The Anatomy of a Pitch MarkYour greens are talking to you. Are you listening?BY STANLEY J. ZONTEK

A Type I pitch mark - The Bruise. This type of ball mark is most common on firmgreens. It is hard to find but easy to repair.

A Type II pitch mark - The Dent. This type of ball mark is found on relatively firmgreens, after a "soft" landing golf shot. This type is easier to find and relatively easy torepair.

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Most USGA Green Section Record articlestell a story while informing readersabout new and oftentimes better ways to

maintain and manage golf course turf grass. Thisarticle is an exception. It asks more questionsthan it answers. Its purpose is to make the pointthat, perhaps, your putting greens are "talking toyou" via the pitch marks sadly left unrepaired bygolfers. In some small way, an unrepaired ballmark tells a story.

The USGA Green Section is bringing to thefield a device to measure putting green firmness.The use of this device will no doubt spark adebate and interest in measuring the firmness ofgreens and, to a lesser extent, bunker sands.History will determine if the USGA TruFirm ™device will be as misunderstood or as contro-versial as the Stimpmeter.@ Hopefully not.Nonetheless, to the turf manager who walks ongreens every day and to the golfer who playsshots to a green, putting green firmness is animportant issue.

This article will be an attempt to assist the golfcourse superintendent and the golf communityin determining a quick, simple, and inexpensiveway to determine the firmness of greens. Thistool already exists in the ball mark repair tool.

Many years ago I began to realize that grasstalks to you in many different ways. Clearly,there is a huge difference between yellow,chlorotic turf grass and lush, dark green grass.Classically, this is the difference between under-fertilized hungry grass and over-fertilized, lushturf Equally, when moss exists on a green, itcould be an indicator of mowing too close, toomuch thatch, too much irrigation, and maybetoo little nitrogen fertilizer. The list goes on.

Consider the common everyday ball mark.Although not as precise as the TruFirm orvarious moisture meters, a simple look at ballmarks can help determine how soft, firm, wet,or dry a green may be.

DIFFERENT TYPES OF BALL MARKSIn my opinion, there are basically four differenttypes of pitch marks. Obviously, there are varia-

tions between and within the different types. Itcould be argued that no two ball marks are thesame, however, for the purposes of this article,the discussion focuses on four basic categories ofpitch marks.• Type I - The Bruise. Type I pitch marksleave only a bruise on the surface of the green.This type of ball mark is difficult to locate, andwhen found it is a cinch to fix. Firm greens tendto have Type I ball marks whether they are sand-based greens or older greens modified by yearsof core aeration and sand topdressing. This typeof pitch mark also is common on the classic linksstyle of management for golf courses in England,Ireland, and Scotland (and elsewhere around theworld). Better golfers tend to want this type offirmness, but it could be the most difficult typeto achieve and maintain for long periods of time.Type I firmness is best for major championshippreparation and play.• Type II - The Dent. Pitch marks of thisstyle are your average ball mark. It is a dent orshallow depression left on the surface of thegreen. Type II ball marks are easy to locate ifyou go looking for them, as indeed you shouldlook for all ball marks. It's a bit more challengingto repair and, if improperly repaired, or worseyet, left unrepaired, can be a slow-to-healblemish on the putting green that takes weeksto heal.• Type III - The Pit. Pitch marks of thistype are deep impacts that leave an easy-to-seecrater on the green. The pit type must be morecarefully repaired. It takes some expertise andtime to push the grass back into the crater. Younever want to lift from the bottom; while thismay smooth the surface of the green, it leaves anarea of bare soil that is even slower to heal than aType II ball mark.

With this type of ball mark the turf managershould begin to ask questions. Are my greenstoo wet due to rainfall or irrigation? Do I needto better control my thatch? When golf shotsbegin to leave this type of ball mark, a red flagshould wave.• Type IV - The Skid Mark. This type ofpitch mark is the worst type of ball mark. Theterm for this type of pitch mark was picked upduring Green Section TAS visits with turf man-agers who were concerned with this type of ballmark on their greens. Instead of a golf ballieav-ing a bruise, dent, or pit, this ball mark can havea chunk of grass torn from it. It is the largest ball

mark. It is the one most difficult to repair and ittakes the longest time to recover.

As with the Type III pitch mark mentionedabove, when this ball mark is seen on a green,the green is definitely talking to you. Findingthe answer on what to do will be discussed next.

WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN?In simple terms, the type of ball mark left afterplay could be your best indicator of how thegreens are being managed or even how theyare designed. Are they too wet? Are they toothatchy? Are they being aerated and topdressedenough? Are the greens too contoured? Is turf-grass density being maintained with a goodfertilizer program or are they not fertilizedenough? Obviously, all these factors and morecan have a huge impact on turf density and thetype of ball mark that results and the speed atwhich it recovers.

