You have questions and Dr. Golf has answers

Question: A few weeks ago, my buddies and I had a run-in with a marshal who works at a golf course that I won’t name. He came up to us in his cart on two occasions and told us that we were too far behind the group ahead of us and we had better move faster to catch up to them. With that second warning I exploded. We weren’t playing slow, and there was no one in sight behind us. We weren’t holding up the golf course., and I thought it was bogus that he was hassling us. Hector R., Las Cruces

Golf Doc: It’s a shame an overzealous marshal spoiled your golf enjoyment; it probably gave you a bad taste for what should have been a fun day of golf. Marshaling at a public golf course is not an easy job. There are many golfers who play our local golf courses that actually don’t have a sense of the pace of play that they should abide by.

A golf course depends on the marshals to move play along to make sure folks get through with their round in close to four hours for 18 holes. The marshals have to keep the carts out of the desert and protected areas, sometimes they dispense water. They help look for lost balls, they return mislaid golf clubs, towels and other items, they provide helpful information and they repair the golf course.

Most of the time marshals are volunteers and work long hot hours in return for a few rounds of golf.  I personally have had a run-in or two with course marshals and starters who were grossly discourteous and offensive, behaving with the customer savvy of a moron. But that’s one or two exceptions. A lot of the marshals have plenty of interesting stories about moron golfers. Meanwhile, my advice to you is to try to keep your cool and interact with your marshals in a manner as you would like to be treated.

Question: I’m wondering what I can do about figuring out reading greens. I can sometimes tell whether the break on a putt is left or right, but not always. It takes me a good nine holes before I can figure out the speed of the greens. Help. Doris B., Old Mesilla

Golf Doc:  You’re not alone with the speed and break dilemma. Let me address breaking putts first. As one plays golf for a few years he or she starts to get a “feel” for the way a particular putt will break. Experience should give you a sense of slope.

You may want to purchase a golf bubble level marker (like “Sure Putt”) for under $50 which is about the size of a silver dollar and works like a carpenter’s level. There are lots of theories about reading the slope of greens, but one certain way is to determine which direction water will run off the green.

For most amateur golfers who have played for a few years or more, they can generally figure out the tilt of the green as it predicts which way a putt is going to break, but holing a lot of putts depends on proper speed. The secret is matching the length of your putting stroke to the distance to the hole.

Naturally, you have to get the ball to the hole for it to go in, and ideally, you should give it enough pace to go past the hole a foot or two so that, if it doesn’t drop in the cup, at least it had a chance to go in. You might consider getting a green “Speedreader” (14 inches X 2 inches, under $50) to check the speed of the practice green before you play. Both the Sure Putt and the Speedreader are available on eBay.