Many green keepers need to be replaced
 

These photos are of the Southern Star Executive course on Saturday. The plugging and sanding job was horrible. Cane Garden CC should be ashamed of sending workers to do this which it seems like did not give a damn about their job!

The greens on Bonifay Destin was not much better. They were like putting on a wash board.

At this point it is like some financial person is running these courses just like they did when they had to close Palmer down for several months.

The only time they roll these greens is when they are playing tournaments on them.

This problem is not due to the amount of play on these greens but just a cheap operation that will not spend the needed money to make us Villagers proud about our greens and courses!

It is now time for us golfers to go play the sorounding courses to play on greens that are acceptable!

Go see Baseline Golf if you want to see an outstanding maintenance crew!

Due to some sort of contractual arrangement with the city or county, Baseline has an unlimited free supply of water.

I've played it and it's very pretty, but IMHO they don't cut the grass short enough. It's easier to maintain grass at lawn height than golf course height.

I'm not making excuses for The Villages. As far as I'm concerned, the courses I've played here, (mostly executives) are in mediocre to deplorable condition. Now we have been having a drought, but I still don't understand why these courses can't be kept decently other than budgetary limitations. I have no idea what the income levels are and I don't pretend to know how much of the money from the amenity fees go toward the golf courses.

I will say that I've worked at several Florida golf courses and I've played tournaments on many. I don't recall any golf courses outside The Villages being closed down for the summer because of excess play in the winter.

While I don't play executives, just driving by a lot of them...they look horrible.

Even most of the the championship courses...leave a lot to be desired right now.

I will say though, that Palmer's greens are in excellent shape and am hoping the rest of the championship courses...will soon emulate them. :thumbup:

I wonder if any of those course have the play that our courses get.
Further every year for the past 15 just about this time folks start complaining(Doc not directed at you), same whining every year. Maybe its because we come out of the dry season around the 24th of May??

I think part of the problem is that they wait till the snowbirds to leave before they do things or shut down courses. Other places that have lots of play would have or make temporary greens but that is never done here.

You make an excellent point about the temporary greens.

Even just making a few at a time per course, to allow the real green time to recuperate...seems to make a lot of sense to me. :thumbup:

I wonder why 'they' don't do that? :confused:

I play mainly the executive courses and I'm not a greenskeeper or pretend to be. With the heavy season use and now snowbirds have mostly left combined with continued shortage of rain the courses are gonna look like s#!&&. I could hear the bitching now if lots of courses were closed during the heaviest part of the sseason. I think the greenskeepers are during their best with what they may have or not have at their disposal whether it be manpower, equipment, or supervision.

I seem to recall when we first moved down to TV that the execs would be closed one day a week for maintenance and recovery. Now it seems that several courses are closed for extended periods of time while the others get overplayed.

I think is was Doc that said it, but the fact we are in a severe drought has not helped the courses. I agree! With normal rain we would have a lot better conditions.

Still, everyone can do their part in keeping the courses in the best possible condition by sanding divots on the tees and FIXING YOUR BALL MARKS on the greens!

Palmer always looks good, gee I wonder how that is possible?? Don't think it is because it doesn't get played a lot because it does- maybe because it is sort of a show piece for all the visitors and we want to give them a good impression??? My point is that they keep Palmer nice because they can and they want to! They could but they don't on the execs- it is as simple as that.

Temporary Greens - Hawkes Bay had a temporary green for awhile.

Supposedly watering your grass in the heat of the day can damage the grass and most of the water evaporates thus you are wasting water, right? I always wondered why the villages commercial properties and golf courses run their irrigation during the middle of the day?

Normally, I might agree with you, but the executive courses that I've played have been in pretty bad shape for the year that I've been back playing.

Don, there are different reasons for watering. While I can't speak to this situation specifically sometimes, a light watering, what is known as syringing is done during the hottest part of the day to cool the plant down.

Also, aerifying and topdressing are now being done and that requires the greens to be watering in order to get the sand down below the surface.

The courses that I worked at had starting times from 7:00 am until 3:00 pm and were full every day from November through April. It was difficult for the staff professionals to get out to play.


Almost every course in Florida gets very heavy play during the winter season.

Oh, Ok. That makes sense. I always wondered how coating the greens with sand helps the turf until it was explained to me last week. I hope we really get some rain soon. We really , really need rain.

I agree. They can provide better conditions if they want. We need to start complaining to the administration that manages our exec courses. As far as championship, I go elsewhere until the conditions improve, their loss of my revenue.

The Palmer course was closed for a few weeks last April because of poor conditions.

You are such a reasonable man. You always manage to get directly to the bottom line.

Excellent post yet again.

