What's with these greens??
 

Lived here five years never seen exec greens this bad.
Play about three times a week both regulation and executives. I know they have aerated many greens but these are just in terrible shape. Heron looks likes some kind of fungus. You can count on one hand if any decent greens on most executives.
Anyone know what's going on?

Don't normally complain about the conditions, but I played Heron tonight and must agree with your sentiments. Almost felt like a waste of time fixing ball marks. (But just for the record, I still fixed them. Heheh.)

I agree. This is the worst I have seen them at this time of year in eight years. For some reason it appears the bermuda is not recovering from dormancy like it should. The temps have been high enough. Played Hawkes Bay Thursday where they aerated about five weeks ago and it was like putting on cobblestones. Lots of bare spots. #5 had about a third of the green covered with sand.

It's not just TV golf courses. It's bad all over. Spruce Creek is closing for 2 days to address their greens issues. Stonecrest is just awful. It must have been the harsh winter.

Rollie

It must have been the harsh winter.


There was no harsh winter here. It was the opposite..

Weather History for Lady Lake, FL [Florida] for January

Forget about golf in the villages --- Price and conditions have me playing other golf courses -- we have heard all the excuses - too much rain, too little rain, too much traffic, fungus, disease, etc. Fix them -- we are a golfing community - we should have the best courses in the area -- in 9 years i have seen the courses go from a "8" to a "3" --

Perhaps it's a question of finances.
Amenity fees cover an awful lot of activities.
It seems more money spent on the Exec courses may be the answer.
Either a fee to play, or an increase in amenities.
Are you willing to pay a fee to golf the Executive courses?

Nope. Not I. Still a great deal IMHO, and I'm confident conditions will improve.

I agree with you a 100%. Most of my favorite courses outside TV are back to normal within 2 weeks after punchimg them. Not here. For most it's been over a month and they're still showing bumps and holes?

Someone explain to me how the Glenview's practice greens are perfect and the rest of the course's greens stink? Played Palmer yesterday, Evan's Praire today and they were just OK, and forget about the hideous exec greens being in good shape anytime soon.

Go play World Woods, Stone Creek and Mission Inn to see what our courses SHOULD being looking like.

Hi Barefoot: The Villages claim was free golf for the rest of your life. Resident pay $141.00 for trail fees and also amenities. In addition they paid a premium component for the privilege of living here. In order to get a tee time they need to pay $8 per month to utilize the computer system. forget the free phone system its not user friendly. so free golf is not so free. Guests pay to play on executive courses plus they charge for pull carts...both acceptable practices.

I believe if TV attempted to begin charging fees for executive courses there would be an upheaval especially since this was the main calling card for many who bought here.

Conditions of the greens on the Exec courses is the worst that I have ever seen - anywhere. We have lots of visiting guest and I am pesently embarased to take them to play.

These conditions do not meet the standards of what the Developer put in place and in most places the head grounds people would be fired.

I am usually defense of this beautiful, well managed , paradise, but these conditions stink!!!!!:22yikes:

No. We were guaranteed free golf for life.

Yes. If that is what would help. All the "but we were promised free golf" complainers are correct. But the agreement never said "with nice greens and fairways" So if you are going to make the developer stick to the letter of the agreement don't complain. Your golf is still free.

There were nearly 2 million rounds of executive golf played in 2011

http://nancysheehanrealty.com/THE%20...S%20TRIVIA.pdf

So if the charge were a single dollar a round, that would be a lot of money and I don't see how it would break anyone's budget.

Something needs to be done and you can be sure it can't be done for free so the money is going to come from some source which ultimately means us. I'd prefer that the golfers, which includes me, pick up most of the cost rather than spreading it to everyone.

Exactly Rubicon!
We were all promised free golf for life.
So I doubt that anyone is going to gladly start paying a fee for executive golf.
Well, perhaps the really avid golfers wouldn't mind.
But there would be a huge public outcry by most golfers.

And I doubt the non-golfers would appreciate the amenity fees being raised to improve the golf courses.

So if the golf courses aren't maintained in pristine condition, which is the topic of this thread, what do you think the solution is?

Perhaps the situation will correct itself with grass seed, nurturing and lots of rain?

There are almost 500 golf holes in The Villages. Two million dollars would be a drop in the bucket as far as golf course maintenance goes. I've worked at regulation 18 hole courses where the budget was $1.5 million. And unless you have an almost unlimited budget like Augusta National some things are just beyond your control as far as maintaining a golf course.
One thing I have noticed is that they're doing a lot of renovations on some golf courses. On some I've seen them totally rebuilding greens. This is a huge budget expense and may be what's taking away from the regular maintenance of the rest of the courses. I can't say for sure. I'm only speculating as to what might be a reason.
For the most part, I spent my career in golf in the north. I know of courses that haven't rebuilt their greens in over 100 years and the greens are fine. I don't understand rebuilding these greens every few years. I've heard of places that do it, but I've never actually seen it before. Maybe sand based bermuda greens need to be rebuilt more often. That was not my specific area of expertise in the golf business.

Why doesn't someone from course management reply on this thread and tell us what is going on with the greens? I have heard from other golfers that there are 5 different things wrong(fungus,critters,etc)

Maybe the courses are overwatered? I live on a course and nobody is stopping the sprinklers from coming on in the night on the same day there was a gully washer storm.
Combine that with overmowing. Nobody looks to see if the grass has actually grown since it was mowed last. Like clockwork. They mow bare soil in front of my house, making sure to mash the soil around every inch of what turf is left with the mower tires.

Just griping, don't really know...
http://gsr.lib.msu.edu/1990s/1992/920901.pdf

I was on El Diablo yesterday and it looks like the sixth hole green is recovering slowly but surely.

That's another thing. Grass is a living, growing changing organism. It will come back. Unless it is completely killed, it always comes back.

Regarding over-mowing, I was told by someone who is familiar with the situation, that the golf course maintenance contracts are written up in such a manner that the fairways get mowed "X" amount of times per week. The contractors do that, whether or not the fairways need it, because its in the contract and they want to get paid. When you contract out the work, the courses aren't going to get the personalized care that our courses up north got from from dedicated greens keepers.

Cutting grass costs a lot more up north and so does most golf.

http://mrrstats.com/wgccblog/

Good luck by all.

North vs South
 

We went "North" yesterday to play Briarwood and it was a whole different course. The whole course was in great condition! The greens weren't all sand and the fare ways were lush and green. Why is that? Why are the courses toward the Southern end of town in such poor condition? Played Bacall today and the greens were horrible. Maybe golfing the courses North may be the answer?

When you build them on the cheap and maintain them poorly what do you expect. They are like they are because a vast majority of Villages "golfers" don't know the difference between good and bad.

:popcorn::popcorn::popcorn:

newguyintv said it all. Build them cheap and maintain them cheap.

The maintenance contractor for the four courses up there decided to not use the usual large tines when they aerated during the transition from overseed to base bermuda. Instead they used the 1/4" tines which resulted in the greens recovering more quickly. They will use the smaller tines for the second aeration on all the courses later this summer.

:BigApplause::BigApplause::BigApplause:

If you don't top dress it's a complete waist of time

So far all the courses I've played...
 

that have been aerated have been top dressed.

What's lacking is patience....on the part of the golfers(or non-golfers who play grass hockey ;-)

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.