Of course, you'll hear gripes about speed, but they pale in comparison to the complaints you'll get if greens play differently around the golf course on any given day.

Cultural practices help create uniform conditions by replicating maintenance and fertility processes. That's the science part of it. But managing microclimates, weather and the lay of the land often render some greens on a golf course different from the others, requiring a bit of art to keep them in line.

Some superintendents Stimp. Others rely on their own sleight of hand.

Kirtland Country Club's native greens (C.S. Alison, 1921) require a rigorous solid-tine ærification program on the Poa annua / bentgrass surface, says superintendent Chad Mark.

"I don't play a lot of golf, but I putt my greens every day," says Chad Mark, superintendent of the Kirtland Country Club near Cleveland. "For me, it's a better gauge of consistency because I don't have a lot of areas to get accurate Stimpmeter readings. It's to the point where I know where they are, and I can go from green to green and putt and know that I was getting a consistent speed."

Many of Kirtland's 1921 push-up greens, compliments of C.S. Alison, are "severely sloping" back to front, which makes Stimping a difficult proposition, especially when Mark keeps them running pretty slick to meet member expectations. On the few spots flat enough to get an accurate reading, they run about 11 feet, and he pushes 13 for tournaments.

Mark does more than just putt around his greens to see how they feel. The practice is a crucial routine that helps him make agronomic decisions depending on how they roll.

Counter Culture: Raise the Height of Cut by Rolling

He's not alone. Many superintendents can be found putting around on their greens to make sure they are consistent from day to day and from green to green.

Russ Myers, certified superintendent of Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Okla., putts every green every day. His 11 handicap is nothing to sneeze at, but you don't need to be able to break 80 to acquire useful data from putting your greens. He says his daily routine allows him to gauge more than speed; it tells him how the ball rolls on the undulating Perry Maxwell greens.

"The same height of cut every day doesn't play the same every day," Myers says. "I can get a feel for how smooth they're rolling when I putt. But most importantly, my putter is in my hands to tell me how little mechanical stress I can get away with."

Southern Hills Superintendent Russ Myers says he putts each green every day to see how little mechanical stress he can get away with.

The putting routine was imperative for Myers last summer, when the 35-year-old hosted his first Major tournament, the PGA Championship. Unfortunately for Myers, he had to walk a very fine line between mechanical stress and disease because of an unusually wet summer.

Southern Hills was so wet that the rough was too soft and fragile for even the lightest of commercial mowers, forcing Myers to buy 20 rotary push mowers from Home Depot so his crew (and a bunch of guys from the caddy shack) could get through the long stuff.

He reduced mowing on the greens to a few times a week — which wasn't too unpopular because few members braved the elements to play golf. Putting his greens every day allowed him to keep the mowers in the shop more often.

"They might seem fast, regardless of what the speed actually is, so that might be one less mow that I put on them," Myers says. "It's not about a number here. It's about feel, especially on greens that have a lot of undulations like ours do."

Other days, Myers says putting his greens tells him absolutely nothing. "It's not my Zen," he says. It's just one method to gauge how maintenance regimens are affecting ball roll and green-speed consistency. Stimping and dropping balls from a waist-high position might be others.

At Butler National Golf Club in Oak Brook, Ill., superintendent Michael Sauls putts about half of his greens every day to get information about ball roll and green speed, and his assistant superintendent Stimps every day as well. Putting helps him judge ball roll, and Stimping allows him to keep greens around 11 feet to meet member expectations.

"Monitoring is the key," Sauls says. "My assistant does the Stimpmeter reading for me, and I'm on the golf course with a putter in my hand every day. It's really just a matter of taking that information between myself being out there and the actual data from my assistant in order to make a decision about what you are going to do the next day."

The data Sauls compiles tells him whether to double-cut greens or roll on a given day, both of which he does about twice a week when he needs a little more speed to keep members happy.