Your guide to understanding how aim works on artificial turf.
Putting Baseline
Putting is an important stroke in the game of golf, as it can considerably change a player’s outcome in a single round. Any putting surface, natural or artificial, has important playability parameters that rule 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 guarantee our synthetic turf greens putted akin to natural greens we forged standardized testing methods to evaluate both natural and synthetic putting greens. These testing methods help bring you the country club golf course experience at your own backyard putting green.
The Putting Green Assessment Tool is designed to objectively measure the effect of diverse surfaces on the golf ball. The method is automated in such a way that it ignores the human interference and variability. For instance, a human requested to putt 10 times will likely create 10 different shots. It uses a simple device equipped with a free swinging putter to regularly reproduce identical ball strokes for the putting motion, and two launching mechanisms that administer backspin to the ball from ground level and from 2ft from the ground. The tool creates data related to ball strike, spin, bounce, and aim. Other tests used in the protocol are common to most in the golf industry: speed and firmness(Stimpmeter and TruFirm).
This practice can be used to:
1. Establish a baseline for ideal playability of putting greens using natural grass greens at the highest level;
2. Benchmark playability of a notable 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 fundamental skill you have to perfect to get the shot accurate every time, but did you know that the condition of the turf you’re on plays a role, too? Here are the few things that influence how the ball reacts when you’ve taken your swing and the ball comes to rest on the turf:
Turf Stiffness
The rigidity of the turf affects how the golf ball will move throughout the putt, if the fiber is not optimized for putting specifically it can give you unpredictable ball movement while rolling ”chatter.”
Friction Properties
Friction properties amid 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. Properly infilled putting greens will simulate 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 miscellaneous putting surfaces (bermuda, bent, nylon synthetic, polyethylene synthetic, and polypropylene synthetic)
The Southwest Greens Difference
Having a high quality turf will give you the confidence to know the ball will behave the way it is supposed to. The type of turf will absolutely affect your shot. The accuracy of the turf lets the aim be as accurate as it can be, and you can now have this at your home with our fan-favorite Golden Bear Turf.
Golden Bear Turf’s aim is scientifically developed and tested to match pro-quality putting greens. Shot after shot and putt after putt, Golden Bear has the snugest perimeter and the most accurate aim of any putting surface. For pro-level consistency, it’s simply the perfect synthetic green for putting aim on the market.