Pin Location

[bofromseattle]

I could have sworn that every golf course used the front, middle, back pin location for the benefit of the golfer. However, there is a course near me that uses just a 1, 2, 3 pin location. About half of the holes it works out normal where it is front, middle, back. But the rest of the holes are left, middle, right. It's super frustrating because you can't lock in distances (unless you have a range finder which I don't). The course will let you know that the pins are playing #3, but a hole will tell you it's playing right side. If I'm attacking the pin, is it 110? 118? 129? Anybody else have courses near them that do pin locations weird?

[klebs01]

54 minutes ago, bofromseattle said:

I could have sworn that every golf course used the front, middle, back pin location for the benefit of the golfer. However, there is a course near me that uses just a 1, 2, 3 pin location. About half of the holes it works out normal where it is front, middle, back. But the rest of the holes are left, middle, right. It's super frustrating because you can't lock in distances (unless you have a range finder which I don't). The course will let you know that the pins are playing #3, but a hole will tell you it's playing right side. If I'm attacking the pin, is it 110? 118? 129? Anybody else have courses near them that do pin locations weird?

is there a pin sheet that goes along with the numbers? That should help. I prefer having the numbers for the various sections of the green that the pins will be in. 

[bofromseattle]

3 minutes ago, klebs01 said:

is there a pin sheet that goes along with the numbers? That should help. I prefer having the numbers for the various sections of the green that the pins will be in. 

No, at the top of the scorecard it shows the shape of the green and divides into three sections. Some are front to back some are left to right. They'll be in different order so not everything is in the same third. (2 | 1 | 3), (3 | 1 | 2) etc.

[MelloYello]

At my club we have 6 different pin locations, so on a given day it might be "pin location #5" for instance. 

 

Pin sheets are available in the golf shop and every cart has the pin locations shown on the windscreen. 

 

Sounds like maybe your club needs to clarify things a bit? 

Edited August 19, 2020 by MelloYello

[klebs01]

2 minutes ago, bofromseattle said:

No, at the top of the scorecard it shows the shape of the green and divides into three sections. Some are front to back some are left to right. They'll be in different order so not everything is in the same third. (2 | 1 | 3), (3 | 1 | 2) etc.

Yeah. Close enough to a pin sheet. I wasn’t expecting exact location with paces from front and side. I much prefer the system you describe. Provides more information. Though I do always use a laser.  

Edited August 19, 2020 by klebs01

[sheppy335]

ours moved to Yellow and White, Yellow is front half, white is back half. It is not easy this way, sometimes i think white is middle and leave myself in bad spot. 

[Pepperturbo]

Even without GPS on carts most golf courses use quadrant pin placement process on greens.  Each green is divided into 6 sections or quadrants, allowing multiple pin placements in each quadrant.  The pin rotates each day to a new quadrant starting Sunday at 1 thru 6 on Saturday, and starts over on Sunday,

 

Other older courses may use the Red/White/Blue - green divided into 3 quadrants, allowing multiple pin positions in each, and revolve color of front to middle, middle to back and back to front.  Then there are those odd courses where there's no rhyme to their reason for pin placement or color of pin.  It's as though the person placing pins at 5am doesn't have a clue about what he's doing or no superintendent instruction, or just wasn't awake when sticking pins.

 

PS Edit; Another member brought my use of quadrant to my attention.  The term "quadrant" was used at a number of private clubs when discussing CART GPS and greens.  Yep, I know, wasn't my label for dividing greens into 6. ?

Edited August 19, 2020 by Pepperturbo

[phil75070]

My course rotates red, white and blue and always in order. Red is always followed by white, white by blue and blue by red. For example, if on hole 1 it is white, hole 2 is blue and hole 3 is red. 4 then starts the three hole sequence over again starting with white. What is also unique is the course is set up with 6 par 3s, 6 par 4s and 6 par 5s and you never play the same par back-to-back. So for each set of three holes you play one of each.

[Hellstorm]

Every place I have ever been to that had quadrants had a pin sheet showing where the quadrant was.  When you tee off, the starter would say its pin location 3, or there would be a sign on the 1st tee.  The pin sheets were always on the cart.  The quadrants are supposed to be random so the pin isn't on the front right on every single hole.  One course I frequent has a sign on 1 showing the pin location and even the stimp reading for the day, which is nice.

[Socrates]

Or, just buy a laser.  Problem solved.  

[cristphoto]

My club has red, white, and blue flags signifying front, middle, back respectively.   Plus we keep that flag rotation from hole to hole.  So just eyeballing the flag you know how deep it is and if left, center, or right side of green.  As others have stated, use a laser to get pinpoint yardage.  Seems simple enough to me.  

[smashdn]

Course near me is 1,2,3,4.  There is a sheet posted in the cart showing you how the green on a particular hole is broken down.  Works ok for me.  The more you play the course the more you get an idea where the holes will be cut within the quadrant.  Rarely are they more than a 2-3 yards apart within the quadrant.