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 Patient: Male Age: 48 Current Handicap: 18 Lowest Handicap: 12 Has played golf for: 17 years Plays: Three times a month Practices: Rarely The symptoms: It seems like all these new courses have wild, undulating greens. I’ve heard about balls breaking away from certain mountains or toward Indio when you play in the desert. Is there a trick that pros use for reading greens? Dr. Golf’s prescription: Nothing takes the place of playing a course and getting first-hand experience of the greens. During practice rounds pros spend time putting on the greens to see how the ball rolls in different areas. Mountains or hills nearby usually mean the land slopes away from these features. If a green is near water, land slopes toward the water. Local knowledge is huge. The grain, or direction the grass grows, on a green also can affect the roll of a putt. Bent grass greens can have pronounced grain. A ball rolling with the grain can move faster and break more. With some experience, you can take that into account when calculating the break. In addition, I look at the hole to see if there’s a slant to the cup, which tells me that a ball will enter the hole from the high side. Patient: Male Age: 28 Current Handicap: 12 Lowest Handicap: 12 Has played golf for: About two years Plays: Two or three times a month Practices: Often The symptoms: I’ve been watching a lot of golf lately and I recently heard an announcer talk about a player “short-siding himself.” What does that mean, and what is the strategy a good player would use to avoid doing it? Dr. Golf’s prescription: The term “short-sided” refers to missing a green on the side where the hole is located — if a hole is on the right side of a green, the player misses the green to the right, and vice versa. Usually the player is faced with a chip or pitch with very little green between the fringe and the hole. It can make for a difficult up and down. The better player might choose to aim at the center of the green. A shot that lands in the middle of the green leaving a 20-foot putt is better than a difficult pitch shot. Even PGA Tour players aim away from the hole for this reason. A player, when comfortable with different shots, may fade or draw the ball from the center of the green toward the hole. The center of the green is not a bad place to be. Tim Parun is a PGA professional at Cottonwood at Rancho San Diego Golf Club in El Cajon. He can be reached at (619) 442-9891. |
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