Dear Anonymous,
I think the main problem is that bad greens equal bad speeds. Bumpy greens take the energy out of the roll in an inconsistent way. In addition, everyone has to deal with the ball getting knocked off line, but that may affect specific golfers in more harmful ways. If everyone struggled equally with line and distance, there would be no competitive difference when the field moves from good greens to bad greens.
(The discussion here is about greens that are "bad" in the sense of surface bumpiness. I am not really talking about greens that roll true but that have higher, shaggier grass. These greens are slow but have less break due to the channeling effect of the taller grass. If the greens are true but slow, most golfers -- good and bad -- will be able to step up the pacing of the putts without overall results suffering.)
The two related but distinct questions are: 1. whether Tiger adjusts to bad greens less well than others on Tour, and 2. why doesn't Tiger adjust better to bad greens. But these two questions boil down to the same problem in the end -- adjusting to bad greens.
Perhaps the success or failure of an adjustment to bad greens is partly a matter of how well the golfer putts to begin with. Golfers with excellent line and distance control on excellent greens who then move to bad greens and still aim and execute with precision will be hurt by the bad greens worse than the golfer who lacks precision / accuracy on good greens.
The not-so-hot golfer on excellent greens makes or misses putts as a matter of luck more often than a more highly skilled golfer. On bad greens, the random changes in line and distance introduced by the condition will more often HURT the good golfer whereas the bad golfer will very often get a benefit that corrects his indifferent line and perhaps tames his too-fast distance control as well. A bad golfer has a wider range of variation left-right for line and is probably too aggressive with pace in general on good and bad greens alike. Moving to bad greens makes the bad golfer's delivery pace look more like the good golfer on good greens, as the bumps take steam out of the roll. If the bumps also knock the ball off line 1 inch left or right, and the bad golfer was already 1 inch off line left or right on 10-foot putts, the chances are sometimes as high as 50-50 that the bumps will help enough to overcome line inaccuracy in aim and stroke.
In contrast, for a good golfer with line precision in the 0.25 inch variability on 10-foot putts, the 1 inch left-right effect of bumps can cause serious problems all day on subtle breaking putts. And if the good golfer is naturally a die-in putter or close to it (as the really good putters are), then bumpy greens basically force the good golfer out of his normal pace into a more aggressive pace on putts. While the end of the roll at the hole may have about the same speed as the good golfer's putts on good greens, the initial stroke timing is out of the normal pattern.
This is pretty speculative on my part, but I think golfers who do not often shift to bad greens get a bit spoiled and a little too locked in on precision putting, so that when on rare occasion these golfers are faced with the challenges of bad greens, the transition is too abrupt and not handled well for pacing and expectations for precision line control.
Generally speaking, golfers who are used to a healthy mix of good and bad greens who have high levels of putting skill get a nice "honeymoon" effect when moving from bad to good greens, as the Europeans show every Ryder Cup. Their problems sort of "go away" or "clear up" when moving to good greens. In contrast, golfers who habitually play only pristine and true greens at a uniform fast speed, as do the US Tour players, have a more difficult adjustment to make and less experience making it as well. Their problems "crop up" with the move to the bad greens.
So, good golfers with a healthy experience on good and bad greens do better on bad greens and also do better on good greens than they usually can muster. Good golfers spoiled by good greens have a tough time transitioning to bad greens. Bad golfers on good greens can actually benefit not infrequently by moving from good to bad greens. Bad golfers on bad greens are just bad on good or bad greens.
Tiger is a good putter on excellent greens, but he is known to stay away from bumpy greens, like those at Pebble Beach and Hawaii. So he has some trouble adjusting sometimes.
In the same vein, California and northern golfers raised on true-rolling bent greens usually find southern Bermuda greens a challenge. They often talk about the difficulty "reading grain", but it is really a combination of grain, bumpiness, slowness, and line imprecision. Mark O'Meara rarely did well in the South, like Peter Jacobsen and Phil Mickelson (who has Bones MacKay -- raised in south Georgia -- read putts on Bermuda greens). But the South these days has a lot more bent greens (Augusta National switched to bent grass in 1981, O'Meara won there in 1995) and also dwarf Bermuda strains.
Cheers!
Geoff Mangum
Putting Coach and Theorist
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