Your guide to understanding how aim works on artificial turf.
Putting Baseline
Putting is a critical stroke in the golf, as it can notably 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 devised standardized testing methods to evaluate 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 designed to objectively measure the effect of diverse surfaces on the golf ball. The procedure is automated in such a way that it gets rid of the human interference and variability. For example, a golfer 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 tool creates data related to ball strike, spin, bounce, and aim. Other tests used in the protocol are well-known to most in the golf industry: speed and firmness(Stimpmeter and TruFirm).
This method can be used to:
1. Set up a guideline for perfect 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. Create 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 practice to get the shot dead on every time, but did you know that the status of the turf you’re on factors in 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 tension of the turf alters how the golf ball will move throughout the putt, if the fiber is not optimized for putting specifically it can produce inconsistent ball movement while rolling ”chatter.”
Friction Properties
Friction properties amidst the ball and the turf also hugely affect how the ball slides and rolls. If putting surface friction is not optimized it will not accurately transition the club face and spin will create a bouncing effect instead of a smooth roll.
Pile Lay
A natural green is rolled to ensure the fibers are not standing upright. Properly 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 number of miscellaneous putting surfaces (bermuda, bent, nylon synthetic, polyethylene synthetic, and polypropylene synthetic)
The Southwest Greens Difference
Having a high quality turf will provide you the understanding to know the ball will react the way it needs to. The variety of turf will absolutely affect your shot. The precision of the turf lets the aim be as accurate as it can be, 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 match pro-quality putting greens. Shot after shot and putt after putt, Golden Bear has the tightest perimeter and the most accurate aim of any putting surface. For pro-level consistency, it’s hands down the top synthetic green for putting aim on the market.