I thought it was funny....................
Sure beats the pi%^ing contest about the good and the bad evaluations of the same courses.:beer3:

To the OP (and all the other whiners) - what courses are you whining about that has the bad greens? I played Lopez Tuesday, Havana yesterday, Bonifay this morning and Cane Garden this afternoon; ALL HAVE GREAT GREENS.

Again, what courses have you been playing?

I've played a few of the championships and I would say that they have decent greens. The only one that I would say that they greens were exceptional was Lopez which I played last October.

Palmer, Hacienda, Tierra del Sol, and OBG are just OK. I wouldn't complain about them, but I wouldn't describe them as great.

Many of the executives have some serious problems. What's puzzling to me is that as I play the executives, I see a lot of projects going on that don't make a lot of sense while not much is being done about serious problems.

Belle Glade is terrible

Having played it last week...I couldn't agree more. :swear:

Belle Glade is worse than terrible!!

The fairways are fine, but the greens are shot.

Sent from my SM-T310 using Tapatalk

Great?
 

Doc, I always enjoy your perspective on golf subjects. I have putted on greens where you worked when trying to qualify for things…

Here is my opinion as subjective as any other. Even when the greens are good here they are not even close to what I played in MA. I can count on one hand the number of times when I was in a round here and thought, these greens are really good. One time was at Palmer. They were smooth and as important (to me) fast. I watched with pleasure at my competitors (teen handicappers) having no clue how to putt on greens this quick. I am a bit embarrassed I got pleasure out if that :evil6:.

I am not talking about private clubs in MA, I am talking about courses like Foxboro where I was a member. It was a blue collar club back in the day. All they cared about was the greens, sometimes they s*cked and that was all the members talked about, but ,most of the time they were awesome and that is all the members talked about. I once brought a friend for a member guest and he asked me the line of a 10 foot putt, he thought it was left edge. I then told him if I were to hit this I would play about 3 feet of break AND I would hit it as if it was a 3 foot putt.

Those were great greens, what we have here are OK when they are in good shape which I will live with. Just my opinion.

You really can't compare bent/poa greens to Bermuda. But I have played on some excellent Bermuda greens in different parts of Florida. Like I said, I played Lopez last October and they were excellent. The greens on the championships that I've played have been mediocre at best. I wouldn't complain about them, but I can see people who have been playing on Bermuda for a long time might think that they're excellent.

I didn't know you were a member at Foxboro. Bob Day and I were good friends. In fact, I interviewed for the job there when he left. It's a very nice course and the greens are very nice, but they're not even close to being the best in Massachusetts or new England.

I've never seen Bermuda fairways cut this high. They're OK, but I'd like to see them cut down a bit.

I agree and did not mean to convey that. When conditions were good and they had them rolling, it was an adventure hitting the green in the wrong place. I miss that.

The first two are pictures of # 15 at Tierra. The right hand picture is of #5 on Hacienda Palms. I see black dead spots.

No doubt about it...the photos don't lie.

It seems some folks simply have lower standards, are loathe to criticize anything having to do with the developer and that seems to be primarily...from whence the controversy is emanating. :shrug:

Like I've said previously, I certainly don't expect perfection for the price we pay, but...there is simply no excuse for the condition of so many of the championship courses greens. :(

I played De La Vista this morning. Possibly the worst greens I've ever seen in my life. The rest of the course is not too bad, but when you're playing 7 par threes, the rest of the course is not all that important.

I played Hacienda Palms last week and didn't notice any dead spots. The greens were not great, but I didn't see anything that looked like that photo. I'm not questioning you but I'm wondering if this happened recently.

I played Hill Top and Silver Lake today and I noticed a lot of bad spots on the greens that weren't there a week ago. It looks like they're losing them.

Sorry, I think my post might have come across the wrong way. Foxboro is an excellent course and has very good greens. I probably just should have left it at that. I was trying to get to the point that as good as the Foxboro greens are compared to what we have here, there are greens that are even better than that.

I have found that courses South of 466A are in abysmal shape. I have heard the draught excuse but other courses outside of the bubble had no problem maintaining their greens. I play World Woods on Saturday and saw that it was maintained beautifully and it is a public course. I have played several courses North of 466A and found that most are in good shape. It really is frustrating to see the investment made in golf courses to be thrown away with pitiful maintenance. The Villages shouldn't think that they have a monopoly on golf in this area. Driving an hour or so in any direction to play golf on a beautiful course is not a problem. Poor course maintenance can be rumored to potential buyers and eventually hurt their bottom line.