Nonetheless, the simple ball mark can also bean important indicator for the turf manager toconsider these points:• Are your greens too wet? Are you in an irri-gation rut of regularly scheduled 10-15 minutesof irrigation each night to replace water used andlost during the day? Is it raining too much? Arethe greens pocketed with poor air circulationthat slows evaporation? Do trees need to beremoved or underbrush cleared? Do you need toinstall a fan? Do older greens need supplemental

A Type IIIpitch mark-The Pit. This is one ofthe easiest ball marks tofind, one of the slowestto heal due to its size,and the first ball marktype that begins tosuggest that a greenis soft.

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internal drainage? Do older greens need to berebuilt because they lack drainage, stay too wet,and have unreliable turf grass ?• Are you hand watering enough? Are yourelying on perimeter overhead irrigation systemsas the primary way to water greens? Remember,perimeter full-circle or part-circle irrigationheads, by the very nature of their placement,tend to over-water the centers of greens.• How is the thatch zone in the greens? Is it amat or is it intermixed with topdressing? Is it

• Are there other factors influencing the greens?How is your water quality? Is it time to flushyour greens? What is your wetting agent pro-gram (if any)? Are you using the proper wettingagent chemistry, or are you overusing wettingagents? Some wetting agent chemistries, by theirvery nature, tend to hold water in the thatchzone. While this makes them excellent materialsfor wetting the soil, their improper use cancomplicate the situation.• How are your greens designed? Sand-basedgreens having abrupt contour changes caninherently have bad water movement and waterretention characteristics. That is, a low swale canstay wet, regard~ess of how a green is irrigated,whereas a ridge or a mound only a few yardsaway stays dry. Sand-based greens do not necessarilydrain uniformly. The design and contour of agreen can affect the type of ball mark, inde-pendent of the best efforts of a golf coursesuperintendent .• How are your greens doing ... really? Whattype of complaints or compliments are youreceiving from golfers? Are the greens holding?Are they not holding? The type of complaintscan be telling. A better golfer tends to like afirmer green, whereas higher-handicappedgolfers tend to like greens that hold any shot hitinto them, with any club, at any trajectory, andwith any spin. There are many factors thatdetermine the type of ball mark on a green.

A Type IVpitch mark-The Skid Mark. This isperhaps the worst typeto see on a green. It isthe largest and mostdifficult to repair andthus the ball mark ofmost concern.

holding water? Can you squeeze water from thethatch zone? Organic matter acts like a sponge,holding excess water on the surface of the green,where it is needed the least. When was the lasttime the greens were dethatched?• Are the greens well aerated? Are they beingaerated enough? Are you using the best tine sizeor are you compromising putting green aerationdue to golfer, management, or golf shop pres-sures? Under-aerated greens tend to have morethatch and surface compaction, which restrictsdrainage. The roots of the grass can also beshallower, requiring more frequent irrigation.These are all bad situations if you're trying toachieve firm putting greens.• Are you topdressing the greens enough? Areyou using enough sand per green per year? Areyou compromising the amount of topdressingapplied to save time and money on both materialsand mower maintenance, and in order to keepyour mechanic from finding another job?

BE PROACTIVEUse the type of pitch mark you have on yourgreens to your advantage. If you formerly hadType I ball marks and the greens are now show-ing more Type II or, worse yet, Type Ills andIVs, show the pro, the green chairman, theowner; show anyone who will listen. "Look,the greens are getting too soft. We need to top-dress more, core more, install internal drainagein the greens, etc., etc., etc." I submit that golfersunderstand ball marks better than we mightexpect. After all, they walk on each green everyday they play. They lament non-repaired orpoorly repaired ball marks and the blemishes tothe putting surface that result.

They also know the difference between flrmgreens, where it is difficult to even find wherea ball hit the green, and severely ball-markedgreens that just look bad and play badly. Golfersknow when something is wrong. Use this toyour advantage.

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DISCLAIMERThis article is a huge oversimplification of avery complex topic. Obviously, the weather hasa huge impact on putting green softness andfirmness. The type of golf shot hit into a greenalso has a huge impact on the resulting ballmark. After all, there are tremendous differenceswith the spin of the ball, its trajectory to thegreen, and even the slope and contour of a greenwhen the ball impact occurs. Obviously, a greensloped towards the fairway and a green slopedaway from the incoming shot can have differenttypes of ball marks. How the greens are main-tained, the budget, and how golfers want their coursemaintained are all important factors that can affectthe type of ball mark that results from play.

IN CONCLUSIONThis article asks more questions than it answers.The simple ball mark can be an important main-tenance and management tool in determiningshort-term as well as long-term care of thegreens, along with the weather. Perhaps therecould be no more simple education tool than tounderstand what the greens are saying. Quiteliterally, they are talking to you, and it would bebest to listen.

STAN ZONTEK is directorif the Green Section'sMid-Atlantic Region.

A non-repaired ballmark. Note the wiltedgrass. Regardless of theball mark type, a non-repaired pitch mark isbad for the grass andbad etiquette. Alwaysrepair your ball marks,regardless of their type.

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