Green-Reading Books and USGA: Let Them Eat Cake

Living in a golf world where technology is changing the game every day, are green-reading apps like Strackaline – the modern yardage book – actually hurting anybody?

Five years ago in the media center at a golf tournament, Dennis Paulson said to me something like, “You’ve got to see this…. it’s going to be announced next year, and it will change the way we read greens.” He showed me his phone, which had a graphic of a green on it, and he added some descriptive statement like it was unbelievable. Honestly, I didn’t understand where he was going with it except that it was a phone app and he called it Strackaline.

I’ve known Paulson since he won the long drive contest at the World Series of Golf and knew he wouldn’t make up something that was causing him such elation. So, I did some research over the next few weeks, and sure enough, by the following January, Strackaline debuted at the PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando the following winter.

Paulson’s phone had a graphic of a green surface. He said it was the app for the TPC Sawgrass. That was the prototype. It has certainly turned into something more advanced since that time.

Today Strackaline and another company called GolfLogix have apps that show the topography of the green, or as they call it, fall lines. What that means is the app shows where a ball will break, depending on the speed it is hit and the direction it is going. It’s fairly complex information. But you can buy it and print it out and put it in your pocket and have it at your fingertips on the golf course. It’s on you to hit the putt the right speed and direction, and just ask any golfer, that’s plenty hard.

You can get the maps for different golf courses at some golf shops that subscribe to the service, or you can buy the app for a particular course before you play it. However, the number of courses that are mapped is in the hundreds and there are about 15,000 golf courses in the U.S.. So, it’s not the be all, at least not yet.

The green reading maps are helpful when looking at a green you’ve never seen. They can also help any golfer better understand putting surfaces and drainage directions. But what has the USGA and several pros in an uproar is what appears to be the reliance of some pros on them, based on the amount of time taken before golfers hit their next putt.

Apps helping golfers from TOUR pros to weekend hackers

More than 50 PGA Tour pros use the Strackaline system, according to information on their app, including Justin Rose, Zach Johnson, Bubba Watson, Rickie Fowler, Jimmy Walker, Matt Kuchar, Jon Rahm, Bill Haas and others. (To see the list, download the app.) Strackaline even has an “elite” service which provides changes in the predicted putting lines with each round.

There’s more, too. Their patented, green-reading technology is plugged into the PGA Tour’s Shotlink system.

The first time you see one of these maps, your eyes want to glaze over and your brain says no thank you. In other words, there is a learning curve to using them. Once you get the hang of it, it can certainly help in reading greens. If you are a good reader of greens, it can confirm what you think you are seeing. You still have to make the putt.

From the standpoint of the average golfer, if you are a horrible putter or a horrible reader of greens, maybe having this technology can cut down on four and five putts and turn them into three putts, maybe even two putts. Maybe you can learn to be a better putter. Maybe your speed of play will improve.

If you are an average putter, it may be able to help you turn those three-putt greens into a few two-putt greens.

These maps aren’t just for professionals, as Jim Stracka told Golf Digest in May. High-handicap amateurs have told him using the maps was life-changing for their games. In addition, at least 200 college teams use the maps to assist them in playing courses. Apparently 10,000 regular Joe and Jane Golfers use their app also.

People have adopted this new technology to improve their golf games. While you can’t take the phone with you in competition, you can print out the maps and take them with you as a course guide, similar to the course guides all players have used for decades. This is just more detailed. Of course, that’s why the USGA is now reviewing it.

When the USGA announced that they were “looking into it,” it was death star speak for we can’t wait to crush this into oblivion

The USGA’s statement:

“We are concerned about the rapid development of increasingly detailed materials that players are using to help with reading greens during a round. We are reviewing the use of these materials to assess whether any actions need to be taken to protect this important part of the game. We expect to address this matter further in the coming months.”

When the USGA announced that they were “looking into it,” it was death star speak for we can’t wait to crush this into oblivion. Anything that helps people play golf faster or improves their games or shaves strokes is a big, shiny object that the USGA just cannot leave alone, although they have no problem with 400-yard drives because according to them, technology hasn’t changed distance that much. Right.

