Golf Course Maintenance Standards

Ta me anseo

Right then, quick question....

I am a member at Bellewstown Golf Course. I think that the quality of the greens can be superb and the course is well laid out given the lie of the land even though it is lacking in bunkers and other hazards, particularly on the back 9.

Nonetheless, since joining, I have felt that the standards of course maintenance were perhaps a little lacking. There are constant problems with large amounts of grass clippings lying everywhere but particularly in the rough where you can lose balls at an alarming rate after they trickle off the fairway and end up hidden under a 6 inch high lump of cut grass. Occasionally I have seen full size tractors being driven across the greens in order to spray them with fertiliser or whatever else leaving fairly deep tire marks running over the surface. The tractor also drags quite a bit if the grass clippings from the rough in it's wheel treads and dumps it on the green so you will normally find large lumps of grass lying between you and the hole.

Then there was today. I popped down earlier for a quick nine holes. I had just bought a new putter and was eager to try it out. Well, I didn't even attempt putting when I saw the state of the greens. They were completely covered with a thick layer of sand. Now, I realise that this can be necessary for maintenance purposes from time to time, but the sand was up to half an inch deep in places. I was actually leaving footprints behind me! Most of the greens were very unevenly covered, so one area was almost free of sand while the rest was like a beach. Long story short, it was basically unplayable. Any putt would dig into the sand and come to a screeching halt.

So, I decided to play on anyway so that I might practice the rest of the game. I continued hitting to the greens and then picking up my ball, taking a minute to try to clean the sand from it and carrying on to the next tee.

Then came the grass cuttings. In places, the mounds of grass were about 1 foot high! One particular tee box was completely covered in lumps of grass that had obviously been dragged there by a tractor when they were cutting the tee box grass. It was utterly ridiculous. Even the fairways were terrible. The wheels of my trolley were covered in grass, which of course is fairly normal on a damp day, but if you wiped a section of a wheel clean and then carried on down the fairway, the wheel would be completely covered in a half inch thick layer of grass again within 10 or 15 feet. A ball landing on the fairway would be a stripey green sphere with a little white showing through from underneath.

So, my question is.... Is this acceptable? Are other golf courses like this? I certainly have never seen anything like this anywhere else. I feel that the main problems are 1) Not cutting the grass often enough so when it is cut the clippings are too large. 2) Maintenance staff not caring when they inadvertently drag lumps of grass onto a green and can't be bothered to remove it before moving on to the next hole. 3) In general, a maintenance team who lack the knowledge or inclination or perhaps just the staff to maintain the course properly and a management who really are only interested in making money and are happy as long as people continue to show up.

How do you go about getting these problems fixed???

Please help.

Thanks you.

Rant over - :rolleyes:

Mister Sifter

You should send a letter into the club outlining what you say here. Sounds as though whoever is doing the work isn't up to scratch. Send a letter in to the committee and it should be discussed at their next meeting.

Ta me anseo

I don't even know if they have a committee. I believe they are a public pay & pay course who also offer an annual membership package. Although is they have GUI affiliation, does that mean that they should have a committee?

Oh dear, I suppose I will likely be golf club shopping again in January.

Mister Sifter

i'm not sure... i was just on their website there and the course looks very good in the pictures. i'm looking for somewhere to play on saturday and might have gave that a go... not after what you said about the condition of the place though!

There should be a club captain or secretary that you could get in touch with.

Ta me anseo

I would expect that the greens will be sorted out again by the weekend since that is the only time they hold any competitions. I don't want to put you off. It is great fun when it is is good condition and particularly on a sunny day with some incredible views from the back 9. Perhaps it is just a case of them not considering midweek golfers to be worth looking after.

Incidentally, when I was there yesterday, I saw not one member of the maintenance team working on the course.

slumped

I work in supplying agri supplies to clubs so know a little about this.

The top-dressing of sand usually happens in stages.

First stage is that staff dress the green (cover in sand about 1/4 inch thick)

Second stage (which usually happens after all greens are dressed) is to brush the sand into the greens)

Third stage is cut and water - depending on course.

These routines are essential in providing any sort of a putting surface.

As for driving a full size tractor across the green - MADNESS!!

