Course Conditions for upcoming season
 

I read with interest Rickey Craig, the new Director of golf Maintenance's article about their plans to "adjust" overseed strategies for the upcoming season. While pointing to the lack of rain, the message was clear about the overseed strategies for this fall and winter. Bottom line is that the greens and tees only will be overseeded. While not a huge deal for the Executive Courses, it will have a significant impact on the look and aesthetics of the Championship Courses. They can say what they want about raising the height of the cut on the fairways and pigments to help support Bermuda grass, history says you wont be pleased with the result. Are the plans in place to reduce the fall/ winter bump in daily fees to accompany this? Probably not. I have witnessed many courses where this was done in the "interest of being a good steward of our resources" the bottom line is the paring back of expenses. Very disappointing

No Overseeding of Golf Courses
 

Today's Daily Sun tells us The Villages will only overseed the greens and tees this year. The rest of the course will be mowed higher until such time as the Bermuda goes dormant. Plant pigment (read paint) will then be applied. Sounds like a disaster to me. (Daily Sun, 8/24/16, Page B3)

agreed. see my earlier post

Just saw your earlier post...also correct!!

Here is a link for others: https://www.talkofthevillages.com/fo...season-207075/

OP, this is above my pay grade. I know that over seeding is the traditional method of treating the courses in the winter so I'm guessing what TV is doing might be a cheaper way of treating the courses. But not better in your opinion?

Way not better, if you care about the people playing the golf course!!

Well, it's not like they've been very successful with the over-seeding either, given the number of problems and resultant closings of some championship courses this year. :oops:

All I really care about is if the fairways have enough grass that I'm not always hitting from a 'tight lie' in the middle of it and if the greens roll true and are reasonably fast.

If they take at least some of the money they save from over-seeding (and can meet the above criteria), then put it towards maintaining better greens and grass in the fairways...I'm personally willing to give it a chance. :shrug:

I play a lot of championship golf (or should I say golf on championship courses), and I can tell you this guy (Ricky Craig, the new director of golf maintenance and author of the article being referenced) is doing a great job. There has been a clear improvement in course conditions over few months despite the lack of rain we've had this year. You also see more workers out there than before. It had gotten almost to the point of being embarrassed to have a guest play here. Nancy Lopez threatened to have her name removed from her course if something wasn't done, and now it is in great shape.

He has been here less than 6 months, and has earned the right to make this call, which as he explained is due to the lack of rain we have had. Things are heading in the right direction.

I have been around and worked on golf courses both north and south for the better part of 62 years. The Director is doing as well as he can given what he has to work with. My comments were not criticizing the Director, just clarifying the fact that the courses will look worse and the fairways play worse than if proper overseeding was done. This is purely a cost savings move and it should be stated rather than skirting the issue. They want to spend less on maintaining the championship tracks. That is the mandate. Don't sugar coat by telling us they are trying to be good stewards of our resources or that it will look better in the long run by doing this

I'm interested in the source of your information that it is 'purely' a cost cutting move. I've been here 10 years and there have been winters in the past that they've not over seeded the fairways due to lack of rain. But when there is sufficient rainfall in the summer, they have always over seeded the fairways. Within the annual budget, how big an expense do you think overseeding is as a percentage of expenses?

7" deficit is significant due the water restrictions they have to deal with. Are you aware that below 466, there is a single allocation of water that has to cover everything, homes, common areas, recreation centers, and golf courses? The more those other places use, the less is available for the courses. They have to rely on the retention ponds and recycled water to supplement their allocation. Less rain-lower pond levels-less golf course water.

I too look forward to hear the source of this statement.

If they are trying to save money, why not just require all the players to join a championship member advantage plan?

Refurbished Executive Courses
 

Take a look at the newly refurbished Bonita Pass Course. They built two hills at the end of Hole 1. Cant figure out if they planted grass or weeds on the hill...eyesore.

Because you would be restricted as to your choice of specialty shots????

The course is still closed, so noone should be on it for any reason.

I have to ask what being around and "worked on" golf courses for the better part of 62 years mean?

It means that I have done everything from laying sod to digging out traps, to cutting fairways and greens to teaching at both private and public courses. Moving a bit off topic. I am saying that it is more than likely the costs associated with overseeding that are pushing this forward. Someone asked about the actual cost and while I cant tell you what the maintenance team would be paying I can give you a rough idea of the requirement. The average course would utilize approx. 500 lb per acre to overseed. A few years ago the cost would be in the $125k-$225k per 18 hole course to overseed. Certainly The Villages has some economies of scale relative to their buying power but the cost is not insignificant.

So, the question is what makes this season different from the past. Play has been good. Year over year, play has increased. One can assume revenue has not decreased to an extent that it makes overseeding impossibly expensive compared to last year. So, what has changed? Rain.

