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.