Fast, dry greens: how to putt and chip on Australian summer surfaces
Green speed is not a fixed property of a course. The same surface runs very differently in July and January, and at seven in the morning and two in the afternoon.
In brief
- Ten minutes of long putts before every round, nothing under fifteen metres.
- Keep the tempo and change only the length of the backswing.
- After coring, putt firmly through the break and expect some to wander.
- A fitting fixes the start line, not the length of a twelve-metre putt.
- Treat the second putt as its own shot, with the same routine.
Australian summer surfaces are firm, fast and unforgiving of a golfer who plays them like winter surfaces. The greens run quicker than they look, the approaches release rather than stop, and the chip that checked in August rolls out in January. Here is how to score on them.
What “fast” means, and how to find out
Green speed is measured with a stimpmeter. A well-kept public course in winter might run around 9; the same greens in high summer, cut and rolled, can push past 11. The difference on a five-metre putt is enormous.
Most superintendents know the day’s number and pro shops will tell you if you ask. Ask before a competition, not afterwards.
Putting: shorter stroke, same tempo
The mistake is to make the same stroke more softly, which decelerates the putter and pulls the ball. The correct adjustment is a shorter backswing with identical tempo and acceleration.
The ladder drill trains it fastest: tees at three, six and nine metres, putting to each in turn and back down. You are not trying to hole anything; you are calibrating stroke length against distance. Ten minutes of this before a round on unfamiliar greens is worth an hour of short putts.
Why the first three holes decide the round
On fast surfaces, the calibration you arrive with is either right or three shots expensive, and you find out by the third green. That is why ten minutes of long putts before the round matters more here than on soft, slow surfaces where a mistake in length costs a metre rather than four.
Use the first two greens as instruments as well. The first long putt of the day tells you more about speed than the practice green does, because practice greens are rarely cut and rolled exactly like the course.
Reading fast greens
Break increases sharply as speed rises, because the ball spends longer travelling slowly near the hole, which is when gravity works. A putt that broke 15 centimetres in winter can break twice that in January.
Read the last third of the putt first, then pick a spot a few centimetres ahead of the ball on the start line and roll it over that spot.
Chipping on firm ground
Firm turf and tight lies punish the wedge that arrives steeply. Two changes make chipping reliable on Australian summer surfaces.
- Use less loft. An 8-iron running shot is easier and more predictable than a lob wedge from a tight lie.
- Land it earlier. Pick a landing spot a third of the way to the hole and let the ground do the rest.
The lob wedge is for the shots that genuinely need it, which on firm summer greens are far fewer than most golfers believe.
Approach play: land it short
On firm greens, the ball checks less and releases more. An approach that pitched at the flag in winter will finish ten metres past in summer. Aim for the front third of the green and let it run, especially with mid and long irons.
The same applies to the fairways: your drive will run further, so the club off the tee may change on tight holes.
Why Australian greens change so much
Green speed is not a fixed property of a course, and treating it as one is how visitors three-putt. The same surface runs at very different speeds in July and in January, and at seven in the morning and at two in the afternoon.
In winter, greens are softer and slower and putts stay short. Through summer, on a firm, dry course, the same stroke runs a long way further, and on a windy afternoon a surface that was fair in the morning becomes something else entirely.
Then there is the fortnight after hollow-coring, when greens are sanded, bumpy and slow. Putts hop, take less break and run out over sand. The right answer is to hit firmly through the break rather than dying the ball at the hole, and to accept that some well-struck putts will wander through no fault of yours.
The second putt is a shot, not a formality
Most three-putts are a poor long putt followed by a missed short one, and the short one is missed because it is hit in irritation and without a routine.
Treat it as its own shot: mark it, read it, and use the same routine you used on the first tee. Ten extra seconds on the putt you should not have had converts the large majority of them.
And practise the short one with a consequence rather than in comfort. Ten in a row from a metre before you leave, starting again from zero on a miss, is mildly unpleasant and is exactly what makes practice transfer to the course.
The three drills before every round
- The ladder, ten minutes: three distances, up and back, distance control only.
- Landing spots, five minutes: chip to a towel placed a third of the way to the hole, with an 8-iron.
- Short circle, five minutes: six balls at a metre and a half, holed in sequence, restart on a miss.
What a fitting can and cannot fix
A putter fitting fixes the start line, and therefore putts inside about three metres. It does not fix the length of a twelve-metre putt, because nothing about the club decides that: only the stroke does.
Two checks cost nothing. If the toe of the putter sits in the air at address, the face aims left; if the heel is up, it aims right. And a putter that balances face-up on your finger suits a straight stroke, while a hanging toe suits an arc.
If you three-putt three times a round, the problem is length rather than line, and ten minutes of long putts before each round will do more than any purchase.
The habit that beats every drill
Ten minutes on the practice green before every round, using nothing shorter than fifteen metres, is worth more than any amount of work on the stroke itself. You are not trying to hole anything; you are calibrating the length of the motion to today’s surface.
Do it as a ladder: three balls each at six, nine and twelve metres to the same hole, out and back. Keep the tempo the same and change only the length of the backswing. A stroke whose length is controlled by hand speed collapses under pressure.
And check whether the practice green is cut and rolled like the course greens. At some clubs it is not, and ten minutes calibrating to the wrong speed is worse than not calibrating at all.
Where to work on it
- Your course’s practice green, which is the only surface running at the speed you will play, and free with a green fee.
- A teaching professional for one session on the running chip, which transfers immediately to firm ground.
- The pro shop, for the day’s stimp reading before a competition.
Nobody holes long putts on purpose. Leaving them close on purpose is a skill, and on Australian summer surfaces it is the cheapest three shots a round available.
Nothing here requires new equipment. It requires twenty minutes before the round instead of five.
Where this shows up on a course
Three courses from our directory where the round is decided on the green.
- New South Wales Golf Club: MacKenzie on the headland at the mouth of Botany Bay, and Apperly’s short hole over the ocean: wind from every direction, and a course reviewers warn is genuinely hard.
- Kooyonga Golf Club: A man saw the sandhills from a tram in 1922, founded the club and designed the course himself: among the best-conditioned in Australia, and still played second to its neighbour.
- Royal Melbourne Golf Club: MacKenzie routed it, Morcom built it, and the bunkering is what the world comes to see: the West Course, its acknowledged weak stretch, and how hard it is to get on.
We have not played these courses; each page says what it is based on.
