Deplorable conditions
 

Golfed yesterday at Pimlico. Every green was a disaster. Course should not be open. I am posting a picture of one of the greens that was not as bad as the others! I am also sending the pic to mitch.leininger@districtgov.org. We should all let Mitch know that we are not satisfied with his performance!

Pretty...bad....

Pretty typical of The Villages when it comes to golf. Even the so called championship courses are in terrible shape.

What's so troubling to me is that The Villages does so many things so well but can't seem to maintain golf courses.

Course conditions
 

I don't blame course superintendents for poor conditions if they've been given a budget appropriate for the maintenance and turf health. I suspect that is the case here, considering the executive courses are operated by the Community Development District and the Sumter Landing Community Development District, which hold the purse strings pretty tight.

xxx

Jesus, over 650 golf holes and not satisfied with few? Maybe some more time on practicing might over come the obstacles?

A few? You must not play golf.

These courses down here like playing at Augusta compared cow pastures I played in okieland.

How much did they charge to play? ( free )

That doesn’t mean that the conditions should be bad because they were worse where you came from

I played Mira Mesa late on Sunday. Greens were so bad I just hit into them and walked up and picked up my ball. I may have been spoiled being I was a member at a private club in upstate NY, but I came here lured by the fact I could play championship AND executive type courses. I’m not trying to be offensive, BUT I really do think if you’re going to use golf as part of the LURE to live here, you should keep the courses in at least “decent” shape. Just sad as I was trying to get my life long friend and partner to move here so we could again play together. Again, just sad.

Golf
 

I agree and had written to Mr. Leininger last week. He replied that he wasn’t getting complaints, so if people are unhappy he needs to know. Yankee Clipper was in good shape so it can be done.

Course Conditions
 

I agree. Churchill and Belmont aren't much better either.

$160 a month?

Ummmm..... not exactly. The price of golf is included in our amenity fee.

Did you also notice that they are making the greens about 5 feet smaller

Right! No overseed? No play

This is the same story every year. The Villages golf courses in winter offer horrible playing conditions both on the executive as well as the championship courses at ridiculously high prices. Twelve years ago when I first came to The Villages, in the fall they would over seed the greens and the fairways and for two weeks there were no carts allowed on the fairways only in the rough. As the Bermuda became dormant the rye would come in and the playing conditions were pretty good. After a few years they stopped this practice saying the rye interfered with the Bermuda coming back in the spring. Not true, it was all about money as this is a practice at many other courses in Florida. Add to this the fact they never roll the greens and keep them on the slow side in order to help pace of play. This is what happens when you have a captive audience. They can do just about anything they want to and there is nothing you can do about it except play outside the bubble.

Maybe you should be grateful that you can play golf this time of the year. 90% of the states are playing hockey on the courses. Including Texas and Louisiana.

Those photos could have come from some of the greens at Mallory over this weekend.

So it's up to us to complain? What a copout. Get off your duff and look.

You know life is good when the conditions of a golf course is what you choose to complain about.

Palm Springs, Palm Desert, Desert Hot Springs has a total population of about 125,000. Total golf courses - about 100. Conditions generally excellent.

And what does it cost on those California courses?

Some courses are in bad shape but to call the deplorable is a bit overboard. Try golfing at some other pay courses and you’ll be thanking the villages for keeping the courses in great shape. We have become so spoiled. No other developer can come close to what you get for free. Just waiting for the bombardment from those who say it’s not free.

Do you have any idea how many lazy people drive onto and around the greens? We see it every day. Out of 4 golf carts there will be 3 of them driving up to the green instead of staying on golf cart paths. This is snowbird season and it happens every single year.

Define "appropriate." I do not think it means what the purse holders think it means.

So Mitch Leininger said that he is not getting any complaints??? Here is his email again, so everyone can let him know that we are not satisfied with his performance. If you do not tell him about your experience, nothing will change. Take a picture and post it. He must be held accountable or nothing will change. His email again is mitch.leininger@districtgov.org

Played Lopez today, VERY good conditions, playing Cane tomorrow, also VERY good conditions!

I walk when ever I can. However, I would not mind paying ($5) if the budget is the problem. Since I am hearing the same poor conditions on some of the championship courses, budgets do not seem to be the problem. Back in the Phoenix area, I never played courses that were in this poor of condition.

The poor conditions are great to help me excuse my poor golf skills !!

Flood him with emails about your concerns. Good luck.

Some of the conditions deserve to be called deplorable. In general course conditions in The Villages range from mediocre to deplorable. I have played other courses outside The Villages and they range from good to deplorable. None of these courses, except for the new ones would be considered in great shape, and they are not "FREE". The cost of golf is included in our amenity fee. It's possible that they don't have enough money to properly maintain the executive courses because of that but I've seen some practices that make no sense whatsoever.

What's surprising and irritating to me is that everything else in The Villages is first rate. The rec centers, pools, tennis courts parks, flowers and everything else are extremely well done. For a community that places so much emphasis on golf you'd think that they would make more of an effort to maintain these "free" golf courses a bit better.

I wrote to Mr Leininger yesterday regarding the horrific conditions at Belmont. This morning a received a response from him outlining their plans to 8mprove conditions. I hope he can pull it off

mitch has replied. the courses should acknowledge the poor green conditions, before we pay for them. how? cut the price for playing, that would be a good acknowledgement of the crappy greens. and when picking what courses to play, don't put in the ones you know are not good. if you get shut out, then so be it, unless you want to get aggravated about it. harbor hills is waiting for our money. they should be embarrassed to charge full price for the conditions they are in, particularly Havana. Belmont should be closed until further notice. what a disgrace the greens are....
it's one thing that they are bad, but they won't acknowledge that fact

Not free. Amenity fee...

what is very unfair, is that the only way of knowing the conditions of the courses, is from these comments or by playing the course. the operators of these courses should tell us the conditions of these course before signing up......that is totally disrespectful to us.
and the fact that they don't acknowledge the conditions is a slap....shame on us!!!!!!!!!!!

Have you seen Havana CC conditions lately??? My large group played there last Friday. By FAR, the worst condition I have seen any course in a very long time. Green unbelievably bad shape.

I can't say for sure but that is what I suspect is the problem. Rather than handing our maintenance to contractors, I'd prefer to se it done in house. Not only do contracts often go to the lowest bidder, but those contractors have to make a profit. By doing it in house the money that makes up the contractor's profit could be put to use on maintaining the golf courses. Also in house people are usually more concerned about the results.

I also don't understand this redoing of the greens every couple of years. If greens are properly maintained they should have to be resodded. Some of the best greens I've ever played have been some of the oldest. The Country Club in Brookline, MA has possibly the best greens that I've ever putted on and they haven't been redone in a hundred years.

I totally disagree.
We played Pimlico on Feb 6th.
The course and greens were very playable.

If you want country club course conditions, join one.