One of the fascinating wrinkles of Open Championship week is the greens.
Portrush's greens on Friday were rolling the fastest they had all week—11 on the stimp meter, before the rain rolled through and slowed them down about a foot more, according to commentator Kevin Kisner. That's notably slower than an average PGA Tour event.
The greens are made of more than 90 percent fescue grass too, more than any other Open Championship venue. In all, this makes the greens not only slower, but just generally different.
It forces pros to make some subtle adjustments, which you may notice this week.
1. You won't get punished for hitting putts too hard
Pros generally aren't trying to make technique changes to their actual putting stroke—that stuff, in large part, stays the same. It's more of a mentality shift.
On faster greens, small misjudgments in speed lead to big mistakes. An underread is almost twice as costly as playing too much break, so players often favor taking a higher, softer line.
But on slower Open greens where the slopes are more subtle, the ball simply stops faster once it runs out of speed, which makes too-aggressive misjudgments less costly. A putt hit one foot too hard isn't going to roll out to four feet, but a putt hit slightly too soft isn't going to trickle closer to the hole.
"A lot of golfers [in the UK and Ireland] grew up hitting putts lower and more aggressively, and it's a big adjustment coming to the U.S.," Shane Lowry's putting coach, Stephen Sweeney, says.
2. Longer stroke, not harder hit
This may lead you to the conclusion that the goal is to simply hit putts harder, but that's only sort of true. Sweeney says that technical flaws often creep into players' putting strokes when they try to change their acceleration patterns, which can cause them to push or pull putts. The goal is to roll the ball with more speed. To do that, don't feel like you're hitting the ball harder. Feel like you're making a longer putting stroke that is still smooth.
That's been Keegan Bradley's breakthrough this week.
"I've always sort of had a tough time on slower greens. As soon as you start thinking about you have to hit the ball harder, it's just not good," he said. "I've gotten where I've been out here and I've left like 6-footers a foot short. Then you start thinking about I've got to hit this harder, and it doesn't work. So I've been trying to feel like almost like a longer stroke."
3. Wider stance for a more solid base
There is one very minor technical change that you'll see players make on these greens: They'll widen their stance a few inches. The reason is simple: It gives them a more solid base, which helps both in the wind and when they're making a longer stroke with their arms.
"It's hard to stand the way you normally stand because you've got to try and brace yourself for the wind that's gusting," Robert MacIntyre said.
"I've hit a lot of putts over the first three days on the greens just to get my speed dialed. A course like this where the greens are a little bit slower, you have to adjust to the speed," adds Christiaan Bezuidenhout. "I widen my stance a little bit...just to get a little bit more control, but technically there's nothing different I do."
ANDY BUCHANAN
4. Don't get locked into one exact speed
Finally, Brad Faxon made an interesting point on the telecast during the early rounds that fescue grass grows at slightly different speeds. Based on the microclimates that each green is in, it may mean that a certain green (or group of greens) may be subtly slower than those on different areas of the course.
In short, don't get locked into one speed. Just like from tee-to-green, links golf requires some improvisation and creativity. Even on the greens.
