[BB14616]

Originally Posted by quill

I just got off the phone with 2 of the championship courses and they were very nice and informative. They welcome feed back. Both negative and positive. The one common thing I have seen here in TV is that agencies want (in my experience) to make things better. Folks give feed back, feed back feed back. If the ball washers are empty tell someone, if the greens are sandy say something as I did. They can only fix something they know about. And I think the over seed is bad, but I was just told that the weather can play on how it grows in even when it is done correctly. One course gets the correct temp and rain while another does not, so poor over seed. I plan on calling and talking to the other course managers and getting more opinions. My old philosophy in the military was I did not believe anything I was told unless I got at least 2 out 3 people saying the same thing. For those thinking of moving here all I can say is that I believe that they are trying to do the right thing.

Thanks for the info. I agree that the people working at the courses are great. I do wonder, at times, if they are just giving us the "vanilla version" as the Mallory pro that was mentioned in a previous post. But generally I think they want the conditions to be as good as they can be, and they will work to fix things within their control, such as ball washers, etc.

The overseeding is another ball of wax in my mind. It is my understanding that the maintenance company hired by the Developer controls the overseeding, and as Pturner implied, perhaps there is some cost cutting going on. I had heard from several sources that OneSource cut back on the amount of rye grass seed that was used on the overseeding of Orange blossom fr example. To me that sounds like a cost cutting maneuver. Did they do that at other courses? The fairways of most of the courses in the Villages right now are pretty ratty. Was it environmental conditions affecting growth or cost cutbacks in the amount of seed put down? With all the money the developer makes in greens fees, I have a hard time believing that there isn't enough money available to keep the courses in good condition. Then again, maybe they tried cutting costs not realizing the winter conditions would be so bad, and have learned from their experience and will do things differently next year, by allocating more money into their golf course maintenance fund.

I would just like to hear managment say "yes, there is a problem, this is what caused it, this is what we will do to make things better next year." At ths point we are just guessing. Of course, temperature, watering, etc. will affect certain holes and certain courses up to a point. But the conditions have been fairly similiar this winter in the Villages/Lady Lake area. I could see that few holes here and there would be bad, but with so many courses bad in The Villages, and courses good outside the Villages, it makes one wonder why there are such drastic differences.

Of course, with March just around the corner, and the temperatures warming up, along with the rain, in a few weeks the courses should be looking a lot better. They can improve pretty quickly with certain conditions in place. Let's keep our fingers crossed.