Newly Cut Holes vs. Beat Up Holes

[bkuehn1952]

I played yesterday and it was clear that my "home" course is saving a bit of money in November by not relocating and cutting new holes. Yesterday some of the holes were pretty beat up despite the recent limited play (cold, windy and/or wet weather since the beginning of October).

Sometimes beat up holes actually aid in putting with a slow rolling putt occasionally falling in side-door with a funnel-shaped old hole. My feeling is, however, that the irregularly beveled edges result in a greater number of lip outs vs. topple ins. The old hole edges become like the banked turns at Darlington, and assist the ball to whip around the edge and continue on its journey at a 35 degree or greater direction change.

Yesterday, for once, I started my round well. I arrived at the 6th hole even and had a 6-footer to save par. My ball hit the higher edge with a modest amount of speed and if the damn edge had been "sharp" I truly believe it would have fallen in. As it turned out, the ball hit the old hole's beveled edge, swooped around and stopped 1 inch outside the hole.

[bryan k]

I'd like to see a scientific study on this.

Like pulling the pin versus leaving the pin in.

[sjduffers]

I believe Kuehn is right: sharp edges are more conducive to get the putt to fall in, especially in conjunction with the volcano effect that tends to develop on old holes due to people pulling their ball out with the putter, raising the edges above the ground surrounding the hole.

Also, leaving the pin in is a big advantage to a good player: the flag will deaden the ball a lot more times than it deflects the ball out on chips and putts. The USGA and the R&A want to let the flag in while putting to speed up play in the new rules for 2019, but they don't realize yet how much it will change putting for good putters inside 15 feet (bad putters will miss the hole altogether anyway...).

[bryan k]

I completely agree that having the pin in helps in a lot more cases than it hurts.

However, when it comes to the old and worn out hole placements, the only thing that I believe would hamper the ball from falling in is the volcano effect that you mentioned.

I'm actually kind of convinced, though, that the volcano effect is caused more by people not using care when removing the pin from the hole than any other reason. It's something I see with regularity. People will pull the pin out at an angle, and it will brush the lip of the cup. Do that 20 times in a day from different angles, and pow. You got your volcano.

I would think that a beveled edge would have the opposite effect, though, and be more conducive to having the ball fall in the hole. More commonly, I would think that it would cause a lip-out when, if the hole was in pristine shape, the ball would cruise by the lip with no effect. In other words, most of the time I have seen people complain that they didn't get a lip-out to fall because the hole was in crappy shape, I don't think the ball would have even lipped out if the hole wasn't in pristine shape. With the volcanos, though, the effect is obvious. The ball will veer around the hole at the last second rather than continue on a straight path. It is far more common to see a volcano than a bevel. The bevel is usually caused by an old hole combined with lack of play whereas the volcano is caused by heavy play.

I also suspect that some volcano edges are sometimes caused by a lack of care by the person cutting the hole.

With all of that being said, I am fully in support of allowing the pin to stay in the hole. It would go a long way towards speeding up play, as one of the common errors I see players make is not having a concrete understanding of how to get the pin back into the hole. I've always followed the philosophy that the first in gets the pin, but I constantly see situations where the only person left on the green is the only person who has yet to hole out. It probably costs less than a minute a hole, but by the end of the round, you're still looking at 15 extra minutes to complete the round due to that one little error.

[jasonfish11]

Ha, I always thought that volcano effect was caused by people who stand right next to the holes to get their ball out. Their weight is essentially compacting the ground around the hole but not the lip given most people know not to stand on the hole.

Maybe it's a combination of these things?

[bryan k]

Ha, I always thought that volcano effect was caused by people who stand right next to the holes to get their ball out. Their weight is essentially compacting the ground around the hole but not the lip given most people know not to stand on the hole.

Maybe it's a combination of these things?

I never even thought of that before, but you are probably on to something.

[sjduffers]

Yes, I would agree with that too: gravity is a powerful thing!