Actually, it's a lot more complicated than that. You can't MAKE it rain. You can't MAKE the grass grow the way you would like. And you can't make every worker do a great job, some of them border on brain dead. All you CAN do is follow a time proven program of green maintenance and water within existing restrictions and cost. But you CAN also make golfers respect the course, drive where they should, fill divots and repair ball marks, and rake the traps. While the ambassadors are not the Gestapo, they should have enhanced authority to deal with those who disrespect the course and make the experience less enjoyable for everyone

The ball marks on the executive course greens drives me "nuts". I really don't mind fixing a couple of other ball marks (I know we have handicap playing golfers) but the need to fix 4 or 5 really is unacceptable behavior for golfers. Education is the answer but as they say "hard to teach ol' dogs new tricks".

I played Sarasota and Volusia this past weekend and I would say that the greens were in great shape. However Volusias fairways had been aerated recently. No problem however.

John

When you hire the lowest bidder what do you expect

That's my biggest complaint. In fact the maintenance of the golf courses should not be contracted out. Having our own people on board would give us much better results.

You can get a tee time any day of he week Dec-May.
That's not a lot of play....................

I agree it would, but it would also be a tremendous investment in specialized equipment either thru purchase or lease.

If it were up to me it would be a requirement to attend a 1/2 day seminar on basic rules and etiquette before being allowed to play on our golf courses.

Fixing ballmarks is a simple thing to do if you bend over. I always fix my ball.mark and those of others who can't be bothered. I do the same thing in the sand traps. I doubt a class would help.much but maybe if more of us would say something to others maybe we could shame some into doing what is right and polite. Ball marks and divots in teeboxes. drive me nuts. If you are good enough to use the execs as practice for your short game and not use a tee,then you are good enough to use a little sand to repair your divot.

Agree. Here's a subtle solution for sand traps----about 2 months ago I played with guy whom I noticed did not rake the fairway bunker that he marched thru on the first hole. (I didn't know him, he was in the other cart and on the opposite side of the fairway) So I patiently waited until he hit another trap (didn't take long, it was the second hole) and when he exited the trap I was right there and handed him a rake without saying a word. He thanked me and raked it, and every other trap after that

Amen to this! I can't tell you how many times in the last month I've watched people take large divots out of tee boxes and have actually seen them traipse through sand traps - they don't even give a thought to repairing their mess, or raking the trap. I try to repair MORE than just my divot or ball mark, each time - I figure it's a 2:10 ratio of people who do/people who don't (the 80/20 rule). And - I figure these are the folks who complain the loudest about the condition of the courses! So it goes in TV...I guess you just gotta roll with it!

He's probably the same jerk I was hooked up with a few months back. :oops:

Although I let him slide on the first trap he was in because it was only a few footprints and figured he was ticked off and just forgot, the next time he walked to the middle and back...then got in my cart.

I looked at him and said, "aren't you going to rake the trap?"

He said, "the ambassador will get it." :22yikes:

I then lit into him and said that I play by the rules and when my ball ends up in a footprint in a bunker, I always wished I could find the jerk who didn't think he needed to be bothered raking traps...thereby making my shot that much harder. :swear:

Although he got out, raked it and all of the other ones the rest of the round...it was pretty quiet in the cart after that. :ohdear:

Could probably hear a pin drop. "The ambassador will get it"----typical

I have a fairway trap practically in my backyard. One day some bozo made a 30 yard march thru it from front to back----entering in the front and exiting the back, hitting 4 or 5 shots along the way, then got in his cart. So, while he was still within 15 yards or so of the trap, I got up out of my comfy chair, exited my lanai, and went to that trap and started raking. No acknowledgement, no eye contact----he must have thought I was "the ambassador"

BTW, this looks like one we can put in the agree column:a20::a20::beer3::beer3:

Good on you. :thumbup:



Don't you just hate it when that happens? :swear:



:D

Yep, ruins my whole day:a20::a20::a20:

Interesting thread, about the same every year, misinformation and or lack of information;

Palmer was closed for several weeks last year, I think close to 2 months. Due to poor conditions caused by problems with the watering system.

The executive courses are are only staffed by the Championship courses, example Cane. And by staffing I mean the ambassadors and Starters. The courses are controlled by the district, and the maintenance is NOT the responsibility of the Championship courses.

The maintenance companies, for both the championship and executive courses are sub contracted, just like a lot of the work in the villages. Just like most of the villages home owners, we have someone else do lawn work.

The courses are under heavy restrictions on water use, they do NOT have unlimited water. That is why they did not over seed the fairways this past year.

Folks, we have had NO rain!

If any golfer (handicapped and non-handicapped) can bend over and stick a tee in the ground, they can also bend over AND FIX BALL MARKS, FILL DIVOTS AND RAKE FOOTPRINTS; if you can't do those three things, quit golf and play shuffleboard, bocce ball, bowling or something; quit making our courses look like crap and start fixing your damage.

:boom: Finally, someone in the know that speaks common sense about maintenance on the courses. It'll start raining pretty soon and every wannabe greens keeper will stop their bitching and whining.