If The Greens Are Too Severe, Will You Play the Course Again?

[RX Phoenix]

Just finished playing a great golf course tee to green, but the greens were by far the most difficult I've ever played, almost impossible to get accurate reads.

About half the time the ball broke the opposite way I had read, when I saw straight it broke, and when I saw break it was dead straight. One putt looked straight and the ball ended up 20 ft left. If you putt it firm the ball stayed straight, less firmly it broke too much, there seemed to be no way to get the ball in the hole.

BTW this is the course where the LPGA players complained and Sorenstam won with a +3 . . . the problem, too many 3 putts. If you didn't get close to the pin it's a likely 3 putt. I thought I had played really tough greens before but this was over the top.

Question, how badly does it ruin your round if you can't get anything to drop because the greens are too severe, do you go back or stay away? I believe I'll stay away because I don't think it is really possible to putt those greens well, even Tiger Woods would 3 putt those greens guaranteed.

[Golfme]

i'd go when i need to improve my putting and to get the realization that, putt for dough.

[Lost Ball]

Lost Ball enjoys hard greens in terms of difficulty

Lost Ball would play again and have a good time

[Big_M]

I might go back... just to make sure I wasn't on drugs that day or going crazy. I like tough greens, but not rediculous greens. I played a course in a league one year that had 3 multi tiered greens. Two were manageable, but one had an 8 foot elevation change, and the whole area around the green was just unmanageable. Nothing like having a decent round blown on one F-ed up hole, especially if the hole was cut near the tier. It was just stupid. So, I guess my point is... hard greens are fun, unfair greens make me want to kill people.

[lamebums]

No. My putting is bad enough. Imagine this - "I shot a 105, with 63 putts..."

[RX Phoenix]

It seems that golf courses, in order to defend themselves against the 300+ drive/wedge that modern equipment makes possible, are tricking up the greens and going too far with it IMO.

A nearby course recently underwent a $5mil rennovation and redid all the greens. The pro is crowing about how difficult they are now . . . some look like they buried an elephant in the middle, others have tiers so severe that if you don't hit the right level you are almost guaranteed a 3 putt.

What these severe greens do is force pinpoint accuracy with the approach shot, this may make the course more difficult to the scratch bomber, but it also makes the course very unfriendly to the mid-handicapper who is hitting 5 iron instead of wedge into these very small target areas. They end up with a lot of 3 putts on ridiculously tough and uncertain reads, a lot of missed par and birdie putts . . . so how fun is that?

Also the course can shave the greens down so much that the ball doesn't really track the way it should, doesn't run true. They can't make the holes any longer in many cases, they don't have the real estate, so their only recourse is to grow the rough higher, narrow the fairways, and especially trick up the greens.

I'd rather have the course tougher tee to green than have the greens too difficult.

[Stuart]

Ouch. That could have been 72-75 easily. Golf humbles people like no other sport can. My putting has improved a lot over the last few months. I've stuck with one putter, the Seemore FGP and have improved to where I will maybe have 1 three putt per round. I realize though that I've never probably played greens as tough as what the person that started this thread is talking about. I voted that I'd come back because I'm much happier around greens than I used to be, however I'm not sure I would have voted that way if I had read his experience first.

No. My putting is bad enough. Imagine this - "I shot a 105, with 63 putts..."

[TourSpoon]

We had a course in my town that was built for a PGA event and not only had tough greens (but fair) but tough everything. The problem they had was converting over to a membership course because the place was too penal. They didn't make it. Seven years later they redesigned the place and put "playablility" back in for the average golfer.

Sure you may have tough greens, but I guess you need to see what your customer base really wants. If you make it so the pros complain, will the people that actually pay the bills want to play there? Not every course is going to host the US Open.

[Shindig]

Severe breaking? I'll take a good friend who is good at putting and see if he can make a few putts. If so, it's my putting and reading, and if I enjoy the rest of the course, I'll go back when I need to work on breaking putts.

Poor quality greens? Maybe not. There's a course I played with the greens angled away from you and that I saw single digit handicappers unable to get a sand wedge to stick. Once on, the break wasn't the problem most of the time. So I won't go back there.

There are some other courses who have greens that are incredibly bumpy and a well-struck putt might as well not be, since it has some random error in there. Nah, that course isn't for me.


In short, I want quality greens with makable putts. Makable by me depends on my ability, but if good players can make the putts, then it's good enough for me.

[redi630]

I unfortunately have a permanent tee time at a course where the greens have severe slopes to them. The worst part is when the flag is placed right on the edge of one of the slopes. For me, it does take some of the fun out of the round.

[meenman]

have to say i am not a fan of easy courses - there was nothing worse than playing up north for the first time and then having unrealistic expectations of what my score should be once i came home - i say the tougher the better!

[lamebums]

An addendum to what I said earlier: although I usually won't go back to play it again if the greens were horrid, there is one exception: if the course is really cheap, I'll come back to play it again...and again and again.

Eggs have doubled in the past year, gas is up 50%, milk and orange juice 30%...and I'm already on a shoestring budget. I need to hunt down cheap golf wherever possible.

[xd3vilx]

If difficult green, I would have no problem coming often to improve my game. But poor quality green, I would nv come back. No point, spolit the fun of playing golf.

[neudi]

I love challenges so I would most likely go back.

[klaymon]

I would go back again and again. We don't get any better at something by always playing at it's easy levels. If we truly want to get better at putting, we have to subject ourselves to tough putts.

[mancest]

if the greens are well taken care of then I would want to come back to see if I could do better, isn't that half the point of golf, to improve ?

poorly maintained greens, I would just get on gone and not come back.

[tjy355]

Just finished playing a great golf course tee to green, but the greens were by far the most difficult I've ever played, almost impossible to get accurate reads.

I'd be interested to know what course it was? I'm in the Phoenix area and enjoy challenging greens with lots of contour. I play at Longbow a lot and the greens there give me fits! But that's one of the things I like about the course, it would be boring shooting par all the time LOL

The combination of fast speed AND big contours can be a problem. I have yet to encounter a course that I would not return to because I though the greens were unfair or too difficult. Tom

[augafan48]

what course was this that you played at that had the toughest greens?