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