‘Trying to police not cheating, good luck with that’: Honor code, other issues come into play with ban on green-reading books

“Good putters will still be good putters and bad putters will still be bad putters.”

Plenty of challenges will confront caddies and players due to the ban of green-reading books on the PGA Tour beginning Thursday in the Sentry Tournament of Champions in Hawaii.

Extra cost for new books. Increased legwork for both caddie and player to try and square the absence of info. Adjusting to the loss of a trusted helping hand.

Add another – the honor code.

We’ll get to that in a minute.

First, the prohibition of the extremely detailed books is a Local Rule, allowed by the U.S. Golf Association and R&A, and was overwhelmingly approved by the PGA Tour players. The books, many players and caddies have said, took away from the skill of reading a green by sight and feel.

“I never had a greens book when I first started on Tour. Now I can tell you a 10-footer is 9 inches out on an 11 Stimpmeter when I’m walking up from the fairway,” Kevin Kisner said. “That’s the part people want to get rid of. Now I need to go and use my feet and my brain instead of letting someone else do my work.”

Kevin Kisner reads his yardage book on the 11th green during the first round the Charles Schwab Challenge golf tournament at Colonial Country Club. Mandatory Credit: Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports

So, sayonara green-reading books. And all that information that was the result of money and hard work – many caddies and players will tell you, it took long periods of time to make it a skill to use the green-reading books accurately – can’t be summoned once the first tee shot is hit in the first round.

Instead, caddies and players will be given a Tour-approved yardage book at every tournament that will lack a ton of information technology could provide. The familiar information from tee through the green will be in the books. As for the putting surfaces, however, the data relied on in the past will be severely tempered. The shape and depth of a green will be provided in the new books. Small lines and arrows identifying slopes measuring 4.5 percent or more will be there.

As for info on smaller, subtle slopes and other details? Won’t be in there.

“Very detailed information is in those books,” said longtime caddie Scott Sajtinac, current looper for Brandt Snedeker. “And golf at the highest level, there’s such a fine line between making the playoffs and missing your card.

“More information is better, period.”

Now caddies and players will have to gather information without the use of technology, such as levels and lasers. Instead, caddies and players will be rolling golf balls, taking more putts during practice rounds, watching others putt, and trying to get a feel of the green with their eyes and feet.

“I lived a player’s life – I could leave on Tuesday mornings because we have so much information in our books,” veteran caddie Paul Tesori said. “Now with the new rules, I told my wife I’m going to be gone three weeks more (this) year because we need to be at the course on Mondays. I will have a lot more work around to greens to do. A lot more on-course time.”

That’s because any information gathered in the past with the use of technology cannot be transferred into the new books. Repeat: No data can be copied over to the new books.

So, back to the honor code. And this is where it could get dicey.

“I think it will be hard to police, the transfer of stuff from old books,” Sajtinac said. “They are saying golf is a game of integrity and it’s up to you to make the call on what you’re allowed to transfer. I think at some point, guys will transfer notes they shouldn’t. It’s going to happen. I hope it’s rare.”

Veteran caddie Shannon Wallis was a bit more direct: “People have old books, and trying to police not cheating, good luck with that.”

Kisner, another who is as direct as a punch in the face, said he doesn’t expect many guys to “blatantly cheat knowing the rules.”

“But obviously, if I’m standing on a green and the other player continues to look at his book over a putt, we might have to have a conversation,” Kisner said.

And if someone is accused of breaking the rules? PGA Tour officials will have conversations and penalties could ensue.

There will be other conversations, too. Tesori, who has spent 23 years carrying the bag for, among a few others, World Golf Hall of Fame member Vijay Singh and now Webb Simpson, said caddies and players will be challenged when it comes to looking at the old books. In the case of Tesori, that’s hundreds of them.

Green books
Webb Simpson and his caddie Paul Tesori the putt on the 13th hole during the third round of The Northern Trust at Ridgewood Country Club. (Photo: Dennis Schneidler-USA TODAY Sports)

They will need to ask one question: Where did all the information come from?

“I have notes in my book, like the green is faster from this angle, but I don’t know for sure where I got that,” said Tesori, who’s used the books religiously for the last seven years. “Technically, you need to be 100 percent sure you got it from seeing it or with your feet. Before the yardage books came out, I used to come out here and use something called the BreakMaster, of all things. It’s an electronic leveler. It’s about the size of coffee cup lid. I did all of Augusta’s greens before they banned us from using them. That gave me a lot of information and now I can’t use the information.

“Here’s the hard part? Just using me and Webb as an example. What is Paul Tesori’s line of doubt versus Webb Simpson’s? If I feel like there is a 10 percent chance I got my information in my book from a greens book, I’m not going to use the information. But, if Webb’s like, I feel like you didn’t, so I’m going to use it. What will the caddie do? He’s the boss.”

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Despite the ban, green-reading books will not disappear.

“I can still use them on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays. I can even use them in my hotel room on Thursday,” Tesori said. “I can look where the pin is and try and memorize as much as I can, because we can’t transfer the info and we can’t use the books on the golf course during tournaments.

“It will take some time getting used to.”

That you can book.

“Webb got the belly putter taken away from him when they banned them. That affected a few guys. They have taken away using shafts over 46 inches. That will affect a few players. This will affect everyone,” Tesori said.

To what extent?

