Interesting. I would not have imagined, but it makes sense after all. Thank you for the answer. It is a complex endeavor, it seems; high tech stuff.
If I may ask. Who is usually responsible for cup placements on greens? I am not asking about the specific name but, the way you divide the tasks, who would be the decision maker about pin placements? If anyone is.
I assume that, at least for real courses, there is data about that. However, one faces probably tough decisions because designers do not know at what green speed setting their game is going to be used. If I knew how to use APCD, I would find the stimp of the course and design the layouts based on that, but I reckon that it could not be always ideal since players, at least in the early phases, would not play at those settings. Would it be possible for a designer to make a certain pin placement available or not available based on the selected green speed? This question is not motivated by any personal gripe, but I noticed that if I select firmness and speed as set by designers, often the game is not what I expected (except Augusta perhaps and very few others)
I am asking this for I have noticed several differing "styles" in this sense. Some greens have pin placements that work in nearly all green settings, except maybe one or two. Others, half of the settings are troublesome past a certain speed and firmness. On old courses, I can understand, but on newer courses I wonder why it is so. The way Sage described the process sounds highly technical and scientific. Yet, it is not unusual to come across "unhappy pin placements".
I do not believe that there is a "
rule" about where pins can or cannot be, but the USGA has recommendations like:
https://golftips.golfweek.usatoday.com/ ... 20540.html
https://archive.lib.msu.edu/tic/golfd/a ... 5mar92.pdf
And I cannot help wondering how come there is so much attention to details, but cup placements, often but not always, do not receive a similar attention.
