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 immensely change a player’s outcome in a single round. Any putting surface, natural or artificial, has important playability parameters that decide 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 ensure our synthetic turf greens putted similar to natural greens we forged 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 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 asked to putt 10 times will likely produce 10 different shots. It uses a simple device equipped with a free swinging putter to frequently 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 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 baseline for perfect 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. Generate product comparison data and advance product development intentionally to achieve a specific target.
How Turf Affects Aim
Aim is a significant skill you have to practice to get the shot accurate every time, but did you know that the status of the turf you’re on plays a role, too? Here are the few elements that affect how the ball reacts when you’ve taken your swing and the ball lands:
Turf Stiffness
The rigidity of the turf influences how the golf ball will move throughout the putt, if the fiber is not optimized for putting specifically it can give you inconsistent ball movement while rolling ”chatter.”
Friction Properties
Friction properties amidst the ball and the turf also largely 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 establish 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 imitate natural rolled greens and avoid grain inconsistencies.
To test aim and surface variation; we measured the relative variation of standardized putts on a number of different putting surfaces (bermuda, bent, nylon synthetic, polyethylene synthetic, and polypropylene synthetic)
The Southwest Greens Difference
Having a good value turf will give you the confidence to know the ball will react the way it is supposed to. The kind of turf will surely affect your shot. The precision of the turf lets the aim be as accurate as possible, 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 equal pro-quality putting greens. Shot after shot and putt after putt, Golden Bear has the closest perimeter and the finest aim of any putting surface. For pro-level consistency, it’s hands down the most outstanding synthetic green for putting aim on the market.