Havana CC, a new standard in bad greens
 

Played Kilimanjaro to Kenya today. The practice green was an atrocious mess, but the real greens were even worse.

The first green on Kilimanjaro actually had so much sand on it you could see the tire tread marks from the utility cart in it.

I'm generally an apologist for the conditions of the courses here in TV, based upon what I think is a decent product for the price, but this course shouldn't even be open. Or, at the very least, if they are going to charge greens fees to play it, it should be discounted 50%.

I would bet money that they don't have Lifestyle Visit guests scheduled on it. No way the developer would want any prospective buyers seeing that mess.

It continues to perplex me beyond imagination how that place always has terrible greens, in the same climate and growing conditions that other courses in TV have. They are always the worst of the Championship courses, but the current condition is off the charts bad.

Last time I played it, putts left a "rooster tail" rolling through the sand.

Oh yeah! Plenty of those today. Interrupted only by the balls going airborne every 4 inches.

I also give the courses the benefit of the doubt. As a snowbird, I am happy to be golfing while my friends at home are shoveling.

However, I played Evans Prairie today and the greens were really bad. Embarrassing. I was going to invite friends from home down for a golf weekend, I won’t I am embarrassed.

Although not in terrible shape like the greens at Havana or Evans, I was nonetheless disappointed with the greens at Riley (Palmer) earlier this week. That particular 9 was completely renovated in 2022 and has practically brand new greens that were not in good shape at all, especially when compared to courses like Tierra, Glenview, Lopez, and even Hacienda. It’s both sad and troubling how newly renovated greens can go to crap in less than a year and a half, especially at the Villages signature course. It’s hard to place the blame on anything other than incompetence.

Laurel is just as bad and it's only 4 months old.

This Winter has been tough on the greens not upgraded to tif-eagle. Greens in the Deep South are bermuda. Bermuda does not do well during a cold winter. That being said we have some course superintendents doing a poor job, or have a crummy staff, when maintaining the championship greens. (Maybe both).
That being said kudos to Bonifay and Hacienda. Played both very recently and The greens, not tif, and are in very good condition .

We played it yesterday went in complained to those in charge and will not put it on our list

So I guess it doesn't matter much, which variety is on the Greens, huh?

& TifEagle is Bermuda

It's all the fault of El Niño.

Says V-N.

What was their response to your complaint?

I've complained in the past to John Rohan, and he admitted that they contract out to some companies who it turns out don't do a good job, but it sounded like they have to wait until the end of the contract with the bad company before they can ditch them and get somebody different. This was years ago, but it may still be the situation. I would guess the person who inquired got a canned response like "thank you for bringing this to our attention, we will look into it". And the wheels will turn slowly, and maybe by this summer the greens will recover.

They've been doing this for 20+ years. You'd think they'd have figured something out by now. My understanding is that all of the Championship courses are owned by the same entity. There are , perhaps, a number of different corporate entities involved, but eventually, they all come back to the developer family. If I owned 14 courses, and some were in very nice condition, and some were dreadful, I would make sure everyone knew what the guys running the good courses know.

It makes no sense that all of these courses located within a few miles of each other can have such different conditions. I've read that it may be an issue with water restrictions. Maybe so. If so. If so, they should use more on the greens and less on the fairways. The fairways may then be bad, but at least the greens would be good. If you can't grow good fairways you can play preferred lies. But if the greens are just bumpy rutted sand, you got nothing.

They've been doing this for 20+ years. You'd think they'd have figured something out by now. My understanding is that all of the Championship courses are owned by the same entity. There are , perhaps, a number of different corporate entities involved, but eventually, they all come back to the developer family. If I owned 14 courses, and some were in very nice condition, and some were dreadful, I would make sure everyone knew what the guys running the good courses know.

It makes no sense that all of these courses located within a few miles of each other can have such different conditions. I've read that it may be an issue with water restrictions. Maybe so. If so. If so, they should use more on the greens and less on the fairways. The fairways may then be bad, but at least the greens would be good. If you can't grow good fairways you can play preferred lies. But if the greens are just bumpy rutted sand, you got nothing.

I'm thinking Rohan would be in charge of the Executive conditions, since they are part of the amenities. I'd be surprised if he had anything to do with the maintenance of the Championship courses.

Don’t believe that. Any contract has an escape clause, especially for non performance.

Whomever is maintaining hte courses is not performing according to the performance levels of the contract. And one of the largest private companies in the world (THE DEVELOPER) has contracts that are favorable to them, not the contractor.

I am baffled why there aren’t 4 or 5 professional agronomists that work for the Developer that oversee a few championships.