TheGrint Green Maps – Know your green breaks

Right edge, inside left, or dead center of the green? One of the most common doubts that golfers from all over the world have. No worries, TheGrint Green Maps feature is here to help!

It doesn’t take more than a few rounds of golf for you to realize how important it is to know how the greens move the ball. Key to a successful round, making putts requires much more than “just” a good stroke. You need to know how the green breaks. 

Thinking about this, and wanting to add more value to our Golf App, which already includes much more than score tracking and GPS, we are excited to announce a brand new feature of TheGrint: Green Maps. 

Available for Pro+ members of TheGrint (click here to upgrade), this feature will help golfers from all levels, to elevate their performance, possibly lower their handicap, and (why not) beat their friends on that weekend match. 

TheGrint Green Maps, how does it work?

You will set up your round like you always do, start tracking your score and stats, and open the golf GPS to check out the hole location, hazards, and bunkers, to decide where you are going to hit. 

With Green Maps you will now be able to determine the best location to place your ball on your approach shots, or at least try it. If the Golf Course that you are playing has the greens mapped, you will see a sloped green icon right above the GPS icon on the top right side of your GPS screen. Or an animated colorful target over the green. 

Simply tap over that top icon to open the green map. 

You will then see an image of that green with colors and arrows all over the place. Those elements indicate how the terrain moves and will give you an idea of how the green slopes. 

The colors and numbers will illustrate the sharpness of the slope, where the gray color stands for no slope (0-1) up to the red color that shows a very steep break, with over 9% of inclination.

The arrows will point in the direction of the break, and the numbers around the green give you the depth of the surface, in feet.

So let’s take the 8th green at Pebble Beach as the first, not so easy, example:

From the middle of the fairway, you will already know that this is a tough green to putt on. With all that pink, red, and orange colors with arrows pointing towards the front of the green, you get the feeling that your ball might stop quickly, or even roll down to the bunker that protects its right front if you hit it too short. You know you have to hit it well and get the correct distance!

This green is about 20 yds long, and if the pin is in the middle of the green, you might have a somewhat straight putt into the hole. Downhill putts are usually tougher to make, so I would always pick a target shorter (but not too short 😜) of the hole location for this green. If the pin is in the back, shoot for the middle. If the pin is in the middle, place your ball in the front. If the pin is upfront, take your two putts and happily walk out to the next tee box saying thank you. 😅

Another example that we can use is the 16th green at the Ocean Course on Kiawah Island:

On this long par 5 that runs next to the ocean, your third shot will probably be over that waste area short left of the green that you want to avoid.

We can see from the green map that the terrain slopes mostly toward the beach, with some movement added to it. We can also assume that this green has two tiers looking at those red spots on its center. A lower one in front, and a higher tier on the back. 

So, in this case, if the pin is placed on the back of the green, the best option would be to shoot for the middle and that way have an uphill putt. The same goes if the pin is in the middle. If the pin is short I would definitely give it a go and play the yardage, maybe a couple of yards long knowing that the ball might spin back if it catches the slope. It is risky but might be worth it if you have a short iron in. 

However, be careful. Depending on where you place your ball, this green has some tricky breaks. For instance, if the pin is on the back, you can get confused with the brakes since half of the terrain drops towards the front, and the other half to the back. But thanks to the green map, you will be able to visualize exactly how it breaks.  

These are just examples of how a scratch golfer, or a pro caddy, would plan to play for this green. 

Green Maps are here to simplify and help you make those decisions, giving you an idea of where you should be to minimize your errors and strokes. Planning is a big part of the game, and that brand-new feature will help you improve your golfing.

How many green maps are available on TheGrint App?

TheGrint App has more than 10,000 golf courses with greens mapped already and that number increases every day. Don’t hesitate to request mapping if your course is not there, we will do our best and try to map it as soon as possible.

However, if you want to make sure the golf course that you usually play has the greens mapped, you can simply go to the Courses Feature on the App, search for the Course you are going to play, and tap on the GPS Flyover (top right location button), if the Course has Green Maps, you will see the Green Map button on the top left on the GPS screen.  If not, you won’t see it.

If you are a Free or Pro Member, you can try out up to 3 Green Maps, and we recommend you upgrade your membership (here) in order to elevate your game level and be able to compete against other golfers with the best tools available out there.

TheGrint App is much more than a Golf App. With us, you can track your scores and stats, have insights about your golf performance, play games with your friends, get GPS coordinates, and now you also have the tool to read greens plus other great new features (see more here) and make better decisions. 

If you don’t have TheGrint installed on your phone, head out to the App Store or Google Play Store to download TheGrint or upgrade your Membership here.