Ta me anseo

Have you any idea how long that process would normally take? If they completed the first stage yesterday morning, when should the greens be playable again??

slumped

Ta me anseo wrote:

Have you any idea how long that process would normally take? If they completed the first stage yesterday morning, when should the greens be playable again??

they should really have the whole job done in a day - but some places vary.

It should have good surfaces again in 2-4 days depending on how well the greens take the sand and how well they are brushed.

S

Ta me anseo

Slumped wrote:

they should really have the whole job done in a day

Ta me anseo wrote:

Incidentally, when I was there yesterday, I saw not one member of the maintenance team working on the course.

Sums it up really!!

Thanks for the info Slumped. At least I can say that it appears that they are trying to do the right thing. Even if they don't seem to be able to do it efficiently!!!

RuggieBear

time can vary for top dressing. depends how dry it is and how many staff you have working on it.

I'm presuming that the tractor at least had turf tires on it??

Ta me anseo

Unfortunately, I wouldn't know turf tires if I was run over by them! All I know is that I reached the green a minute or two afterwards only to be faced with a putt along the line of a tread mark almost all the way to the hole. It was like putting down a gutter!

The tire tread marks left on the green appeared to be quite closely spaced and not like your normal farm tractor tire tread. I presume that might be the turf tires you were talking about?

I can think of so many places where greens are maintained by hand. They'd be cut by lads pushing mowers around and treated by a bloke with a back pack. I suppose that fertilisers need very even coverage but surely a garden sized ride on mower would have done the trick??

slumped

it's amazing that these places get their own staff to do it.

it would be worth their while contracting the job to someone with the right machinery etc.

Mister Sifter

I was up at my own course there last night and they've been doing similar work. Greens and tees had been cored so were full of holes. Made putting virtually pointless as the ball just bobbled all over the place. In the end i just didn't bother putting and knocked the ball to the nearest part of the fringe and tried to chip it in. Pretty annoying considering i was still charged the full rate.

I understand they have to do such things to the green to keep them tip top during the rest of the year, but people paying for a game should be at least entitled to a few quid off while they're doing the work.

Hopefully they are in better nick for the weekly comp on saturday.

Mister Sifter

****e! Just reading there that greens take 3-4 weeks to recover from coring. Gonna be a long golfing month for me putting on those greens!!

MGrah

Ta Me - I played in Bellewstown a year or so ago and my abiding memories of the course would be the incredible variation in altitude at various parts of the course and that when the course perimeter is guarded by an electrified fence out of bounds means out of bounds!

Not sure how they have progressed since, but when I was there I thought that the course was excellent considering a few things such as the price of green fees and the fact that it was until recently enough farmland and is still run by the family that owned that land. I would imagine that what you are seeing at the moment is a little bit of inexperience in maintenance more so than anything untoward and that some helpfully put suggestions from members would hopefully be well received by management.

one thing for anyone considering it, unless you are extremely fit, if it's a warm day at all - take advantage of the car hire.

slumped

Graeme1982 wrote:

****e! Just reading there that greens take 3-4 weeks to recover from coring. Gonna be a long golfing month for me putting on those greens!!

If it wasn't done imagine what you'd be putting on come March!

Mister Sifter

slumped wrote:

If it wasn't done imagine what you'd be putting on come March!

Am i right in saying that greens get cored twice a year?

Ta me anseo

MGrah wrote:

Ta Me - I played in Bellewstown a year or so ago and my abiding memories of the course would be the incredible variation in altitude at various parts of the course and that when the course perimeter is guarded by an electrified fence out of bounds means out of bounds!

No change there then!

MGrah wrote:

Not sure how they have progressed since, but when I was there I thought that the course was excellent considering a few things such as the price of green fees and the fact that it was until recently enough farmland and is still run by the family that owned that land. I would imagine that what you are seeing at the moment is a little bit of inexperience in maintenance more so than anything untoward and that some helpfully put suggestions from members would hopefully be well received by management.

Thanks for that. That's a different way of looking at it that I had not thought of. I will think about giving them some "feedback" rather than "criticism".

MGrah wrote:

one thing for anyone considering it, unless you are extremely fit, if it's a warm day at all - take advantage of the car hire.

Couldn't agree more! The number of times I have missed putts on the back nine because my heart was racing, there was sweat in my eyes and my breathing sounded just plain rude!!!