“I think at the end of the day it will come out as a wash,” Sajtinac said. “Good putters will still be good putters and bad putters will still be bad putters.”

We’ll see.

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End of an era: Beginning Thursday, PGA Tour pros will no longer be able to rely on green-reading books

“I don’t think the game was meant to be broken down that scientifically.”

Rest in peace, green-reading books.

At least, that is for tournament use on the PGA Tour. These pocket-sized books featuring highly detailed illustrations and in use on the Tour since 2008, join the likes of George Orwell’s 1984, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, and JD Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye among famous banned books.

Unlike those once-controversial literary classics, the green-reading books helped players to detect the directions that putts break and the percentage of slope in different sections of greens. The ban became official on January 1 and goes into effect Thursday at this week’s Sentry Tournament of Champions.

Tour veteran Kevin Streelman, who used the books religiously for the past several years, was a member of the Tour’s 16-member Player Advisory Council that voted unanimously in May that the books had to go. He explained why the move was initiated by the players, noting he didn’t like the optics on TV of seeing the noses of players buried in the books as they determined the break of a putt.

“I think green reading is a skill of the game,” he said. “It’s some pretty cool technology that probably jumped up on us quickly and everyone thought it was time to rein it in.”

“It got out of control for a while,” said Davis Love III. “At the 2016 Ryder Cup, you had people sneaking around with machines and shooting the pins and putting them on 8×12 paper. It’s just a little too much technology. Yes, there’s technology involved in just about everything: rangefinders, GPS, scorekeeping, and all that kind of stuff. But we need to be careful that it doesn’t become a computer game out here.”

The pushback began in 2018 when the USGA limited the size of the books to 4½ x 7 inches, to the scale that 3/8-inch on the book would correspond to five yards on the green. That legislation was deemed by several top players to be too soft. The purpose behind restricting the green-reading books is to ensure that players and caddies use only their eyes and feel to help them read the line of play on the putting green. Critics say the books offered too much assistance. Or as former World No. 1 Luke Donald put it, “We shouldn’t be given a book with all the answers.”

“It’s not that it’s an advantage really, it’s just taking away a skill that takes time and practice to be mastered,” said Rory McIlroy, president of the PAC, at the U.S. Open in June. “I think reading greens is a real skill that some people are better at than others, and it just nullifies that advantage that people have.

“Honestly, I think it’s made everyone lazier. People don’t put in the time to prepare the way they used to.”

Rory McIlroy looks over his yardage book on the fifth green during the second round of the Tour Championship golf tournament at East Lake Golf Club. Mandatory Credit: Butch Dill-USA TODAY Sports

But they will now, and so will their caddies. Scott Sajtinac, who currently works with Brandt Snedeker, estimated he’ll be spending anywhere from 5 to 10 more hours per week on the greens rolling balls to gather as much detail on the putting surfaces without using electronic equipment (no levels or measuring devices are allowed). Expect to see a rise in players and caddies using the AimPoint method of green-reading.

In a rare instance, the USGA and R&A followed the lead of the players and approved a Local Rule (MLR G-11) in December that enables a committee to limit players to using only the yardage book that it has approved for use in the competition.

The local rule gives the Tour the ability to establish an officially approved yardage book at each tournament so that the diagrams of putting greens show only minimal detail (such as significant slopes, tiers, or false edges that indicate sections of greens). In addition, the local rule limits the handwritten notes that players and caddies are allowed to add to the approved yardage book.

“Am I happy it is going away? Yes,” said Matt Kuchar. “I think it is good for the game for them to go away. I don’t think the game was meant to be broken down that scientifically.”

Justin Rose, who tends to be more the scientist than the artist, noted that he has won an equal number of tournaments with the green-reading book as he has without it and doesn’t expect that his inability to have the information handy will make a big difference.

“I don’t rely on it. I used it as a quick guide,” he said, adding “there are ways for me to still use it and the concepts and strategies without it. I will still use it in my preparation in my hotel room.”

Jordan Spieth, who is known as one of the deadliest putters on Tour, had become a devout user of the books in recent years yet he, too, was among the PAC members who voted for the ban. Speaking ahead of the Sentry Tournament of Champions, he said that he wasn’t too concerned about losing access to what had become a security blanket of sorts on the greens, noting that Augusta National Golf Club didn’t allow them and he had a pretty good track record there, including a green jacket from 2015.

Jordan Spieth looks over his yardage book on the first green during the final round of the U.S. Open golf tournament at Torrey Pines Golf Course. Mandatory Credit: Michael Madrid-USA TODAY Sports

“I seem to find myself in a really good space on the greens there, really feeling putts,” he said. “I’m one that’s used (green books) because why wouldn’t you use ’em? More for a reference point and a lot of times more for speed than trying to dial in an AimPoint situation or a line, so I’m perfectly fine with the changes.

“I think that to me, putting you have to read it right, you have to put a stroke on it and you have to hit it with the right speed. I thought with the green reading materials it took one of those three skills away from it and I think that it’s a skill that I would say is an advantage of mine and so I’m excited to see what it can mean as far as strokes gained compared to the field on the greens.”

Talor Gooch, who won the RSM Classic, the last event on the Tour where the books were allowed, used a green-reading book en route to his first victory but said he was glad to see them be gone.

“It sways me away from my instincts and my skill set,” he said. “It will be nice to not have almost another voice in my head and I think it will free me up.”

Steve DiMeglio contributed reporting to this story.

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