Ya, I like that as well, the "chicken method". It saves me allot of grief with the fringe and I will chip whenever possible. I use the chip or flop whenever if find myself on the use of the over stock applied fringe, i.e. Oakmont #3 or Bethpage #10 greens, or shall we say fringe, and it gets me close to the hole. Forget putting unless I add one foot for every inch of the nasty I find myself on and God only knows how much nasty I am sitting on at the time.
Bottom line, fringe sucks and sorry about your luck if you are there. May as well take a revolver, load one round, spin the chamber and pull the trigger. Smile or die, it does not seem to make a difference to WGT. Have a nice day!
Now back to the painted green concrete fringe. Elevation does not seem to have anything to do with anything. If you land in the rough short of the green, there you stay, stop. If you land on the green while playing a ball with no back spin capabilities, roll, if you hit the fringe on your approach shot, advance to the other side of the green rapidly, choose pitch, chip, or flop and hope you have a get out of jail free card.
What is up with the fringe? Oh, beside it sucks to be there of course.