aimpoint Express seems to me to be the quickest and best system.  Said system still has golfers walking all over the green to get reads.  I think it would help the game, both is pace and spirit, to allow the pros to make more putts and reduce the amount of walking they need to do on the green.  You cannot complain about your ball being diverted due to a footprint from someone in the group ahead of you if that golfer never need to step there in the first place.

[iacas]

2 hours ago, MRR said:

Seems like a silly fear.  I have trouble believing that someone can sink even a five foot putt if all they have to go by is numbers.

I don't think it's a silly fear.

If you tell me right now that you have a stimp 12 green and you're putting 40° uphill and across a 2.5% slope from six feet, I can tell you exactly where to aim the putt. I don't have to see the green.

It's physics. And thus, you can abstract it away from the actual green in front of you.

Their fear is somewhat warranted, IMO. I've just been interested in the language, but… I recently figured out that they could just write the language. It probably won't be perfect, but they could make illegal the combination of arrows and numbers or shades of color or other ways of marking the amount of slope. (I think they'd be okay with just arrows, as those have been around for awhile now…).

2 hours ago, MRR said:

Trying to state a reason to ban green reading books without outlawing yardage books might be hard.

Why do they have to give a reason? They've already given their reason: they don't think it's in the spirit of the game. As the two rules-makers for the game, they get to decide those things.

The actual language may be pretty simple in the end.

"It is against the rules to have a green map that contains any indicator of the amount of slope of any portion of the putting green or the surrounding region. Maps that indicate the direction of slope are allowed, but any indication of the severity - via numbers, shades of color, etc. - are disallowed."

1 hour ago, MRR said:

"Green reading books are outlawed".  Done.  Anyone who whips out a book while on the green sure seems to be in violation of that.  Anyone looking at a book prior to getting to the green is most likely not getting specific enough information for it to matter.

I don't think they'll do it that way. You might have your scorecard in your book, and you wouldn't want to penalize a guy for taking out his scorecard to mark the player's score just because it's inside his book.

1 hour ago, MRR said:

The problem with allowing books without numbers (or anything else that allows for looking at printed material on the green while only a particular type is outlawed) is that now people can still look at books on the green.  At some point, certain golfers will start adding codes to show all the "illegal" information, but it will be difficult to prove.

I don't think it will be difficult to prove. If there are a bunch of symbols or something near the arrows, what else could they be? If the arrows are all colored differently, what else could that mean?

It's not like two or three codes dotted around the thing can cover every square foot of the putting green's surface.

Plus, the game of golf still relies on the honesty of players in many places. This would be another case of the rules doing just that.

1 hour ago, MRR said:

One other point; "He said the fear is that players will just read a book and not actually read the putt."  Seems to not be a good reason.  (Again, I think "we get to make the rules" is a fine enough reason and trying to explain things introduces more problems, but anyway).

I still disagree.

1 hour ago, MRR said:

Aimpoint Express seems to me to be the quickest and best system.  Said system still has golfers walking all over the green to get reads.  I think it would help the game, both is pace and spirit, to allow the pros to make more putts and reduce the amount of walking they need to do on the green.  You cannot complain about your ball being diverted due to a footprint from someone in the group ahead of you if that golfer never need to step there in the first place.

I disagree completely. And… AimPoint Express users walk around on the greens LESS than most people reading a putt. And AimPoint Express users are still reading the actual green, not plugging numbers into an equation.

Plus the 2019 rules will likely let you tamp down spike marks.

[MRR]

I have no reason to doubt that you are an expert at putting.  However, I still find it difficult to believe that being given only numbers, you will be able to putt the ball over the correct spot on the green without any markings showing where that "hole" is.  THAT would be a great video.

If you whip out a book to mark your score, you have already putted.  No reason to even care if the book is "illegally marked".

I misspoke a bit about "walking on the green".  AFAIK, Aimpoint is the only one that has the golfer walking in front of balls, and that was my concern.  I do agree with you (I'd be a fool not to) that it involves less walking overall.

[iacas]

7 minutes ago, MRR said:

I have no reason to doubt that you are an expert at putting.

That doesn't have anything to do with it. This is about green reading, not actually putting the ball.

7 minutes ago, MRR said:

However, I still find it difficult to believe that being given only numbers, you will be able to putt the ball over the correct spot on the green without any markings showing where that "hole" is.  THAT would be a great video.

?

Players know where the hole is. They can pinpoint it to within a very small area on their green maps.

