April 12, 2021

Your guide to understanding how aim works on artificial turf.


Putting Baseline

Putting is an essential 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 akin to natural greens we generated 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 impartially measure the effect of different surfaces on the golf ball. The procedure is automated in such a way that it remove 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 repeatedly 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 produces 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 manner can be used to:

1. Establish a base level for perfect playability of putting greens using natural grass greens at the highest level;

2. Benchmark playability of a specific 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 fundamental skill you have to perfect to get the shot dead on every time, but did you know that the quality 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 tension of the turf influences how the golf ball will move throughout the putt, if the fiber is not optimized for putting specifically it can create unpredictable ball movement while rolling ”chatter.”

Friction Properties

Friction properties amid the ball and the turf also greatly influence how the ball slides and rolls. If putting surface friction is not optimized it will not properly 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 good quality turf will give you the understanding to know the ball will react 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 possible, 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 go toe-to-toe with pro-quality putting greens. Shot after shot and putt after putt, Golden Bear has the tightest perimeter and the finest aim of any putting surface. For pro-level consistency, it’s simply the most outstanding synthetic green for putting aim on the market.


Get the most realistic artificial grass for your backyard to improve your short game.

 

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