Golf Tips And Products

Knowing how to drive and putt are not the only things you need to learn about playing golf.  Aside from the obvious interference that the weather can cause, there is also the conditions of the surface that we play on.  In order to be successful at the game of golf, we need to learn about the greens.

Since golf is an outdoor activity you play on a living, breathing, and constantly changing portion of land, and, as in everything else that we do out of doors, Mother Nature also loves to play this game.

Grasses are different and they play very different.  That is part of the challenge of playing different golf courses as opposed to playing your home course all of the time.  (And you thought it was only the layout of the course.)  You might encounter a plush putting green or a weed patch with little growth at all.  The putt can be altered by the length and texture of the grass, and how much grass is actually there.

A true golfer doesn’t play only on sunny days with no breeze, it is quite common to see a golfer with an umbrella (to protect the clubs) playing in the rain.  Like any other outdoor activity, the rain changes how you putt a golf ball.  You will also come across a condition that is created by man, that is recognized by few golfers, this is called the “lumpy donut”.  However, this is not a real threat.

In the United States you will most likely be playing on one of two types of grass:

• Bent is a cool weather grass found in the northern states, it is soft with fine blades growing close together, and this creates a carpet like texture.  It can’t take prolonged heat or humidity.
• Bermuda is used in the warmer climates; it is a strong weedy grass that handles warmer climates and humidity found in the southern states.  The blades are long, broad, shaggy and sparser; golfers describe it as a wild shag rug which causes the ball to rise and fall in and out of the blades.  Bermuda also has a grain, the direction in which the grass grows.

Their differences create very different playing surfaces for golf.  Balls will roll truer on bent grasses and the break will be caused by the slope of the land.  With Bermuda your shot can be affected by uneven growth patterns in the grass.  This is why when watching golf tournaments on television, you will often see the golfers or caddies examining the greens.  They are studying the lie of these grasses to try to figure out how the ball will react.

The best  place to figure out for yourself  how your shots will be affected  to the different types of grass is to spend a lot of time on the practice green.