I had contacted Eric of GMS last year about the condition of the greens and tees on the "Executive Golf Trail". I have been coming to TV for 12 years. Over this period of time the playing conditions have become worse. This golfing setup was a large reason for the explosion of home buyers in TV.
I talked to him about the possibility of looking at alternative grasses for the courses. There are companies that have developed some hybrid strains
that are user friendly........less water, less fert., less mowing, disease resistant and much less care required overall.
A company in Texas (Bladerunner....I have no interest) seems to have developed such grasses. As an aside, they furnished the grass for the Olympic course in Brazil. I do not know the economics involved.....if a program is workable for remove and replace. I have not heard back from Eric.

Greens
 

I played Mallory, Bonifay and Hacienda in the last week. Mallory greens were excellent, Bonifay still need a lot of work since aeration and Hacienda greens rolled nice but were very slow, maybe due to all the rain.

Most of the people who play our courses have not experienced what a championship course is like to play. With greens that run between 11-13 and consistent traps and nice fairways and rough. To them this is the normal and it is fine with them. If anyone took the time to see what the revenue that comes in here is, they would know that it is a budget issue that they allow to maintain our courses.

I think you're optimistic on those green speeds.

Upscale resort courses known for 'fast' greens, still only average 8-10 on the stimp.

Oakmont, where the stimpmeter was invented, brags about having the fastest greens around...and they normally run about 10-12. :shrug:



This Rickie Fowler video proves Oakmont'''s greens are rolling at ridiculous speeds - Golf Digest

The Stimpmeter was actually invented by Edward Stimpson in Newton, MA.

Oakmont's greens are among the fastest in the world and I doubt that they are between 10 and 12. They are probably closer to 13 on a regular basis. I do know that back in 1953 it was the only time in history that the USGA slowed down the greens for the US Open.

To expect greens anywhere to play that fast is more than a bit unrealistic.

The greens on the PGA Tour week in and week out average about 11 and I doubt that most players in The Villages would be able to play on greens that fast. Of course, the amount of slope in the greens has a lot to do with how they play as well. The greens at Oakmont as well as the greens at Augusta National have a lot of undulations and are usually somewhere around 13 feet. What that Rickie Fowler video doesn't show is how much downhill that putt is.

I played a course up in Massachusetts called the Myopia Hunt Club that had the most undulating greens I think I've ever played. They slowed them down to 11 a few years back because they were deemed to be unfair. I remember being able to drop a ball from shoulder height on some of their greens only to have it roll 50 feet off the green. I once chipped at ball two feet short of the hole at the eighth hole there only to have to come back to my feet. In one US Open held there, a player putted his ball into a water hazard next to the fourth green.

I also played Winged Foot when their greens were at US Open speed and they were almost impossible. That resulted in the highest winning US Open score in the modern era.

Good private club greens usually run around 9-10 and most golfers would find that pretty fast. Average speed at a lot of public facilities tends to be around 8-9 and that is considered medium speed. I would guess that the championship courses that I've played, with the exception of Lopez last October, are running at about 8-9. That's not a bad speed for most golfers.

I played Chula Vista this morning and I've played fairways that are faster than those greens. In fact, the only thing slower than the greens was the two groups in front of us.

I'm not happy about greens that are that slow, but I can't tolerate taking two hours to play nine holes on an easy executive. There are some people that just don't belong on a golf course.

WOW.

If they pay, they belong.

Gotta agree. Golf has fought the elitist image enough.

OK, I should have said 'born' at Oakmont.

U.S. Open: How the Stimpmeter was born at Oakmont

U.S. Open: How the Stimpmeter was born at Oakmont

You should have seen Egret yesterday. The tees putted faster than the greens, the fairways putted faster than the greens, the rough putted faster than the greens, the sand traps putted faster than the greens, and a ball 2 feet underwater putted faster than the greens. I suspect a cauldron of molten steel would putt faster than the greens:1rotfl::1rotfl::1rotfl:

I had a putt of 5 feet on #7 with so much sand on the green I was tempted to use a SW. Took 22 putts on Egret, I 4 putted from 40 feet never reaching the hole, and my partner, who is a much better putter than I, had 23!!!!

Trying to read between the lines.................are you saying they're not running 9 to 11 on the Stimp??

Please clarify.

:jester:

My best guess: Osprey was running 7-8 and Egret 6, maybe 5. But they dumped about 5 tons of sand on the Egret greens Monday

Agree. Agree.