Given the location of the hole, and the location of their ball, they could just plug the numbers into a formula - as I can do sitting here in my chair - and tell you exactly how much the putt breaks.

They know the location of the hole on their green map. They get pin sheets every day. And even if they didn't their caddies could go out and locate the holes and mark them down for that day.

7 minutes ago, MRR said:

If you whip out a book to mark your score, you have already putted.  No reason to even care if the book is "illegally marked".

That's not necessarily true at all.

7 minutes ago, MRR said:

I misspoke a bit about "walking on the green".  AFAIK, Aimpoint is the only one that has the golfer walking in front of balls, and that was my concern.  I do agree with you (I'd be a fool not to) that it involves less walking overall.

Plenty of players walk beside the line of their putts. Many will take little practice strokes or set up beside their line and take little strokes or feel the slope there.

[MRR]

2 minutes ago, iacas said:

That doesn't have anything to do with it. This is about green reading, not actually putting the ball.

Thank you for pointing out that there is a difference.  I've never really looked at it that way.

 

We must use words slightly differently.  I swear that in your earlier post you stated that given just the numbers, you could say exactly where to aim (without needing to read the green at all).  Which I take to mean that if someone else gave you those numbers, you could perfectly hit a location that you personally could not see.  Sorry if I am misinterpreting anything.

 

2 minutes ago, iacas said:

Plenty of players walk beside the line of their putts. Many will take little practice strokes or set up beside their line and take little strokes or feel the slope there.

Sure.  I was trying to find some logical reason for their proposed ban and how the ban would contradict that.  Since that's double hypothetical on my part, no need to continue that line.

[DaveP043]

9 minutes ago, MRR said:

We must use words slightly differently.  I swear that in your earlier post you stated that given just the numbers, you could say exactly where to aim (without needing to read the green at all).  Which I take to mean that if someone else gave you those numbers, you could perfectly hit a location that you personally could not see.  Sorry if I am misinterpreting anything.

The way I interpreted what was said earlier, is that a ball rolling across a surface is governed by the laws of physics.  As such, the path of a putt can be calculated, if the right information is available, such as the slope of the terrain, the speed of the greens, and the initial velocity and direction of the ball.  The green speed can be determined, the green-reading books can provide the slopes, and you can assume a velocity and direction, so you don't need to actually see the green in order to determine the path of a putt.  

I haven't taken the original AimPoint instruction, but I understand that the mathematics involved have been distilled into the Aimpoint charts, so you don't even need to use math to evaluate the path of the putt.  

[iacas]

46 minutes ago, MRR said:

We must use words slightly differently.  I swear that in your earlier post you stated that given just the numbers, you could say exactly where to aim (without needing to read the green at all).  Which I take to mean that if someone else gave you those numbers, you could perfectly hit a location that you personally could not see.  Sorry if I am misinterpreting anything.

I said I could tell you where to aim. That I could "read" the putt without being present on the green at all.

There's still skill involved in hitting the putt on that line with the right speed. You know, the other two of the 3 Keys to Putting.

But I can "READ" the green from my couch given the right information.

[socialputts]

Personally, I don't like that everyone can have the exact read with this information.  IMO that's a skill you and your caddy should develop.  If you do your own scouting report and get an advantage, so be it, but it shouldn't be given to everyone.

But if you can't eliminate the info, make the putts harder and the time frame to execute shorter.  Make it more important for the golfers to study this up front and not be able to casually refer to it during play.

[onthehunt526]

I understand the point of view with the numbers and with percentage of slope being printed on these green charts. 

At the end of the day, you still have to execute the putt.

Do these books make it easier to know where to aim? Sure. Does it really matter? Meh. 

If @iacas doesn't mind me paraphrasing he and Dave's book. 

It says something to this effect: Most golfers can't aim directly at the hole from 6 feet away. (That's a vast majority of golfers). 

The pros are better at that.

My point is: Take the slope percentage numbers away. Arrows and general notes, okay.

[iacas]

Quote

“There’s no doubt that a lot of the information that’s getting provided now is taking a lot of the skill and the art and the natural gift [out] of playing the game."

“I’m totally against greens reading books. I think it’s a skill of the game not to have a book provided that absolutely gives you a detailed description of the green and if you read the book accurately, you know exactly how far your putt’s going to break.”

https://iseekgolf.com/news/steve-williams-says-no-to-green-reading-books

I still agree that green books are "bad" and I support the USGA/R&A in banning them.

I just still have NO IDEA how they can write the rule.