I don't think the subcontracted maintenance companies for the golf courses have a clue what they are doing. How do you take a green, any green, from good condition to a burned up mess in a weeks time? Forget weather factors - nothing in excess, heat or rain. How long will it take them to learn how to grow grass on the fairways? Beyond incompetence I think it comes down to not re-investing back into the courses - both fertilizer and water. That is mostly all the courses need, period! IMHO

We are all speculating here. We are not greens keepers, don't have the knowledge. But there is obviously something wrong when our greens and fairways don't stack up against neighboring courses, and supposedly a community of this size has the funds to adequately maintain it's facilities. I'd love to see someone in management take ownership of this issue and give us some answers.

Love it ------

Aren't the championship courses privately owned? In other words run and managed by a sort of leasing company? (The Morses still own the land?)

Who writes the checks for the golf pro's???????

Assuming that what you say is true, and a vast majority of Villages golfers don't know the difference between good and bad,
then what's the problem?
Following your logic, I assume that a vast majority of Villages golfers are therefore satisfied with existing conditions.

Bogart 9th Green
 

Played Bogart this morning, 9th hole / green is back in play. All of the greens, including the 9th, were in good shape. Practice / putting area still under repair.

Oakleigh on 7/14
 

Greens were terrible. You hit the putt and watched the ball hop, skip and jump to where ever it wanted to go.

Z

:shrug:I'm not sure of the technicalities of what the actual "ownership" is all about but I believe the job of managing the courses is with Golf Management Services. When I inquired a couple of years ago on employment with that company, I was told by some of the course employees that one needs to apply at The Villages Human Resource office at Spanish Springs. That leads me to believe that the management company is somehow connected to The Villages itself which would lend credence to some money circulating back to developer interests.:confused:

I would be surprised if money was not circulating back to the developer.

most of the people who come to visit me say the same thing. They marvel at the flowers ,the cleanliness, the friendly people, the squares, the lifestyle but they want to know why the golf courses are not as good as they should be. I have no real answer for them.

I couldn't agree more. There are so many great things about The Villages, but they just can't seem to get the golf right.

I looked at the posts and it appears the courses were in poor shape beginning in May when they aerated, and are only now back to decent shape. That's 2 1/2 months. And they're supposed to aerate again in August. That means the greens will be awful for at least another month after aeration. We will have had at least 3 1/2 months of poor playing conditions for the year. And that doesn't include the poor playing conditions that occur in the winter. I looked back at some of the posts from March of this year, and people were complaining about the poor conditions of the greens on the executive courses. Add that in, and you're talking 4-5 months of poor conditions. That's just ridiculous.

One of the things that also bothers me is the pricing to play on the championship courses. As a "priority" member I paid $26 to play Bonifay yesterday. Last Thursday I paid $22 to play Harbor Hills and tomorrow will pay $18 dollars to play StoneCrest. Harbor Hills had aerated its greens but they were in much better shape than newly aerated greens I've played on in TV.

It seems to me that TV championship courses should no more costly to play than surrounding courses and should be in no worse shape.

It's nice to have so many options...
 

isn't it?

What you say is true, and making arrangements to play off- campus is the logical thing to do. Maybe the developer and his golf staff will pay attention, but I doubt it.

By the way, I played Lopez yesterday after 11:00AM and paid only $18.00. Course was in nice condition.

the courses should be better than nice. With proper management they should be very good all the time. 3 and 1/2 months of awful conditions is stupid.