This morning was not a stellar round, an embarrassing 47. I was not focused one shot at a time, played several shots “consciously” (steering), and by the time I realized, I was on the 18th hole. But what I want to talk about is something I don’t remember seeing happen before at Torrey Pines. A few times this morning, my friend and I had the same line, his putt being farther away. He putted, and as the ball neared the hole and slowed down, it broke left (14th hole). I then aimed for right edge, and as my ball slowed down, it turned right, blowing my par. If you’ve ever seen the greens keepers changing hole locations, they basically use a circular tool that makes a perfect hole and pull the dirt and grass up and away. They press the cup back in, and put the dirt and sod in the old location. For whatever reason, today was maybe a new person or they had a late night, the grass around the cup was slightly raised as shown below from the tool and pulling the dirt and grass out of the new location.

The solution is giving putts more speed when playing in the morning. Cost me 3 strokes today, which was not the reason for my poor play, but something to keep in mind and watch out for in the future: give your putts a little more speed if it’s a new cup location.