As we all know, golf is way too easy and getting easier every day, so anything to help you shoot a lower score has to be banned immediately, if not sooner. Sarcasm aside, I’ve never really understood why the USGA allowed all the equipment changes to allow 400-yard drives which obsolete many golf courses, or why they wanted they wanted to take away an anchored putter after allowing it for a quarter of a century. Somebody’s logic chip has a short in it is all I can figure. I still believe the putting change was because Ernie Els won the British Open using a long putter a month after Webb Simpson won the U.S. Open using a long putter. The R&A and USGA couldn’t take it and they had to figure out a way to keep “their tournaments” from being won with non-traditional clubs, no matter what the golfing public said. It was a real let-them-eat-cake golf moment.

Stracka told Golf Digest in May that he hopes the USGA does not ban their app because he knows high-handicap amateurs who tell him using the maps was life-changing for their games.

Pros have mixed opinions on the value – and legitimacy – of “the book”

After the USGA announced in early May, a couple of PGA Tour players were asked about it, and gave their opinions.

Adam Scott is against the use of the maps, period.

“I think probably we should ban the book,” he said at last spring’s Wells Fargo tournament. “If they feel that reading the green needs to be more of an art and it’s an advantage to a player who’s a creative, great green reader, then I wouldn’t have a problem with that.”

Scott said one person might be a better reader of greens than another, and reading greens is a part of the skill of the game. Giving a map of the course or of greens, he thinks, creates a more level playing field and, on the greens, could discount the good green reader’s ability.

At the same event, Dustin Johnson said he uses them more on a course that he hasn’t played rather than one he knows.

“I don’t use them to read the greens, but coming into the greens on the second shot because I don’t know the greens, so I don’t know what the ball’s doing,” he explained.

Two months before the USGA comment, Ian Poulter came out against the latest yardage and green maps in a tweet, saying players were spending too much time looking at them on the greens. (March 1, 2017) It was a tweet between some grilling shots of Poulter and his barbeque egg if you’re trying to find it.

After the initial brouhaha in May, the whole idea just seemed to fade into the vast history of USGA press releases until last week when Golf Digest ran a story by Guy Yocum on what’s behind the proliferation of course maps on recent years. As Yocum pointed out, yardage guides have been around since former PGA Tour Commissioner Deane Beman started making them for his own use as a playing professional in the 1950s.

They progressed into the 1970s, a time when Johnny Miller has said he would ask his caddie for yardages to the half yard. Today, he’s part owner of Zero Friction which makes golf gloves with GPS devices on them.

More from Pro Golf Now

StrackaLine got into the yardage business when it acquired the yardage books of former caddie George Lucas (Gorjus George), who debuted his first pamphlet called The Book in 1976 at the Danny Thomas Memphis Classic, now the FedEx St. Jude. George also caddied for Arnold Palmer in the 1980s. George was eventually able to retire from the caddie life and just focus on his yardage book business. In 2008, he sold out to Strackaline. Since then, Strackaline has made improvements. Their green-reading technology is just the latest.

Now, while Strackaline provides course information to professionals, that’s not all they do. That would be a very small vision for a business model. They also sell the technology to regular ordinary golfers through their app.

They are not alone. GolfLogix maps greens and sells them to courses.

Mark Long, a caddie for Fred Funk, has been in the business of selling yardage books since the early 2000s. He lasers courses and uses GPS to provide accurate distances. As a caddie, he knows what other caddies need. Like Strackaline, they feature great detail.

Maybe you are like Adam Scott, a purist who has struggled from time to time with his putting, and still wants to eliminate the new books. Or maybe you’re like many golfers who see these guides as a way to reduce the number of three-putt greens in their rounds.

Next: Power Rankings: Shriners Hospitals for Children Open

I’m on the side of the average Joe and Jane Golfer who need a few tips to help them get better at golf and reduce their scores because no matter what anybody tries to tell you, a lower score and fewer putts in golf lead to more golf happiness.

Home/Equipment