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 A tale of two greens
Posted: Monday September 20, 1999 04:15 PM
These are the best of times, these are the worst of times for golfers. In the Midwest and Northeast, the first brisk winds of autumn are blowing. Leaves are turning colors and starting to drop. Fall, arguably the best season, is here. It is a terrific time to play the game. Except for one thing. Most courses aerate their greens and fairways shortly after Labor Day weekend. It's a necessary evil. Holes are punched in the greens, leaving them like waffles, and a top-dressing of sand doesn't make them any more playable. For at least two weeks after greens have been aerated, they're not worth playing if you're seriously trying to shoot a score. The greens are bumpy, obviously, and much slower. A strange phenomenon that I've noticed, even more pronounced than putting on aerated greens, is chipping. I don't know whether it's a combination of spin on the ball, the sharp edges of the aerated holes, the large granular sand used for top-dressing, or all of the above, but when you chip to a recently aerated green, your ball often caroms off at a bizarre angle on the first bounce. Putting over a waffle is bad enough, but a chip that careens away like a NASCAR wreck can end up miles from the cup and cost you two more shots. I was reminded of this the other day, playing on my home course in the Pittsburgh area. It has 27 holes, nine of which were aerated two weeks ago and are still mushy and slow, another nine that were just aerated the day before I played, and nine that haven't yet been aerated but are probably getting the treatment even as you read this. Chipping to the practice green, which had been aerated, proved to be a pointless circus. No shots landed and rolled straight. A majority took crazy and unexpected bounces in all directions. -- which is a great swing thought to have when you're on the course trying to hit a chip shot close. On the just-aerated nine, I invoked what I call the Two-Putt Rule. It means, the greens are so bad, they are unfair and unusable. You don't make your first try, your second one is good -- even if it's from 12 feet. It is simple practicality, unless you want to spend your afternoon grinding over four-footers through cratered minefields. I don't see the point. Another problem with aerated greens is the sand top-dressing. It forces you to act like an anal-retentive tour pro and clean your golf ball before each stroke. Large grains of sand are, essentially, miniature pebbles, and are big enough to screw up a putt if they get between the putter face and the ball. They can cause the ball to literally go sideways. You can miss a putt from five inches (assuming you haven't already invoked the Two-Putt Rule) if you don't bother to wipe the ball clean first. It is bad form to declare a putt a gimme after you already missed it, so I recommend being careful and being generous with your partner's gimmes. You may need a favor. I'm not an agronomist so perhaps it's not practical,l but I'd love for aerating to be done at some time other than now. For golfers, this is prime time. Unfortunately, it will be October before our greens recover and by then, we face a new hazard -- balls lost among the leaves. You may have to invoke the Leaf Rule. But that's another story. Mac attackA few words from Gary McCord, offbeat CBS commentator, on his double life as an announcer and a Senior tour player: "This has been fun. I think if I can play 14 or 15 [events], that's about as many as I can play and concentrate in. That's about the right number, with [broadcasting] 20 events for CBS. It's fun for me to juggle that stuff because my attention span is zero. I could play 30 events and probably concentrate well in 15 of them. It's like the Lietzke Rule: You play just enough to want to play again but you play hardly at all. I wish I could play more. Man, I wish I could play more. I just signed a three-year deal but CBS just got bought out. I might be able to renegotiate." On getting his first senior win this year, the Toshiba Senior Classic in Newport Beach, Calif.: "If I won, I'm pretty sure every guy who runs a 7-Eleven in the back country and drives a big rig will get his clubs and assume that if I can do it, he can do it. That's the all-American dream. Never doubt anybody's ability to fulfill their dream." Sports Illustrated senior writer Gary Van Sickle is a regular contributor to the magazine's Golf Plus edition.
The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.
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