Your guide to understanding how aim works on artificial turf.
Putting Baseline
Putting is an essential stroke in the game of golf, as it can greatly influence a player’s outcome in a single round. Any putting surface, natural or artificial, has key playability parameters that determine the “putting quality” of such a surface. Bounce, spin, trueness, speed, aim, firmness, and consistency are some of the key attributes that affect “putting quality”.
To secure our synthetic turf greens putted akin to natural greens we generated standardized testing methods to assess both natural and synthetic putting greens. These testing methods help give you the country club golf course experience at your own backyard putting green.
The Putting Green Assessment Tool is created to impartially measure the effect of different surfaces on the golf ball. The procedure is automated in such a way that it eliminates the human interference and variability. For example, a person asked to putt 10 times will likely produce 10 different shots. It uses a simple device equipped with a free swinging putter to repeatedly reproduce identical ball strokes for the putting motion, and two launching mechanisms that apply backspin to the ball from ground level and from 2ft from the ground. The instrument creates data related to ball strike, spin, bounce, and aim. Other tests used in the protocol are familiar to most in the golf industry: speed and firmness(Stimpmeter and TruFirm).
This method can be used to:
1. Set up a guideline for ideal playability of putting greens using natural grass greens at the highest level;
2. Benchmark playability of a particular course vs. the baseline;
3. Benchmark the playability of an artificial putting system vs. natural green;
4. Produce product comparison data and advance product development intentionally to achieve a specific target.
How Turf Affects Aim
Aim is a basic skill you have to practice to get the shot accurate every time, but did you know that the quality of the turf you’re on plays a role, too? Here are the few elements that influence how the ball reacts when you’ve taken your swing and the ball hits the turf:
Turf Stiffness
The tension of the turf affects how the golf ball will move throughout the putt, if the fiber is not optimized for putting particularly it can create unpredictable ball movement while rolling ”chatter.”
Friction Properties
Friction properties amidst the ball and the turf also greatly affect how the ball slides and rolls. If putting surface friction is not optimized it will not correctly transition the club face and spin will create a bouncing effect instead of a smooth roll.
Pile Lay
A natural green is rolled to assure the fibers are not standing upright. Correctly infilled putting greens will replicate natural rolled greens and avoid grain irregularities.
To test aim and surface variation; we measured the relative variation of standardized putts on a multitude of different putting surfaces (bermuda, bent, nylon synthetic, polyethylene synthetic, and polypropylene synthetic)
The Southwest Greens Difference
Having a high value turf will supply you the understanding to know the ball will react the way it is supposed to. The kind of turf will absolutely affect your shot. The accuracy of the turf lets the aim be as accurate as possible, and you can now have this on your own lawn with our fan-favorite Golden Bear Turf.
Golden Bear Turf’s aim is scientifically developed and tested to go toe-to-toe with pro-quality putting greens. Shot after shot and putt after putt, Golden Bear has the tightest perimeter and the finest aim of any putting surface. For pro-level consistency, it’s simply the most outstanding synthetic green for putting aim on the market.