Golf World UK - August 2017

The idea of banning green-reading books is ridiculous –

they aren’t cheat sheets and they actually speed up play.

Justin Rose

R

ON

T

here are two ways to look at

using green-reading books.

Does it take the skill out of

putting or is it a new skill

learned? I believe it’s the latter. You still

have to interpret the information and

make a decision based on the data. No

green-reading book is ever going to be

able to tell you the exact line, so there’s

always a decision to make, which is

exactly the same as reading a green in the

traditional way. You still need to use

your skill and experience to get the right

read. Then you have to actually hit the

putt with the right line and speed, of

course.

I’ve been using green-reading books for

a couple of years. I use them to identify

the straight putt and where the

maximum amount of break is. Where

I am between the two in that wedge of

cheese helps me roughly predict how

much break there will be (the closer you

are to the straight putt the less it will

break) and the rest is down to feel and

speed. Even if you have the perfect

stroke, you have to start the ball on the

rightline.Andifyouhavetherightline,

youhavetohititwiththerightspeed,so

therearealotofelementstoholing

putts.Youhavetodothreethings

perfectly(theread,lineandspeed)ora

coupleofthingswrongtomakeaputt,

sotherearenohardandfastrulesand

greensbooksaren’tcheatsheets.There’s

a lot more to it than that.

Another criticism of green-reading

booksisthattheyslowupplay,but

Iputtwayquickernowthanwhen

Ididn’tusethem,sothatargumentis

completely contradictory. If I’m honest,

Ithinkalltheheadlinesaboutslowplay

on tour are a whole lot of fuss about

nothing.It’satrafficissue,forthemost

part.Tryingtofit156guysaroundagolf

course is like trying to drive home on the

M25 in the middle offrush hour.

The biggest contributor to slow up

play is that guys are petrified of making

the wrong decision in terms of rulings,

so there are a lot of guys calling for

rulings from referees. When 20 people

do that in a day then it’s slowing play up

quite a lot. We live in a day and age

where you don’t want to get the rules

wrong–andwe’veseenmanyincidents

recentlywhereyoucan’tbetoocareful

with the rules.

Sure,acoupleofguystaketoolong

butiftheypressustoplaymuchquicker

Ican’tseeusgainingmore than 10

minutesfaster.Andoverfivehours,is10

minutesworththefuss?I’mnotsure.

Andifpaceofplayissuchanissueon

tour,whichitistoanextent,thenisa

newrulewhereyoucanfixdamageon

thegreensgoingtospeedupplay?All

the other new rules suggested by The

R&A and USGA for simplifying and

modernising the game sound good to

me, but that one is rather

counterintuitive.Becauseit’snotas

simple as just spike marks with how the

proposednewruleiswritten.Ifyougo

somewherelikePebbleBeachwhere

you’re facing cleat marks and

indentations then guys will be down

therealldaytryingtorepairtheirline,

especially from four to six feet. I think

they’llenduprefininghowthatruleis

written before it comes into force because

no-one is going to want to hit a four-foot

JustinRoseisaUSOpenchampionand

Olympic gold medallist who has played on

thePGAandEuropeanTours for 18 years.

‘ T h e b i g g e s t co n t r i b u t o r t o s l ow p l ay i s t h a t p l aye r s

are petrified of making the wrong rules decisions’

putt if they can see damage. They’re

going to keep repairing it if you give

them the opportunity.

I understand pace of play is a big issue

amongst amateurs, but I think 95% of

club golfers aren’t affected by what they

see on TV. You might get a couple of

keen players who take on board some

mannerisms but that isn’t going to

significantly impact the pace of play of

your average club round. One or two

players might get labelled slow, but that’s

not dramatically affecting the whole

membership over the course of a day.

Asking mid-handicappers to shoot a

medal score is quite onerous and it takes

a lot of commitment. There’s going to be

a lot of searching for balls and missed

putts around the cup, which all takes

time.Soit’sgreattoseethatacoupleof

theproposednewruleswilldefinitely

helpspeedupplayforthe 99.9% of

golfers who play as a hobby.

28 Golf World August 2017