If you have watched much, or any, golf on television in the last couple of years, you have probably seen the pros reach for their back pocket when they get to the green. What they are reaching for is a green book, the logical follow-on to the ubiquitous yardage books that pros and their caddies have consulted during their rounds for many years. Made possible by the development of laser mapping technology that has been used to read the putting surfaces of golf courses all over the world, these books depict the contours of the green with contour lines like a topographical map, and the slopes as colors, or with arrows indicating direction and relative speed, or sometimes both.
Until recently these handy references weren’t widely available, but now, thanks to companies like GolfLogix, the makers of a smartphone golf scoring app, every recreational golfer with a few bucks to spare can have green books for many of their favorite courses.
The GolfLogix folks have mapped the greens of 528 golf courses in California at last count, and as near as I can tell from a rough count of the list on their website (https://store.golflogix.com), they have produced books for about 85% of the courses in the Bay Area/Monterey Peninsula region, so the chances are good that they will have a book for whatever course you want to play.
I have always contended that the putting stroke is the least difficult skill to master in the game of golf; the problem is, determining the proper line to hit the ball on, and how hard to hit it, are the two most difficult skills to master in golf—which is why putting befuddles so many golfers.
Here is where, if I were a pitchman for this product, I would start the spiel about how the GolfLogix green book will transform your game, drop strokes off your score, and turn you into the golfing god you always knew that you could be—but I’m not, and I won’t. What I will say is that these books are a handy on-course guide, as well as a great teaching tool.
The GolfLogix green books include standard yardage book features—diagrams of each hole with yardages and features depicted—with two diagrams of each green: a heat map which depicts the area and severity of the slope of the green with colors ranging from white (dead flat) to red (steepest), and a slope map with arrows which show the direction, and by their length the severity, of the slope of the different areas of the green. A handy YouTube video on their website will get you up to speed on how to use all the features of the book.
Of course, reading the extent and severity of the slope is just the start. Grain, surface dampness, and the type of turf you’re rolling on are also significant factors—but knowing the slopes is a good start.
It may take you a few rounds to get the hang of correlating the slope markings on the heat maps and slope maps to the contours of the green that you see with the naked eye; but honestly, after you do you may find that you are reading the greens better than you were before you started using the book—and may just leave it in your pocket when you pull the putter from the bag. Whichever way you go—using the green book as a teaching tool to boost your green-reading skills, or as a regular on-course guide, your game is sure to benefit from the addition of this arrow to your golf-skills quiver.
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