What Are 'Crowned Greens' on a Golf Course?

A "crowned green" is a putting green whose highest point is in its interior, as opposed to being along one of the edges. Many putting greens generally slope from one side to the other — for example, from back to front, in which case the high point of the green will be on that back edge. But on a crowned green, the high point is somewhere inside the edges, often near the middle.

Crowned greens go by many different names, some of them quite common. Those synonyms include convex greens, domed greens, turtleback or turtle greens, tortoise-shell greens, humped or humpback greens, and camel or camel-back greens. The term "crowned," meaning sloping away from the center or middle line, can also be applied to other parts of the golf course such as a teeing ground or fairway, but is most commonly applied to putting greens.

A news report about a college golf tournament published in The Daily Californian newspaper in 2004 began, "On a course loaded with slick, turtleback greens ..."

Writing about the Pinehurst No. 2 course, the authors of the book Golf's Finest Par Threes (affiliate link) wrote, "The fiftteenth measures a bit over 200 yards and combines one of Ross's most severely crowned greens with a false front, both aimed to repel your tee ball."

That second example of usage provides the main reason a golf course architect might choose to employ crowned greens: to make approach shots more difficult. On a golf course that has very few bunkers or water features or deep rough adjacent to or fronting its greens, crowned greens/domed greens are one way to give those otherwise unguarded greens a defense mechanism.

Crowned greens aren't alway purpose-built, however. They can actually develop incidentally over time through the buildup of soil or sand. Imagine thousands and thousands of golfers over time blasting out of a sand bunker toward a flagstick. Over many years, that sand that lands on the putting surface can start to add height to the area, and can create a crown around that pin location.

A green being crowned does not mean, though, that the green slopes away from the highest point uniformly. A turtleback green will still have flat areas (it has to in order to provide hole locations), other slopes and curves and swales and breaks.

More articles:

• What are dual greens (alternate greens)?
• What hardpan is on a golf course
• Is there any reason the hole liners (the cups) are white?