The secret to reading grain, according to one of the Tour’s best putters

The setting was New Orleans but it could have been the Borscht Belt when Keith Mitchell and Brandt Snedeker took to the podium on Tuesday in advance of this week’s Zurich Classic.

Partners in the team event at TPC Louisiana in Avondale, the two veteran Tour pros and close friends paired up in what amounted to a slapstick routine, smiling as they fielded questions while ribbing each other about their games.

The gist their jokes: Mitchell can’t putt, and Snedeker can’t keep it on the planet with his driver.

“We’re close enough to where we’re not going to offend each other this week,” Snedeker said. “We can’t hurt each other’s feelings.”

But because things are only funny until someone three-jacks, the conversation took a more earnest turn when Snedeker was asked about a serious topic: grain.

Ah, yes, grain. The hobgoblin of golfers on the Southern Swing, blamed for every lip-out and poor lag putt from Florida to Louisiana and beyond. Or so you’d think when you tune into TV coverage of PGA Tour events.

“Was it the grain that got him, Johnny?” (Or Bones. Or Dottie.) The phrase gets used so often, it could be the basis of a drinking game.

But how influential is grain, really? 

Ask some superintendents, and they’ll tell you that its impact is overstated. Grass varietals have been bred so well, the argument goes, and greens are mown so tight — especially for elite events — that grain is practically non-existent. Or, rather, it exists more in the player’s mind than it does on the putting surface. 

Snedeker has sure given it a lot of thought. Like his buddy, Mitchell, he grew up in Tennessee. Unlike Mitchell, he became one of the greatest putters of his generation, honing his distinctive pop-stroke on grabby Bermuda grass.

So, how does Snedeker contend with grain?

“I think grain is a really difficult thing to quantify,” Snedeker said. There’s no formula for it, no metric that tells you how many inches of break to add per feet of putt when the grain is growing left or right.

“You kind of have to have more of a feel,” Snedeker said. And developing feel takes time and practice, “getting out on the greens and getting comfortable with them,” Snedeker continued. “It’s one of those things, like, hey, if you see a putt is pretty straight and the grain is going to the right, hey, man, let’s play this thing inside left just because the grain might pull it a little bit.”

The bottom line is that cross-grain putts can be frustrating head-scratchers, no matter how experienced or skilled you are. Some days, you’ve got the feel. Some days, you don’t. 

“If you’re off a little bit, you are going to be hitting a lot of right-edge or left-edge putts and driving yourself crazy,” Snedeker said. 

To preserve his sanity and his score, Snedeker doesn’t get too granular with grain, at least not when it comes to its influence on break. He finds it more productive to focus on pace.

“The biggest account is more into grain, down grain,” he said. “Into the grain is going to be really slow. Down grain is going to be really fast. Those are the things you really pay attention to.”

And if all else fails, you go back to razzing your partner. “We’re not shy about giving each other a needle out here,” Snedeker said. “So I think having a partner where you have somebody you’re comfortable with, can kind of give you a need and have some fun with it about how bad a shot they hit that day.”

Mitchell agreed.

“Hopefully, he doesn’t putt like me, and hopefully I don’t drive it like him and we’ll be in good shape,” he said.