Master Fast Golf Greens with Minor Adjustments (Video) - by Pete Styles
Master Fast Golf Greens with Minor Adjustments (Video) - by Pete Styles

Now we are going to look at the tip that’s going to help you when you are putting on fast greens. The first thing we have got to consider on fast greens is actually how fast are they? You might have often heard about stimpmeters and the stimpspeed. Now stimpmeters basically a meter long ruler with the little notch to one end. And the green keeper would put the ball at one end, lay it flat on the green and raise it up. And as it gets to a certain grade the ball would fall off the notch, race down the stimpmeter, the greenkeeper then measures from the end of that stimpmeter across the green. On faster greens the ball rolls further, on slower greens the ball will roll shorter. Greenkeeper will do this on a selection of numbered greens around the course, a few uphill and few downhill both in the opposite direction so slopes and grain and gradients and that sort of thing, it will even down.

So then we end up with the number of how far did the ball roll? Now the very fastest greens you might see on the PGA Tour often up to 13 or 14 on a stimpmeter, most club greens are a little bit slower between 10 and 8 something like that. So it’s important that you understand how fast the greens can be and then you can start to adjust your technique and your stroke just to help you get the ball nice and close, particularly if you have got a faster putt a down help on a quick green that you are not used to, back and often throughout your putting stroke.

Couple of things you want to look for in the stroke. One would be to lighten your grip precious slightly, we don’t begin to tight with the putting green normally but particularly on fast green it’s just nice and soft hands. Then the nice confident stroke, we don’t really want to have a big backswing and then get tentative and decelerates on the putt so it can be a little bit shorter and then confidently accelerating through. So when you get too tentative you will actually start hitting the ball offline a little bit so just be careful of that, you got to be confident on these fast greens. Try and play a little bit more break on your putts rather than on your club or slightly slower greens, slower greens will generally hold a straighter line, faster greens on the PGA Tour, real big curving breaks. So if you are hitting the putt gently over a fast surface it will curve more so allow for more breaks.

One of the tip if you have got a really, really quick putt that’s straight down the hill, you often see this on the better players as well is that they will hit the putt slightly more from the toe end. Now the toe end of your putt is similar to your irons, it is a bit deader, it will just sort of dead in the ball as you hit it won’t spring off the club face quite so fast. So just set the putt up in the toe and just strikes it off the toe, it should still go straight but it will be a little bit deader when you hit it and it will just take a bit of pace out of it. So if you are really scared of the fast greens play the balls slightly more of the toe and that should just help you copes the ball down there and encourage you to get used to the speed of the greens a little bit faster. So we all like putting on fast greens but let’s make sure we use those little tips, just to encourage you to putt better on fast greens.

 2012-07-17

Now we are going to look at the tip that’s going to help you when you are putting on fast greens. The first thing we have got to consider on fast greens is actually how fast are they? You might have often heard about stimpmeters and the stimpspeed. Now stimpmeters basically a meter long ruler with the little notch to one end. And the green keeper would put the ball at one end, lay it flat on the green and raise it up. And as it gets to a certain grade the ball would fall off the notch, race down the stimpmeter, the greenkeeper then measures from the end of that stimpmeter across the green. On faster greens the ball rolls further, on slower greens the ball will roll shorter. Greenkeeper will do this on a selection of numbered greens around the course, a few uphill and few downhill both in the opposite direction so slopes and grain and gradients and that sort of thing, it will even down.

So then we end up with the number of how far did the ball roll? Now the very fastest greens you might see on the PGA Tour often up to 13 or 14 on a stimpmeter, most club greens are a little bit slower between 10 and 8 something like that. So it’s important that you understand how fast the greens can be and then you can start to adjust your technique and your stroke just to help you get the ball nice and close, particularly if you have got a faster putt a down help on a quick green that you are not used to, back and often throughout your putting stroke.

Couple of things you want to look for in the stroke. One would be to lighten your grip precious slightly, we don’t begin to tight with the putting green normally but particularly on fast green it’s just nice and soft hands. Then the nice confident stroke, we don’t really want to have a big backswing and then get tentative and decelerates on the putt so it can be a little bit shorter and then confidently accelerating through. So when you get too tentative you will actually start hitting the ball offline a little bit so just be careful of that, you got to be confident on these fast greens. Try and play a little bit more break on your putts rather than on your club or slightly slower greens, slower greens will generally hold a straighter line, faster greens on the PGA Tour, real big curving breaks. So if you are hitting the putt gently over a fast surface it will curve more so allow for more breaks.

One of the tip if you have got a really, really quick putt that’s straight down the hill, you often see this on the better players as well is that they will hit the putt slightly more from the toe end. Now the toe end of your putt is similar to your irons, it is a bit deader, it will just sort of dead in the ball as you hit it won’t spring off the club face quite so fast. So just set the putt up in the toe and just strikes it off the toe, it should still go straight but it will be a little bit deader when you hit it and it will just take a bit of pace out of it. So if you are really scared of the fast greens play the balls slightly more of the toe and that should just help you copes the ball down there and encourage you to get used to the speed of the greens a little bit faster. So we all like putting on fast greens but let’s make sure we use those little tips, just to encourage you to putt better on fast greens.