Putting Green Speeds: A Reality Check!
2010
Dest, William M. | Guillard, Karl | Rackliffe, Steven L. | Chen, Ming-Hui | Wang, Xia
Twenty-nine golf courses in Connecticut participated in a study where 448 golfers were asked in a questionnaire to rank the speed of selected greens into one of five categories from slow to fast. These rankings were paired to the same USGA speed chart categories for regular play based on measured Stimpmeter ball-roll distances. Overall, there was no significant (P = 0.72) relationship between golfer rankings of green speed and USGA speed categories. Low-handicap golfers were able to detect increasing trends in green speeds only slightly better than higher-handicap golfers or golfers with no handicap. Overall, the majority of golfers (74%) ranked green speed into slower categories than those determined by the Stimpmeter. However, golfer rankings correctly matched USGA categories in 41.4 to 48.8% of cases when measured speeds were classified as medium to medium-fast, respectively. Regardless of ball-roll distance, 87.5% of respondents rated the putting green speed as satisfactory. The data suggest that use of the Stimpmeter for delineating greens into arbitrary speed categories may be obsolete. Instead, it should be used as a tool to determine “ideal” green speeds at individual golf courses based on golfer preferences, and to ensure relatively uniform green speeds throughout the course.
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