I don't think the developer who has done so much right in marketing this place would intentionally cause the golf courses, that are such an integral part of the appeal, to look less than their best during the high season unless it was out of his control. And nothing related to money is out of their control. But Mother Nature is.

Taking the lower number and using round numbers we are talking just north of two million dollars to overseed The Villiages Championship golf courses. That is a significant amount of money.

I too read the article and came away with a somewhat different take on what Mr. Craig said. He did indeed cite the lack of rain we've all experienced first hand this season but he also referenced the impact the lack of rain has on water resources influencing his decision. That said, he did leave the option that if we suddenly received a lot of rain the over-seed decisions could be revisited. I would love to see our golf courses be a vibrant green from tee-to-green but Mother Nature is not cooperating thus compromises are necessary. Let's just hope that Mother Nature doesn't make this last summer our new norm.

All you wannabe (armchair) greens superintendents, hop your fat butts (with your 20+ handicaps) out of your recliners, drive up to the La Reina bldg. at Spanish Springs, go to GMS on the 2nd floor and turn in your applications to Todd Basso; I'm sure your ideas won't even get a second sniff.

Wow! I knew when I saw the email regarding this, there would be crybabies and whiners coming out of the woodwork ****ing and moaning about course conditions and offering their lack of knowledge of what should be done.

Give Rickey Craig a chance. Considering the lack of rains we've had, the privileged/entitled who refuse to "fix them, fill them and rake them" and those that drive between the traps and greens well within the 15' limit, I think he's done a great job in the short time he's been here.

In the short time i have been here all the courses south of Palmer have much better fairway conditions than in the past. There is more grass and I don't see the maintenance crew mowing the dirt any more. Seem to me that the new guy has made a positive difference so far.

Let's interject just a little logic into this discussion:

IF, in years gone by when the summer rainfall was inadequate they skipped over seeding, but over seeded in years with normal rainfall

AND IF we are 7 inches short this year

THEN the logical conclusion is that the decision not to over seed this year is based on the weather not cost savings

Also, a word about over seeding cost. According to the referenced article, over seeding with rye costs $700-900/acre. So how many acres of FAIRWAYS are there on championship courses?? Good question, so I'll attempt to estimate. I'll ignore the par 3's that have little fairway and just overestimate the remaining holes a bit. The par 4's vary considerably---the fairway on 8 of Egret starts about 200 yds. short of the green, but is wide about 100 yd. short. Number 6 of Seminole has a lot less fairway than average. Even though #1 of Destin is shorter than #1 of Egret, it has more fairway. I think if we estimate an average of 300 yds. of fairway at 50 yds. wide we should be in the ballpark. 300 x 50 = 15,000 sq. yds. = 135,000 sq. ft. = approx. 3 acres. This would be (ignoring the par 3's) 21 acres/9 holes x 34 championship 9's =714 acres. At $700/acre this is about 1/2 million, not the many millions cited above. Another way to look at that cost is that with over 1 million championship rounds/year it is less than 50 cents from each greens fee. There are other pros and cons of over seeding listed in this article. I think it best to allow the golf course professionals do their job and not second guess them or decide what their motivation might be.

OVERSEEDING BERMUDAGRASS FAIRWAYS: POSITIVES AND NEGATIVES

I have never played on painted courses. Are they any different than a course that is not painted and not overseeded? It just seems to me, one would have tighter lies on the fairways, and after a lot of play, maybe some bad lies due to divots and wear. My former golf course painted the greens instead of overseeding one year. Didn't play it, so don't know the effect.

2 threads on this topic were merged together. Posts appear in chronological order.


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Overseeding
 

Have played many courses who don't oversees in the winter such as "The Landings" in Georgia and except for the brown color of the grass are in much better condition than any of our courses here in "The Villages" I'll take a nice lie on the fairway anyday compared with something that looks green. I'm confident that this young man has much more experience in improving our courses than 99.9% of us.

Pretty common maintenance plan for Florida golf courses.

By the way, it's not paint. It's more like a food coloring.

There's noting wrong with playing off of dormant Bermuda. In fact a lot of good players prefer it. Plant pigment is added to make it look nice because most golfers think that green is good.

I'm fine giving the new guy a chance. Mallory has been good recently.

After being a bit embarrassed when bringing guests last March and April why not try something new. Many courses use this approach.

One thing to watch... Combine the fact that Bermuda will remain dormant until May with the large amount of traffic the courses get, I ponder what the fairways will look like with sand filled divots and wear.

Maybe our group will have a local rule to play sand filled divots as GUR or maybe it will not be an issue at all :D

I will save my comments until February, March and April

I was just about to start a thread and ask why this thread closed (at my own peril) . I went to get the link to the thread and find it was re-opened.

Thank you.

I to questioned the closing of the thread, not being familiar with how to find threads moved to a new location. Healthy discussion. Thank you.

It made no sense that the thread was closed.

Sorry, thread was closed by mistake. Now open again.

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