TOUR INTELLIGENCE
What the game’s best players are looking for when they see one for the first time BY MARK BLACKBURN How the Pros Scout a Green
the hole with your wedge game, is how you save a stroke here or there. If you play most of your golf on one or two courses, there’s no excuse not to have a good
FRESH TAKE When a pro
like Justin Rose ( above ) sees a new green,he’s
studying a lot more about it than just its contours.
“book” on each green. It’s especially important if you miss more greens than you hit (you probably do). Your scouting report should influence club selection and aim. For example, is it flat and plush short and left on a hole? If so, favour that area no matter where the pin is. If you follow an organised approach to “reading” green complexes, you’ll start shooting better scores – not because you hit fewer bad shots, but because the bad ones you’re hitting aren’t biting you quite as fiercely. – WITH MATTHEW RUDY MARK BLACKBURN is No 1 on Golf Digest’s 50 Best Teachers in America list. He has worked with several tour pros including US Open champ Justin Rose.
A PGA TOUR COURSE IS like a riddle: It has an opti- mal way for a given player to make his way around – and it ends with diagnosing the chal- lenges of each green complex. Meticulous tour caddies will keep a record of where pins have been dur- ing previous events, which gives prac- tice rounds a more focused approach. Given the hole location, where is the easiest place to get up and down? Pros look at everything from the amount of landing area and available run-out to grass thickness and green contours. At Augusta National, there are banks and bowls that can send a shot towards
the pin or reject it. Understanding the topography can give a player a much smarter target. When a course has tight run-off areas and short rough, the ball will behave a certain way based on the firmness and speed of the greens. If the rough is thick and deep, like at a US Open venue, you have to get in there and practice not only the technique you’ll use to get the ball out, but how the ball will release once it lands on the green. I stress to my players that good golf is a compounding of positive, sensi- ble micro-decisions. Just being a tiny bit better in where you leave your approach shots, and a touch closer to
32 GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA
JUNE 2025
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