Thanks for the heads up, I was going to put in for Egret on Friday since they showed aerification was last done on May 19th. The past two weeks I played Cane Garden (Jacaranda to Allamada) and Havana (Hemingway only) and the greens were pretty good at both courses.

I see posters always making reference to a money issue for TV golf courses. These courses receive paying customers 12 months of the year and for six of those months they get top dollar. I came from Maryland and we usually never played past early November and started back early April, that's about 8 months of income for those courses. They also don't get top dollar green fees except on the weekends. That 8 days a month out of 30 days, the November to April higher green fees is a lot longer and the six month summer fees should be like gravy. Just saying.

With all due respect to KCRaz, I'm not one of the greens condition whiners. I don't think the greenskeepers are out there in the sun all day trying to make bad conditions. I only picked on Egret because it really was pretty bad---considering 5 days earlier they were much better. Bonifay was in decent shape and Belle Glade was much better last week than it had been. Havana and Mallory are fine, haven't played Cane Garden or Palmer recently. I think the main problem with the courses south of 466A was that they were aerated during the drought while most of the rain hit the northern end of TV, then 10 days later the deluge began. It has to be real hard to deal with that kind of fluctuation in weather

So as long as they pay, they have a right to take huge divots and not replace or fill them? They can take swings on the greens with their wedges, they can drive carts in the bunkers and onto the greens? Can they go into bunkers and not rake them?Can they hold up everyone else on the golf course?

When I say they don't belong on the golf course I mean that until they understand the rules and etiquette and have at least a minimum degree of proficiency they shouldn't be allowed on a golf course.

When I see some of the violations of etiquette on these courses and people not taking care of the course I do a slow burn. When I see people out there that whiff three times before they make contact and then roll the ball thirty yards along the ground I wonder how they are getting any enjoyment out of being there. When I see a husband trying to teach his wife to play when he can barely play himself and they are holding up everyone behind them, I say they don't belong on a golf course.

If it were up to me it would be mandatory that everyone attends the Good Golf School before being allowed to play. Then I would have the ambassadors monitoring the players so that they follow the etiquette of the game and keep their place on the golf course.

Yes, anyone that pays evidently has a right to be on the course, but they don't have the right to ruin the course and ruin the day of the people behind them.

Ummm... you don't have to try to make bad conditions. It takes effort, knowledge and work to make good conditions. Bad conditions can be achieved by doing nothing.

Don't mind it one bit.

I'm just really tired of hearing everyone use the excuse of bad fairways, bad greens or bad whatever on the championship courses to shooting high scores or making too many putts. When is enough, enough in bad mouthing the courses, bad mouthing the maintenance companies and bad mouthing the greens superintendent?

The people that abuse the R/A tags and park next to the greens and drive between the bunkers and the greens, the people that fail to fix ball marks and fill their divots, the people that pull up to the tees and pull off the cartpaths to gain that 1 1/2 foot advantage, the people that ignore cart path only conditions and drive out on the fairways, the people that cut the ropes on areas marked off - that's what the complaints should be directed towards.

If you don't like the courses or conditions, move to your place of nirvana. If you don't like the courses or conditions, play somewhere else, ALL THE TIME, outside the bubble. If you don't like the courses or conditions because it hurts your game, get better.

Good lord, enough is freaking enough.

Nothing burns me more than seeing wedge marks or hacks on the greens or trash everwhere except in the trash cans provided.:mad:

We have the right to comment on course conditions both good and bad. That's the point of a forum. We can get a heads up on the good, the bad, and the ugly. Go play Seminole on Belle Glade and tell me how great the greens are. There's no excuse for those kinds of conditions on a champion course. It has nothing to do with players abusing the course.

:BigApplause:

Complain all you want; some of you really seem to be in your element by constantly doing so. BTW, have any of you constant complainers and know it all agronomist applied to GMS for a greens superintendent position or even voiced your complaints directly to GMS? Didn't think so.

Seminole must not be too bad; went by there tonight and the course had players everywhere. I suppose those players don't have to play Pebble Beach conditions or Augusta conditions to enjoy the game. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

I'll play you for a 100 a hole with 5 clubs.

I've actually played Pebble Beach when it was in terrible condition.

Sometimes it's good and sometimes not so good. It gets a tremendous amount of play and not everyone who plays it is an experienced golfer that takes care of the course. But just the traffic alone makes it a nightmare to maintain.